EXBERLINER Issue 168, February 2018

FILM 2018
The Olsens, the Ossis and me
Danish writer Aske Hald Knudstrup attempts to get
to the root of the GDR’s peculiar obsession with his
country’s “Olsen Gang” comedies.
Growing up in Denmark around the
turn of the millennium, I spent many a
cosy Saturday evening with my family
watching the Olsen-banden (Olsen Gang) films.
There were 13 of them, made by director Erik
Balling between 1968 and 1981 (we’ll overlook
the 1998 reunion special), and the plot was
always the same. Hapless criminals Egon Olsen,
Benny Frandsen and Kjeld Jensen would
fruitlessly attempt to fulfil Egon’s “foolproof”
plans to steal millions from wealthy businessmen
using LEGO trucks, dust bunnies or 100
green peas. My friends and I used to quote
the characters’ catchphrases, like Kjeld’s “It
won’t be dangerous, right?” or Benny’s “Skide
godt” (“Bloody brilliant”). But I never actually
thought about the films that much – they were
just part of the cultural wallpaper.
So I was a little confused when, during
an Exberliner fact-checking conversation
with a fortysomething man from Saxony, I
mentioned my origins and he immediately
responded with “I love the Olsen Gang
films!” Why would a German get so excited
about something so Danish? But then I remembered
hearing about how Die Olsenbande,
as it was called here, had been a huge hit in
former East Germany. Dubbed by the stateowned
film studio DEFA, the 13 original films
premiered in the GDR between 1970 and
1984, and had been broadcast 39 times on TV
by 1989. Across the Wall, as dubbed by the
ZDF network, the films flopped.
Today, the phrase “Mächtig gewaltig!” –
DEFA’s translation of “Skide godt”; roughly,
“Mightily mighty!” – still resonates around the
former East. It’s the title of an Olsenbande play
by theatre company Theater Dinner that has
toured over 200 times across (mainly) eastern
Germany since 2013, selling more than 20,000
tickets. There’s even a “Mächtig gewaltig”
exhibition on the series that’s been showing
in both Rostock and Schwerin; it hits Filmmuseum
Potsdam later this year.
Helping out with those exhibitions is
Steffen Paatz, a 47-year-old Leipzig geologist
who reckons he’s seen the films over a
thousand times, and still watches each of
them at least twice a year. Among his many
collectables, the most treasured item is an
original copy of the script for 1977’s The
Olsen Gang Outta Sight.
“I was a teenager when I saw the last film
in the cinema, and I remember feeling so sad
Nordisk Film A/S
CULT
“You see the elite as
arrogant, and the
Olsenbande as this antiauthoritarian
group...
That rang true among
many East Germans.”
EXBERLINER 168
when Egon Olsen walked into the Vridsløselille
state prison for the last time,” Paatz says.
For over 15 years, Paatz has co-led the German
Olsenbande fan club alongside founder
Paul Wenzel, posting news on the online
forum and arranging yearly get-togethers for
the club’s 3000-odd members, 65 percent
of whom are from eastern Germany. I asked
him what he thought the films’ draw was.
Paatz told me that when he was younger,
he, like myself, mainly loved the Olsenbande
films for their accessible humour, but that
he’s lately begun to identify with the characters’
plight as working-class everymen pitting
themselves against the one percent. In
one of the films, grumpy police commissioner
Jensen reflects: “The big criminals, you
let fly. The small ones, you hang.” According
to Paatz, “The little people are still as much
underdogs today as they were 40 years ago.”
Viewed that way, it’s not surprising the
films were such a hit in the GDR. Cultural
sociologist Uwe Breitenborn, a 51-year-old
Pankow resident, grew up with the Olsen
Gang films in Leipzig. The eye-opening moment
for him came in 1992, at a symposium
about the films he’d co-organised in Denmark.
A speaker compared two clips from the
show: one dubbed by West Germany’s ZDF;
the other from DEFA. “The ZDF synchronisation
turned the film into a very ordinary
slapstick comedy; DEFA, on the other hand,
emphasised the characters’ personality.”
He believes East Germans identified
with the Olsen gang’s modest goals – they
dreamed of spending their stolen millions
on all-inclusive trips to Mallorca – but also
with the films’ unintentional parallels to GDR
society: “You see the elite as arrogant and
lacking self-awareness, and the Olsenbande as
this anti-authoritarian group who knew that
to reach their dreams, they could only rely on
themselves. That rung true among many East
Germans,” Breitenborn says.
Perhaps nobody’s more aware of East
Germans’ Olsenbande appreciation than Jes
Holtsø. In the original films, he played the
long-haired Børge, Kjeld’s son. Now 61, the
Copenhagener returned to the public sphere
with his blues project Holtsø & Wittrock
around 10 years ago. Steffen Paatz and Paul
Wenzel of the Olsenbande fan club have
helped him arrange multiple tours in the former
East, with most of the shows selling out.
“The reception I get here, you’d think I’m
a long-lost son,” Holtsø laughs. He’s used to
being recognised as Børge in Denmark, too,
but believes the East German excitement
is different. “In Denmark, I sometimes feel
that the fans should relax a bit and ‘get a life’.
When I play in Germany, I talk to the fans
about the way they used to live. They’ve endured
a lot. To some, the fact that someone
they recognise from beloved old films can
come and visit is a symbol of the freedom
they’ve now acquired,” Holtsø says.
The other day, I re-watched my favourite
Olsenbande-film, The Olsen Gang Sees Red,
with German synchronisation. Maybe I was
just imagining it, but after speaking to Breitenborn
and Paatz the film took on a gravity
that I never would have seen back in Denmark.
Those bumbling small-time crooks had
become, in other words, mächtig gewaltig. ■
Left to right: Egon, Kjeld and Benny in 1979’s
The Olsen Gang Never Surrenders.
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