Dimitri Krebs as Ernst Schrämli” data-image-id=”3815745297904944″ class=”watson-snippet__image bg-light block h-auto w-full “/>
He is threatened with death: 23-year-old Ernst Schrämli (Dimitri Krebs) is the first of 17 Swiss traitors to be shot during the Second World War. Image: Ascot Elite Entertainment
“Traitor” is the Swiss prestige production this fall. The historic case did not reflect well on the country. The main role was given to a newcomer to acting. How did this come about?
Tobias sedlmaier / ch media
No, he didn’t learn anything about this story at school, says Dimitri Krebs. And neither did anyone from his circle of friends. “I think most people as old as me have never heard of people being shot in Switzerland in the 1940s. I thought that was crazy.” This story is more than just a footnote; it says a lot about the nature and external image of Switzerland.
During the Second World War, a young, penniless marauder who dreams of a singing career becomes involved with the Nazis in St.Gallen. Ernst Schrämli is initially not alone in this. But he spies, delivers strategic but insignificant documents and grenades to the enemy, and is discovered. Because the wind is changing and it becomes clear that the Allies are winning the war, Switzerland has him and 16 others executed as “traitors”. To keep the clean slate. Meanwhile, Emil Bührle’s arms supply to the Nazis continues on a large scale.
“I thought the email from the casting agency was spam”
This is the short version of this historical case that Niklaus Meienberg and Richard Dindo presented in their 1976 documentary “The Shooting of the Traitor Ernst S.” processed. Almost 50 years later comes the feature film “Traitor” by director Michael Krummenacher. Prominently cast with Fabian Hinrichs, Luna Wedler, Stefan Gubser. And with a newcomer without any acting experience in the lead role: Dimitri Krebs, who introduces himself to the interview as “Dimi”.
How did the lanky 27-year-old, who sits casually in a shirt and gold chain as if he were drinking an after-work beer and regularly uses “mega” before words, manage to be cast in this prestigious project? About the music, says Krebs. He plays drums with an old friend of the director who was desperately looking for someone for the role. «Then I received an email from a casting agency. At first I thought it was spam. Then we went to drama school in London for a few weeks. I don’t know why Michael chose me exactly. “I never asked,” he says with a laugh.
Krebs plays Schrämli charismatically as a restless spirit who is never completely with himself and would do a lot to escape from the constantly busy, penny-pinching St.Gallen. His mother died, his father despises him. He grew up in homes and is looked after by a guardian. However, the film itself often remains vague and erratic in its character drawing, becoming bright and symbolic where subtlety would have been better. The vocal passages in particular seem very out of place. It’s not because Krebs does his best that “Traitor” is important but not a masterpiece.
Luna Wedler plays the factory owner’s daughter Gerti Zanelli. Needless to say, she is Schrämli’s love interest.Image: Ascot Elite Entertainment
Yelling on set wasn’t his thing
Even after filming, the actor doesn’t really know how likeable his character should be. “Even after reading his well-written letters from prison, it remains a mystery to me what kind of person he was. Certainly someone who was driven by various influences and very childlike. He wanted to be famous and not work hard in the factory. To achieve this goal, he deceives other people and urges his girlfriend Gerti to have an abortion. But he is also like that because he has never experienced closeness or love and has learned how cohesion works.”
Unlike cancer, who grew up sheltered. He makes music in his free time (including in the Nelly Furtado cover band Nelly Schweiz) and works full-time in a youth psychiatric clinic. He has also been studying social work since 2019. In conversation, Cancer seems like a calm, grounded, almost shy guy. Someone who lets things come to them with calm equanimity. Once he slips out a “shit,” which is immediately followed by an “oh, sorry.”
Dimitri Krebs at the world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival.Image: www.imago-images.de
Even more difficult for Krebs than the sex scenes with Luna Wedler were his character’s emotional outbursts: “That goes completely against my nature. I never do that, being so short-tempered and yelling, especially in front of so many people on set.” But he learned something essential when making a film (“actually a completely crazy thing”): how to deal with pressure. “You have to actively take yourself out and say when you need five minutes for yourself. Even if there are a hundred people waiting on the set and that costs maybe 2,000 francs. Of course you don’t dare do that at the beginning.”
Not sure yet whether he wants to remain a public figure
How does the introvert feel in this exposed profession? Will we see more of him on screen in the future? Krebs says he would listen to requests, but wouldn’t actively seek anything. Now he is a public figure with “traitor”. He hasn’t decided yet whether he wants to stay one: “I like my privacy and wouldn’t think it would be so cool if I had to read things about myself in the newspaper that have nothing to do with the film.”
And what does he, who belongs to a generation that has never heard of traitors, think what the film has to say for the present? His eyes light up at the topic: “I hope that people will become aware again that Switzerland is not so rich simply because money grows under our soil. We are very concerned about our image while so much dirty business is being carried out under the guise of neutrality. Just as Ernst Schrämli is a difficult figure, Switzerland is also a very ambivalent country.”
“Traitor” is now showing in cinemas.
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