This film is based on letters and manuscripts of F. Engels from 1838 to 1842.
To spite the Philistines,* I've grown myself a moustache. Sending you my drawing. *(who shaved their faces)
THE YOUNG FRIEDRICH ENGELS a portrait in letters* *(all from Marx-Engels col. works, V.2)
Soyuzmultfilm, Moscow & DEFA animation, Dresden
written by Klaus & Katja Georgi, script editors R. Tomas, Arkadiy Snesarev consultants H. Ulrich, H. Skambraks, N. Belousova
art directors Vadim Kurchevskiy, Vladimir Naumov, music V. Pich, narrator M. Wagner / V. Tatarskiy
animators Mariya Motruk, T. Kazantseva, Yuriy Klepatskiy, M. Henke
montage A. Uebe, sound H. Philipp camera W. Baensch, M. Henke exec. producers Iosif Boyarskiy, G. Hammer
directors Katja Georgi, Fyodor Hitruk, Klaus Georgi, Vadim Kurchevskiy
In the summer of 1838 Friedrich Engels, son of a rich manufacturer, left Barmen (Wuppertal) to move to Bremen.
Per his father's wishes,
he was to receive a mercantile education in the trading house of consul Leupold.
Here, in Bremen, a correspondence of the 17-year-old Engels with his sister Maria and his school friends begins.
Cari amici (dear friends)! I miss you so much. Now I must make do with letters -
it's terrible. Here's a drawing showing me waiting for your letters.
Postman: Consul, sir, a letter for you!
Consul Leupold: A-ha, good.
Engels: None for me? - No!
500 boxes of sugar sold, thus, 250 000 pounds sold... a pound of coffee costs well... nine-and-a-half... which sums up to...
four silver groat, eight pfennig...
Dear Maria, in front of my desk there is a big window through which I can see almost the whole town. I'll draw you the church, to start.
Here in Bremen the merchants' houses are all built in a very remarkable way. The roofs are very close together.
This is a scene from the Weser riverside. One can observe the unloading of cargo here.
Interesting fellows, aren't they?
But old Roland, emblem of the city, is the best.
I've just returned from the daily parade on the great square.
The great Hanseatic army make their exercise there. About forty soldiers.
The parade lasts two whole minutes.
The soldiers come out, form lines, prepare their weapons and leave again.
A deserting soldier was caught yesterday. Now he will receive sixty lashes. Soldiers are always beaten with sticks here.
Oh, the boss is here! I'm going back to work... Five sacks of coffee, 17 sacks of sugar...
A broker called Jan Krusbecker has just arrived. I'll draw him for you.
There he is. He has eyes like rockets and an always half-melancholy, half-smiling air.
This is an old wine merchant tasting sour wine.
Next is the sales agent providing him this sourness.
This guy, dead drunk, yells every morning: "Imashijen, imashijen!", which means "I am a citizen of Bremen".
Engels to his friends Wilhelm and Friedrich Graeber:
Carissimi! In vostras epistolas haec vobis sit respondentia. (My dearest ones, let this be an answer to your letters.)
Enough. No more Latin. Anyway, the best thing here is that there are a lot of newspapers.
Dutch, English, French. Seizing the opportunity, I learned Turkish and Japanese.
Thus I know 25 languages and am going to write a multilingual letter to you soon.
I'll take now the English language
No, better my beloved Italian... Dolce Suave come el Saphiro
Or Spanish.... Langue come viento en los Arbores
Or Dutch.... Gelijk den damp uut einer pijp tobac sehr genüklich (genoeglijk)
A new newspaper, "The Bremer Stattbote", just came out.
It has a walking fellow on the first page. He looks like this.
Any nonsense is being printed in this Stattbote
I send pathetic lyrics there just for fun, but they earnestly publish them.
Going on. First I used black ink, now there will be red.
So, the most important thing... my Spanish ballad failed.
I have more and more doubts about my poetry and its potential each day.
Nevertheless, I will continue writing.
I can't sleep at night, ridden by the ideas of this century.
By the way, I've read various liberal publications here.
They especially vilify that lousy goat Ernst August, King of Hannover.
There are plenty of ghosts in my side-street. Luminous ghosts attack me from all sides.
