Jan Josef Liefers
On the trail of Honecker’s asylum at Pastor’s
Jan Josef Liefers (left) with Pastor Uwe Holmer.
© ZDF/Alexander Seidenstücker
Jan Josef Liefers not only directs “Honecker and the Pastor”, but also visits contemporary witnesses in an accompanying documentary.
Jan Josef Liefers (57) follows Erich Honecker’s trail. In a documentary about his feature film “Honecker and the Pastor”, the actor visits the eponymous pastor Uwe Holmer (93). In 1990 he granted asylum to the former East German head of state Erich Honecker (1912-1994).
The documentation by Fred Breinersdorfer (75) runs on March 20, 2022 at 11:45 p.m. on ZDF. A day later, at 8:15 p.m., the second will show the feature film of the same name, “Honecker and the Pastor”. Jan Josef Liefers directed the TV film.
Asylum for the Honeckers
“Honecker and the Pastor” takes place in January 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Erich Honecker (played by Edgar Selge, 73) and his wife Margot (Barbara Schnitzler, 69) are practically homeless. The only person to offer shelter to the former chairman of the GDR’s national defense council is the evangelical pastor Uwe Holmer (Hans-Uwe Bauer, 66).
In the documentation for “Honecker and the Pastor” Liefers travels to the real Uwe Holmer in Lobetal near Berlin. The actor remembers the events shown in the film with the pastor and talks to other eyewitnesses. The documentary is directed by Fred Breinersdorfer, who wrote the screenplay for the feature film.
“Honecker and the Pastor” is Liefers’ third directorial work after the TV films “Jack’s Baby” (1999) and “Die Frauenversteher” (2002).