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What is a National Socialist Film?

2007; Routledge; Volume: 27; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439680701552539

1465-3451

Rainer Rother,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgment I wish to thank Catherine Kerkhoff-Saxon for the translation of this article, a revised version of an article first published in Merkur, 55(632) (December 2001), 1103–1115. Notes Notes 1 David Bathrick, Introduction: Modernity writ Germany: State of the art as art of the Nazi state, in: Robert C. Reimer (ed.) Cultural History through a National Socialist Lens (Rochester, 2000), 1–10, deals with this problem. 2 Hans Dieter Schäfer, Das gespaltene Bewusstsein. Deutsche Kultur und Lebenswirklichkeit 1933–1945 (Munich, 1983). 3 For an example of this new debate, see Peter Zimmermann and Kay Hoffmann, Geschichte des dokumentarischen Films in Deutschland, vol. 3, Drittes Reich 1933–1945 (Stuttgart, 2005), especially 17–25, 38–44, 45–56. 4 Klaus Kreimeier, ‘Von Henny Porten zu Zarah Leander’, in: montage/av (2) (1994), 41–53. 5 For more on one of the most famous of all female film directors, see Rainer Rother, Leni Riefenstahl. The Seduction of Genius (London and New York, 2002). Walter Frentz's Hände am Werk, another famous example for a cinematically impressive propaganda film from the early years of National Socialism recently was discussed by Karl Stamm, in ‘Avantgarde und Propaganda. Der Film, “Hände am Werk”’, in: Hans Georg Hiller von Gaetringen (ed.) Das Auge des Dritten Reiches. Hitlers Kameramann und Fotograf Walter Frentz (München and Berlin, 2006), 50–61. 6 Cf. Martin Loiperdinger, Märtyrerlegenden im NS-Film (Opladen, 1991). See also Heidi Faletti, ‘Reflections of Weimar Cinema in the Nazi Propaganda films’, in Reimer, Cultural History, 11–36. 7 Joseph Goebbels, Rede im Kaiserhof, March 28, 1933, in: Gerd Albrecht, Film im Dritten Reich (Karlsruhe, 1979), 26. 8 The files are in the German Bundesarchiv: R 109/1 1029a, 215ff. 9 Goebbels, Rede im Kaiserhof, March 28, 1933, in: Albrecht, Film im Dritten Reich, 27. 10 See Helmut Heiber (ed.) Goebbels Reden, vol. 1, 1932–1939 (Düsseldorf, 1971), 94. This speech was held on March 25, 1933 in the ‘Haus des Rundfunks’ in Berlin. 11 Goebbels, Rede im Kaiserhof, March 28, 1933, in: Albrecht, Film im Dritten Reich, 27. 12 See David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema 1933–1945 (Oxford, 2001), 79–122. 13 Wilhelm Karl Gerst, ‘Asphaltkunst—Volkskunst’, Deutsche Filmzeitung (16) (April 21, 1933), 2. 14 Sergei M. Eisenstein, Schriften 2 (Munich, 1973), 208ff. 15 Anon., ‘Das Filmische’, Deutsche Filmzeitung (8) (March 21, 1937), 1. 16 Klaus Kreimeier, Die Ufa-Story (Munich, 1992), 243f. 17 Not only the film industry's hostility toward theoretical matters, but also that of the ‘Movement’ constituted an unfavorable environment for experiments based on formal arguments. Extracts from Goebbels’ speech at the first annual conference of the Reichsfilmkammer on March 5, 1937, in which he demanded, in reference to Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie, a German film theory, were quoted in Der deutsche Film and served as confirmation of its own efforts. See Hermann Gressieker, Mobilmachung für die deutsche Filmkunst, 1(10) (April 1937), 283–289. 18 This somehow astonishing frankness in dealing with aesthetic questions was certainly counterbalanced by the ideological radicalism shown by all the magazine's authors. The bias obvious in the magazine's first years changed at the very latest when the Nazis brought on World War II. 19 Michael Wedel, ‘Die entfesselte Stimme. Marta Eggerth und die Tradition der Operette im Musikfilm der 30er Jahre’, in: Günter Krenn, Armin Loacker (ed.) Zauber der Boheme. Marta Eggerth, Jan Kiepura und der deutschsprachige Musikfilm (Wien, 2002) emphasizes recurring references to filmic values as stereotype in the discussion aiming at a ‘national’ Musikfilm conceived to be different from the genre the Weimar Republic has produced, 197–237 (in particular, 203–211). 20 Cf. H. J. Brandt, NS-Filmtheorie und dokumentarische Praxis (Tübingen, 1987). 21 Other officially commissioned films made by Junghans were less well-fated: Goebbels banned his film (España Heroica, 1938) about the Spanish Civil War in its original form for being too friendly toward the Communists. The 1936 Party Rally film, that was to open with the history of National Socialism from 1918 onwards, was postponed and then turned into a summary of the ