Does anyone have any ideas what triggered off Helgas trasnformation into the uber-bitch she becomes at the end of the series. If there is a more irritating fictional character I have yet to find it.
The worst fate for a satirist is to be taken at face value.
she already was a ueber-bitch at the beginning of the series. If you look at
the real women RAF terrorist in the 60's-70's ( Meinhof/Ennslin) they look a lot like Helga.
Not only in manner but also physically.
I have the original poster with all the pictures on it of the wanted RAF terrorist
(one is also used in the series with the picture of Helga added to it) and
the women on it look al lot like Helga in appearance.
I think the tranformation started already in the Fuchsbau. I think she just wanted
to belong to a group (just like almost everybody else there). People who
don't naturally belong to a group but still want to join it are often
the most extreme just to prove to the rest that they will fit in.
As she said herself in the series she finally found a group (the RAF)
who needed her, the other groups didn't . She was more than willing
to show that she fits so she was more extreme than the rest.
Reminds me of the nazi Richard Heydrich (a real bastard) during the war. Was
himself of Jewish origing but was more extreme than the other Nazi's just to prove
that he fitted in.
The basic problem with Helga is that nobody really loved her that
she also loved. Stefan is the only one who found her interesting but
she didn't love him. At the end she just gave up looking for love and
that made her the ueber-bitch.
Throughout the western world at that time, much of the politics was very confrontational. Lots of us deliberately turned ourselves into pains in the rear, in a deluded attempt to snare the phantom of liberty. A few came to apply the logic of confrontation more rigorously than the rest and declared war on the State. During a very troubled decade, it was a dislocation of logic that led to the terrorism, not an absence of cuddles.
share"she already was a ueber-bitch at the beginning of the series."
She wasn't. She was mischievous in a rather nice sort of way, fun-loving and talented (as all, or most of them, were). One of the most magical moments in the series - in the incredibly beautiful 3rd episode - is her sitting alone (then with Hermann) on the sofa and writing down "random" words that she overhears: how the word CAT "jumps" all over the room in a seemingly random fashion, as if it were mysteriously contagious, transforming itself in all sorts of cat-related statements..:)
As for your last statement... I think you're absolutely right.
She longed for love, and she loved Hermann. (And she demonstrated it in the most poignant way.)
But in the end, she chose a group that "needed" her - or so she felt - more than her friends.
BTW and totally off-topic: I can't get over the fact that there are merely two or three threads about what was probably one of the greatest achievements of TV and cinema EVER...
BTW and totally off-topic: I can't get over the fact that there are merely two or three threads about what was probably one of the greatest achievements of TV and cinema EVER...
Glad to see at least *some* discussion warming up...:)
And it's not surprising that Helga would be the one to provoke it.
She was such a fascinating character (to me, at least). An enigma. A total bitch sometimes - remember "Christmas 1963", with Stefan, in the cabin? - and then sometimes so touching in her fragility. (Remember the time when Hermann came to visit her for her birthday?)
Even after she had become a terrorist-to-be, there were clear glimpses of her core wish for the world to just be good. (Remember that tender smile when she looks at her little son? Though it's not necessarily a relevant scene, it does say something about her.)
There are VOLUMES to be said about all and each one of the characters.
It's an endlessly fascinating series.
(Did I mention that I really like it? ;))
Can't believe I'm bumping a three year old thread, but here it goes.
What Helga symbolises is the obstinate youth and their clash with authorities. All young people are rebels in a manner, rebels without a cause. They rebel against parents, teachers, authorities, old ways, the society as a whole, and in the case of Zweite Heimat, they fight the old cadre of nazis still ruling the government. Because that is how they establish themselves, that's how they carve out a bit of society that is wholly their own, the bit that's "them". That is how they define themselves and creates a personality. Most people clashes, gets bruised, wisen up, and becomes authorities themselves with age and experience.
Some people childishly never gives up. And Helga clashes, gets bruised, and fights back. She's going to war. The problem is, nobody can fight society at large and win. The society will always have more firepower, in laws, courts, police forces. Not to forget, most of the times, they have the majority of the people behind them. It's a game that you can't win. Not without a cause. Nelson Mandela could stand thirty years of imprisonment. But he had a cause, and he fought for society, not against it. But Helga ain't no Nelson Mandela, and her cause ain't freedom for an entire oppressed people, no matter what she thought.
In that game, some people gets caught up in the fight, and forgets what they are fighting for. Or rather, they see an enemy where there ain't none. They confront just for the sake of having someone or something to clash against, and in confronting the entire society they find the largest target available. Stefan wisens up, cuts his hair so to speak, gets a job, conforms to society. Helga goes the opposite way, to her ultimate doom. Her fate is also the fate of all the people that fights lost causes, at some point, there simply is no turning back. The cause becomes an "us against the world". In the end, she goes her own way, fights for her beliefs, no matter how deluded they are. Like her fellow comrades in the Baader Meinhof, the likes of her all ended up dead or in prison.
"World War II was only 20 years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government — they were the same people who’d been in charge under Nazism. The chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, was a Nazi. People started discussing this only in the 60's. We were the first generation since the war, and we were asking our parents questions. Because of the Nazi past, everything bad was compared to the Third Reich. If you heard about police brutality, that was said to be just like the SS. The moment you see your own country as the continuation of a fascist state, you give yourself permission to do almost anything against it. You see your action as the resistance that your parents did not put up."
— Stefan Aust, author of Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
"In that game, some people gets caught up in the fight, and forgets what they are fighting for. "
That's exactly it. This is what Communism has done to many people.
Communism has nothing to do with it. There are equally deluded people in the Ku Klux Klan.
shareOf course Communism has something to do with it, what are you talking about? Helga is a Communist? A lot of Communists have gone that way. It has an international and intellectual appeal that the KKK doesn't.
shareIt isn't a phenomena only exclusively known to communism. It is a phenomena common for all dogmatic fundamentlist approaches, whether it's about politics or religion. Moral majority anti-abortionist right wingers, George W Bush and his war on terror, the western world vs the Islamic/arabic, The Israeli view on the Palestines, and for all that matter, communism. Any person getting all tangled up in any of those situations, is in the risk of ending up like a Helga, on any side. And if you can't see that or understand that, I won't discuss any more politics, because it's such a fundamental basic premise.
"It isn't a phenomena only exclusively known to communism."
Helga was a COMMUNIST. I was talking about her.
"t is a phenomena common for all dogmatic fundamentlist approaches, whether it's about politics or religion."
The KKK and GWB have a limited appeal within their own nations (and not outside them), and do not carry intellectual weight.
On the other hand, Communism has entrapped thousands of young intellectuals from all over the world with the maxim, "the end justifies the means". Helga is an example of the phenomenon.
I agree that it's not a typically -ist (ANY -ist) thing.
Helga's problem - or "problem", whatever one's take may be - is that she is an idealist.
I am using the term in its original meaning - a meaning that is particularly relevant to the history of German philosophy and social ideas (some go as far as to say it's even in the German "national character").
An idealist is a person who wants the larger reality of the world to conform to his or her idea of how it should be.
And, as is true of most human impulses, it is basically a noble impulse. But of course, the "world" fights back and runs over ideas, no matter how nice they may look on paper. And that's just it: all too many of such idealists do not take actual people - or, more precisely, the Other - into account. Their ideal worlds are basically populated by replicas of themselves.
I wouldn't disagree with that, but I feel a lot of ideals are lost in the search for the Ideal.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!