In hardly any film does the filming location play a greater role: Sonja Maria Kröner’s “Summer Houses” already bears it in the title. And the entire plot of the multi-award-winning film focuses on a leisure property with three vacation homes shared by an extended family. In the hot summer of 1976, the outside world penetrated this hermetically sealed microcosm only in the form of news – whether it concerned the Olympic Games in Montreal or the election campaign between Schmidt and Kohl. The case of a missing local child becomes the talk of the day, contributing to a vague sense of menace that permeates the film along with puns and subtle comedy. A latent danger seems to emanate from this garden. In fact, the director, who until recently lived in Dießen am Ammersee and worked there in the “climate lobby”, for example, “not only felt comfortable” in the supposed idyll in Herrsching’s Lochschwab district.
Like her camerawoman Julia Daschner, Kröner sensed an oppressive atmosphere from the start. Only later did the shooting team learn that until 1945 the Herrschinger Garten had an owner who was one of the worst criminals in the darkest years of German history: the Nazi mass murderer Hans Frank, who became known as the “Butcher of Poland”.
The holiday property in Lochschwab makes an enchanted impression.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
Until 1945 the house belonged to the Nazi bigwig and war criminal Hans Frank who was sentenced to death.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
Of course, it cannot be said that the large plot of land with a small house has a dark past attached to it. Herrsching’s community archivist Friedrike Hellerer, who dealt with the Starnberg district during the Nazi era in her doctoral thesis, says Frank bought the property in 1932 but didn’t stay there often: “He may have been there a handful of times.” During her research in the village, she found only one story about the Nazi bigwigs. Once it was noticed that Frank had not flagged his property black-white-red like the other Herrschingers who were loyal to the line on the national holiday. When asked about this, he is said to have said: “I have enough of that in Berlin, I don’t need it here.”
The location of the romantically ingrown plot of land does not only arouse greed among speculators
Hans Frank was one of Adolf Hitler’s first followers and closest confidants, was at his side during the march to the Feldherrnhalle and was Hitler’s personal legal representative from 1928 to 1933. When he came to power, he became Bavarian Minister of Justice and later ranked as the highest jurist in the Third Reich. With the occupation of Poland, Frank became Governor General there and contributed to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews. He was sentenced to death as one of twelve major war criminals at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946.
His possessions, including the family residence on Schliersee and the dacha on Ammersee, fell to the Bavarian state. The location of the approximately 4,000 square meter, romantically ingrown plot of land does not only arouse the desires of speculators: it is only 50 meters as the crow flies from the banks of the Ammersee and separated from the Lochschwab bathing bay by two strips of trees. The property at Conrad-Schulz-Weg 11, which is structurally extremely modestly used, is protected from further development or access by real estate sharks.
Director Sonja Maria Kröner (right) during a break in shooting her multi-award-winning feature film debut “Summer Houses” in front of the dacha that once belonged to the “Butcher of Poland”.
(Photo: Sonja Maria Kröner)
Since the 1970s, Sonja Kröner recalls that it had been leased as a holiday home to the family of an elderly lady who was widely known for her well-tended roses and borders. The woman died two years before shooting began, her three children lived further away and hardly used the little house at the time. For the filmmaker it was a “huge stroke of luck” that a location scout discovered the “summer houses” garden on Lake Ammer after more than 30 unsuccessful visits. Kröner moved to Dießen with her family in the summer of 2015, so a year later she was occasionally able to take the steamer to work.
One problem: Unlike the “summer of the century” in 1976, it rained a lot during the shooting phase
Of course, it wasn’t easy to get the filming permit, which required negotiations with the castle and lake administration and the nature conservation authorities, among other things – “but luckily it worked out in the end,” says Kröner. However, on 26 of the 29 days of shooting, all the technology had to be dismantled and loaded in the evening. The team stayed in Lochschwab for three months, shooting for over six weeks. Thirty years later, unlike the “summer of the century” in 1976, “it rained a lot, sometimes the whole property was under water,” recalls Kröner, who recently moved to Swabia.
The film has what it takes to become an evergreen – so it’s no wonder that “Summer Houses” was again broadcast this year on a whole range of ARD broadcasters and was available in media libraries for a long time. At the moment, the strip can only be viewed via streaming services. When Kröner made his debut as a feature film director in cinemas in 2017, he only received positive to enthusiastic reviews; The world even speculated about the “beginning of a great career”. As part of the Munich Film Festival, “Summer Houses” received two awards for the New German Cinema: Kröner for best director and Philipp Worm and Tobias Walker in the production category. At the beginning of 2018, Kröner received the Bavarian Film Award for the best screenplay.
Scenes from Summer Houses: The film was awarded the New German Cinema Promotional Prize twice.
(Photo: Prokino)
Mavie Hörbiger, Thomas Loibl, Laura Tonke (from left) – Sonja Kröner was able to win over a top-class ensemble of actors for her feature film debut.
(Photo: Prokino)
Laura Tonke, Mavie Hörbiger, Thomas Loibl and Günther Maria Halmer must have appreciated the quality of the book Kröner had been working on for eight years. Otherwise she would hardly have succeeded in winning such a top-class ensemble of actors for her feature film debut. The film also benefited from the fact that the recordings were made during the theater holidays. In “Summer Houses” the disintegration of family structures is subtly and sensitively portrayed. Superficially, only unspectacular things happen in a heat wave between two thunderstorms: children’s games and coffee parties, wasp plagues and taunts, arguments about the property or a tree house. Nevertheless, the chamber play in the green remains gripping up to the dramatic end, for which Kröner deliberately leaves several possible interpretations open. The film dispenses with recorded music, emphasizing the sounds of the garden, and the camera often adopts the children’s perspective.
August Strindberg described the family as “children’s hell” – “There’s often something totally ridiculous about families,” says Sonja Maria Kröner. In Sommerhäuser she also worked through her own biographical experiences: she grew up on the southern outskirts of Munich, her parents had a summer house in Forstenried – very similar to the film family.