Hertha Schnirch miniseries from Czech TV: review and ratings

The miniseries “Hertha Schnirch”, based on Kateřina Tučková’s novel “The Expulsion of Gerta Schnirch”, has become a notable event on Czech television. It is the third major recent co-production of Czech Television to appear on streaming platforms first, after “Daughter of the Nation” and “The Killers’ Finest Hour”.

Forgiveness instead of chronicle

The creators dropped the word “expulsion” from the title, but the theme of the postwar removal of almost a third of the population of the state at the time has not gone away. The main focus is on the relationship between a mother, a daughter and a granddaughter, and on forgiveness, without which family relationships are again and again weighed down by the past. The reviewer calls the view of a history only a few decades old harsh, emotional, at times repellent, but very powerful — worthy of comparison with international films on similar subjects.

The book, which won the Magnesia Litera award, was published in 2009 and reached the screen 17 years later. Work on the project went on for years.

Budget and crew

The two-part film was directed by Tomáš Mašín, author of “3 Seasons in Hell” and “Brothers”. The series was made by Czech Television together with Negativ, HBO and Arte. Alice Nellis worked on the screenplay at an early stage. The creators first counted on a cinema release, but because of the high costs they chose the miniseries format. The budget was 75 million crowns — considerable, given that two historical eras were filmed at once.

The action unfolds on two timelines: during the Second World War and around November 1989. The opening shots show the fall of the Berlin Wall, watched on television by the nearly seventy-year-old Hertha, played by Milena Steinmasslová. The viewer is then taken to the late 1930s, where young Hertha is played by Barbora Vachová, and with the rise of Nazism relations become strained even within a Czech-German family.

The performances

Ideological enmity gradually eats away at relationships in families, among colleagues, neighbors and friends, and events move toward tragedy. Beside the self-assured Hertha, who argues with her German father (Johann von Bülow), stands a friend played by Oskar Gese. Hertha’s sick mother is played by Kristina Badinková. The first episode races ahead, and reading the book is not necessary to follow it.

According to the reviewer, both actresses in the role of Hertha were an excellent choice. For Barbora Vachová this is the first role of such scale, and she plays confidently, both as a mischievous girl and as a woman fighting for survival. Milena Steinmasslová shows Hertha almost 45 years after the war, with a cruel secret and a distant attitude toward the daughter born in terrible circumstances. Lucie Štěpánková convincingly plays Hertha’s adult daughter, and Martina Čížová the granddaughter, who finds it easier to connect with her grandmother.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz