Unfortunately mostly yes. Directors who have passed away (other than John Ford and a few others) are mostly unknown.
I haven't met anyone in 20 years who had heard of One, Two, Three...but I agree it's a classic, and I'll best most of those here are old enough to remember the Cold War. I find that movie hilarious, and the pacing leading to the end practically leaves one breathless.
Not surprised that it's appreciated in Germany. The biting satire in the characters from the USSR is pervasive. They are all corrupt, and most of them are pretty dumb too.
One of my favorite bits is Schlemmer, the assistant who clicks his heels at each order and insists he wasn't a Nazi...although he's revealed near the end. And the entire secretarial pool, who all stand every time the boss passes through - then he yells "Sitzen machen!"
Among cineasts, Wilder is revered in Germany. Depending on your definition, he (born Samuel Wilder in Krakow, his mom nicknamed him "Billie" as a child, he anglicized it to "
Billy" when moving to the States, yet always pronounced his last name as "Will-der" in German/Yiddish fashion, not as in
wildlife) was Polish, Austrian, German and American. In that order - and Jewish all the time. His parents were murdered in the Holocaust, he was working in Berlin when the Nazi's took power, yet made it to America. His work is etched in German collective memory for the first documentary film on the concentration camp horrors and crimes "Death Mills/
Todesmühlen" from as early as 1945 (be warned, it's a very tough watch):
It was mandatory viewing (the beginning of re-educational de-nazification) for the German population in the US Occupation Zone and both my parents (aged 13 and 14 then) saw it in the local small town cinema - it left an indelible mark on them. When my mother spoke of the concentration camps, it was always the footage from that film she had in her head. Though I saw the film only much later (it is still occasionally shown on German TV - as a whole or in parts), I could recognize certain scenes from her descriptions, the starving man eating spilled food from the ground for instance.
The film has inaccuracies and generalizations plus draws the wrong conclusions from anecdotal observations in places (while not mentioning even greater horrors that only came to light later). Of course the
Konzentrationslager system has been documented since then in much more comprehensive and focused fashion - historic research continues to this day, there are still criminal trials against concentration camp personnel (in their 90ies or 100s now) being conducted in Germany. But this is the film that brought the horror home to a German population for the first time and had a huge impact in instilling what can probably best be described as a national/generational feeling of collective shame and guilt. An eyeopener in the truest sense of the word.
Wilder's positive reception in Germany is therefore not just built on well-directed satirical comedies or great drama:
BTW, he was approached to direct Schindler's List, but passed due to his age and recommended Spielberg to do it.