What should I, a poor man, do? Become loyal? To hell with that!
Hold on to Saxon moderateness? Dreadful! If only I could sort it out!
Engels to theology student Friedrich Gerber:
You say lack of doubt is freedom of spirit?
No! It is the greatest spiritual slavery. Are we really to blindly believe the Bible
merely because our parents tell us to? I can only regard as divine a teaching
that can stand the test of reason.
When it's a matter of defending the freedom to reason, I protest against all compulsion. Man was born free. He is free.
In March 1839, in Telegraph fur Deutchland
the "Letter from Wuppertal" was published. Its author was the 18-year-old Friedrich Engels.
Terrible poverty prevails among the lower classes.
In Elberfeld alone,
out of 2,500 children of school age
1,200 are deprived of education and grow up in the factories.
The wealthy manufacturers have a flexible conscience.
Causing the death of 1 child more or 1 less
does not doom a pietist's soul to hell.
Oh, it seems that the article has caused a stir!
Here's the scene in Barmen. What it means you can deduce for yourself.
Your Friedrich Engels
I add several strokes of my quill showing its facility and speed.
Dear Maria, there have been substantial improvements in our office.
You see a hammock which is occupied by my person smoking a cigar.
By the way, remind mother to send me the
works of Goethe as soon as possible. I really need them.
It is so hot today that, despite a stuffy nose, I want to take a swim in the Weser.
Recently I swam across the Weser four times in a row.
Hardly anybody in Bremen could compete with me.
Besides, every Sunday I occupy myself with horseback riding.
Oh damn! His ancientness, mister Leupold, has arrived.
As Shakespeare says, it's time to get into a serious tone...
Well, let's get back to the fine arts.
I want to draw you the haircuts young people here have.
These guys look like calves, I'll be damned!
Here's my neighbour, Georg,
in English, George. The first dandy in Hamburg.
Combine both drawings...
Add a skinny torso and long legs...
And you will get a full picture of this fool.
He gets new nonsense in his head every day.
He's simply inexhaustible in distasteful and boring ideas.
Awake is this idler at least 20 hours, during which he wears me out me with his chattering.
Genius of latest fashion. Fool of latest fashion.
He who finds just letters and words in heaps of writings is not a wise man.
The meanings will remain foggy to him, even with his head full of phrases.
Embody your aspirations yourselves, look for new ways yourselves.
Following old steps won't lead to a final victory.
When I see the Prussian coat of arms, the spirit of freedom overtakes me.
The Prussian king is Friedrich Wilhelm the Just. I hate the bastard!
There is no time period more full of royal crimes than the years from 1816 to 1830.
Almost every one of the kings of that era deserves the capital punishment.
Devoted Charles X...
Ferdinand VII of Spain.
Franz of Austria.
The patricide Aleksandr and his equally guilty brother Nikolay.
I expect good from a monarch only when his head is spat upon by common folk
and his windows are shattered by revolution!
Dear Maria, my musical lessons go on.
I've taken up composing a new chorale.
There's no accompaniment yet. It's possible I will rewrite it here and there.
This winter I want to take up dance lessons in order to get some gracefulness into my legs.
Also, we have lessons in fencing now. You can see me handling the sabre here.
I fence passionately now and soon will cut you all in half.
Recently the tenth anniversary of the July Revolution was celebrated.
The most beautiful representation of the people's will.
A storm is approaching us from France.
Its echo rises in the depths of our nation.
Thrones are shaking and the kingly scepter is trembling.
Ernst August, I bravely gaze at you with an angry look.
You are just as calm on your throne as me in my boat in the eye of a storm.
I've grown myself a moustache and
amuse myself with the gentry who are stunned by my impertinence
to show up in good society looking like that.
Yet, the ladies are exalted.
Some fools express themselves in excessive eloquence.
These gentlemen are incapable of developing their thoughts logically even for three seconds.
It's enough to ask them some innocent questions and they splendidly contradict themselves.
By the way, I too can preach, even without preparations.
Oh you, political patsies! Oh you, heroes!
The tide of time will drag you into politics all the same and drown your kingdom of ideals.
You will be standing like rams in a gateway then...
