My Opposition: The Diaries of Friedrich Kellner

My Opposition: the Diaries of Friedrich Kellner is a 2007 documentary movie by Abella Entertainment Ltd. of Toronto, Canada.  It is produced and directed by Fern Levitt and Arnie Zipursky.  Leonard Asper is an executive producer.  The movie is distributed by CCI Entertainment.

Subject matter

The documentary tells the story of Chief Justice Inspector Friedrich Kellner  (File:Loudspeaker.svg pronounce) who wrote a secret diary during World War II.  The diary records the crimes of the Nazis. The movie uses interviews, historical footage, and re-enactments of events to tell how Friedrich Kellner risked his life to write the diary.  The story is also about Kellner’s American grandson, Robert Scott Kellner, who was abandoned as a child but later found his grandfather in Germany.  Part of the movie is about the grandson’s attempt to bring the Friedrich Kellner diary to the attention of the public.

The movie begins with Friedrich Kellner as a political activist for the Social Democratic Party of Germany before the war.  He campaigns against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.  The re-enactments show Kellner trying to stop the riots against the Jews during Kristallnacht.  Kellner is brought before a tribunal, and he is threatened with imprisonment in a concentration camp.  The movie shows Kellner’s active and passive resistance against the Third Reich.  One scene shows him distributing leaflets that had been dropped from American planes.  When World War II comes to an end, Kellner helps to restore the SPD.  He  becomes the chairman of the party in his region.  Interwoven in the story about Friedrich Kellner is the story of his grandson.

The documentary was filmed on location in Mainz and in  Laubach, Germany, and in Texas.

Background information
 The Kellner diary was on exhibit at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.
 It was also exhibited in Germany.
 The University of Giessen is the home of the Kellner Project.

 Other websites 

 My Opposition: the Diaries of Friedrich Kellner  at Telefilm Canada movie catalog.
 Diary Entries in German and English
 George Bush Presidential Library - Kellner exhibit 
 Justus Liebig University - Kellner Project
 University of Massachusetts, A Promise To Keep 
 Holocaust Museum Houston - Kellner exhibit 
 Heimat Museum, Laubach, Germany - Kellner exhibit 


Category:2007 documentary movies
Category:2000s biographical movies
Category:Canadian documentary movies
Category:Canadian biographical movies
Category:World War II movies
Category:Multilingual movies