Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik (2024)

The docudrama brings a unique labor dispute to life. Today, continued payment of wages in the event of illness is a matter of course. But workers in the 1950s, unlike employees, received no pay for the first three days of illness and then very little. The workers no longer want to put up with this unequal treatment. Through the lives of Emma and Alfred Freese, a fictional working-class family from Kiel, the challenges of that time are brought to life in all their harshness. Emma is a typical housewife and mother of that time. This time of hardship is seen through her eyes and the Freeses' struggle for a life of dignity is followed. The war and its deprivations have left their mark on this generation, but now things are looking up again. But when her husband Alfred collapses ill at the Howaldtswerft shipyard in Kiel, Emma despairs. He has to take it easy, but how is the family supposed to get by without wages? This cannot go on. In October 1956, up to 34,000 metal workers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein went on strike in the fight for justice and dignity. To this day, this strike is considered the longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stood in the way of the strikers with decisive force. On the employer side of the then booming shipbuilding industry was shipyard boss A. Westphal. Julius Bredenbeck, Herbert Sührig and Hein Wadle are well-known trade unionists to this day, having orchestrated the strike and led it to success.