Dear Greber, I confess I don't have the desire for continuing our devout disputes.
We have ceased to understand each other.
I am now on a direct route to Hegelism.
I study Hegel's philosophical history. Magnificent work!
His titanic ideas take me by terrible force. I...
Damn...as soon as I sit down by the book, office work crumbles over...
"Your most respectful and obedient", these were
the last words I wrote in a business letter, as I finished my work at the office today
Thank God that I too am leaving this dreary hole where there is nothing to do
but fence, eat, drink, sleep and drudge. Your Friedrich.
In autumn of 1841 Engels departs to Berlin to serve in the army.
At the same time he attends Berlin University as an un-enrolled student.
Dear Maria, do you see how picturesquely, but strictly against regulations, I have put on my uniform coat?
My uniform is most impressive and I'm worthy to be put on show.
Incidentally I have now been a bombardier for 4 weeks in the royal infantry-artillery company.
I was on parade drill this morning from 8 till half past 11.
During this I got a very stiff telling-off from the Lieutenant-Colonel
I also have to suffer being growled and shouted at by my Captain
but think to myself: who cares, let him growl.
Anyway, it's time for me to go. Your brother Friedrich. Berlin, Doroteinstrasse 56.
From an 1842 article by Engels, "Diary of a guest Student":
Berlin University enjoys the reputation of standing in
the mainstream of contemporary thought and of having made itself this arena of intellectual battles.
Dear Maria, This tender little flower will, I hope, compensate for the long time which I have kept you waiting.
Recently I shocked the poet Ruckert at University.
During his lecture I sat right in front of him
He looked at my shiny buttons for so long that he lost his train of thought.
Engels to his publisher Arnold Ruge:
Dear esteemed Doctor. Enclosed please find an article for the [Deutsche] Jahrbücher.
I have put the work on Dante aside for the time being.
Dear Maria!
You will certainly not have heard yet that Herr Liszt has been here. I'm sending you his portrait.
There are pictures of the great, charming, heavenly, genial, divine Liszt in every house here.
The Berlin ladies were so besotted by him,
that there was a fight for possession of a glove he had dropped.
Countess Schlippenbach poured the tea which the great Liszt had left in a cup into her Eau-de-Cologne bottle and is keeping it since like a holy relic.
The young ladies fought over him but he snubbed them frightfully,
and preferred to go and drink champagne with a couple of students.
Engels to Arnold Ruge:
You ask me why I didn't send you my article "Shelling and Revelation"?
Because I had in mind to put out an entire pamphlet against him.
"Schelling, the philosopher in Christ" is also from my pen.
Meantime, in Berlin University a stormy polemic, around Hegelian dialectics, takes place.
Its greatest opposer was the philosopher Schelling.
The 22 year old Engels sharply took a stand against Schelling with articles,
arousing great interest not only in Germany, but across its border too.
The letter to Arnold Ruge, continued:
Besides this, I am not a Doctor. and cannot ever become one.
I am only a merchant and a Royal Prussian artillerist
so kindly spare me that title. Yours sincerely, Friedrich Engels Oswald.
Dear Marie! Today I can tell you the glad news
that we are probably not going on parade tomorrow.
His Majesty, the King, has condescended to leave for Potsdam.
All of which suits me very well.
Oh yes, I own a dog now. It's a handsome young spaniel,
and quite crazy. Nevertheless, I have taught him one thing.
When I point to someone and say "that's an aristocrat!"
he goes wild with rage and growls hideously.
Engels to Arnold Ruge:
This time I write you to announce
that I won't be sending you anything anymore.
I have decided to abandon all literary work for a while.
I have learned enough to form my own viewpoint
and, when necessary, to defend it,
but not enough to be able to work for it with success and in the proper way.
My literary activity thus far has been merely
an experiment to test the extent to which my natural capacities
would allow me to help bring forth progress
and participate actively in the movement of the century.
In November 1842 Engels departs for Manchester.
Here a new period in his life begins.
In the struggling proletariat
he saw the only force
that was capable of changing the world.
October, 1844.
Dear Marx...
Subs by Niffiwan (2022), and Eus (2018-2019) based on earlier subs by dust-angel & a Vol 2 M.E.-Works translation