Circumstances Within Our Control: Television As a Synthesizer of Multi-Media Teaching Resources

in the movie. Ernst Thälmann, the KPD's chairman, declared the strike to be the party's "most impressive revolutionary achievement to date". Kuhle Wampe says nothing much about this particular phase ofcontemporary history. But the history tells something about Kuhle Wampe, and its author, who, despite his basic political engagement, tended to play his cards fairly close to the vest. "Who's going to change the world?'" one ofhis characters asks in that subway car at the end of the film. "Those who don't like it as it is," a girl answers. But in the course ofthat great didactic confrontation, somebody also asks "Who do you mean by 'we'?" Fritz and Annie and their friends notwithstanding, the questions tend to be more concrete than the answers. There were a lot ofpeople around by late 1932 who didn't like the world as it was. But beyond this, their solidarity left a good deal to be desired and it might, but then again might not, be a coincidence that the movie ends with the Young Communists underground, singing, ifnot whistling, in the dark. A NOTE ON SOURCES While Brecht studies have been among the literary growth industries ofthe past decade, the English-language literature is still relatively underdeveloped, and Martin Esslin's pioneer biography (New York, 1 960) is still worth reading. Though originally published in 1939, Franz Borkenau's World Communism (Ann Arbor, 1962) is still the best introduction to the subject. For the genesis ofGerman Communism in particular, the reader is referred to Wemer Angress' Stillborn Revolution (Princeton, 1963) and Richard Lowenthal's marvelous article "The Bolshevization ofthe Spartacus League" in David Footman (ed.), International Communism (London. 1960). Siegfried Bahne's "Die Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands" in Erich Matthias and RudolfMorsey (eds.), Das Ende der Parteien (Dusseldorf. 1960) rounds offthe history ofthe organization Philip Williams once called "the worst party in Europe, a) because it was a German party, b) because it was a Communist party." For inside views, with all their astigmatism but also their virtues, the reader might consult Ruth Fischer's highly idiosyncratic but fascinating Stalin and German Communism (Cambridge, 1948), Margarete Buber-Neumann's rueful memoir of life with Heinz, Von Potsdam nach Moskau (Stuttgart. 1 957) and "Ex-Insider's" "Moscow-Berlin 1933" in the quarterly Survey ofOctober, 1962. David Schoenbaum teaches modern European history at the University ofIowa, and is a member ofthe Committee on Documentary Film and TV ofthe American Historical Association. He is the author of Hitler's Social Revolution ((N. Y., 1966). CIRCUMSTANCES WITHIN OUR CONTROL: Television As a Synthesizer of Multi-Media Teaching Resources By Thomas Cripps 27 We are caught up in a rage for "multi-media teaching experiences," most of which are tour de force demonstrations ofthe most easily available hardware: slides, film and audiotape. Many of them share the same weaknesses: exorbitant processing fees; scarce union-lists ofsources for sound, stills, and film; legal problems ofacquiring rights; the tension between scholarly standards and the harried teamwork of film production; and finally, the awkward chore ofediting and timing all the hardware to run in "synch." The most dedicated innovators sometimes apologize for their work by calling it "impressionistic." Television is a disused tool that can bring multi-media materials under control by allowing the producer to inexpensively remain true to scholarly standards of selectivity and interpretation. Notwithstanding Marshall McLuhan's notion oftelevision as non-linear communication, the best television is still remarkable in its "linearity," for it asks its user to develop sequential ideas drawn from a wide variety ofmaterials within a circumscribed time span. The good teacher may profit from watching the conventional eleven o'clock news program. Its producer draws on slides, film, tape, graphic maps and charts — all given unity by old-fashioned verbal continuity. Any university with a Sony videotape console is capable ofproducing effective multi-media teaching devices through television. Imagine a brieftape on the theme ofthe "Harlem Renaissance." It opens on footage ofreturning black troops after World War 1, marching to the beat of a W. C. Handy "race record." The troops dissolve to a slide of W. E. B. DuBois's famous editorial announcing "We Return Fighting." A...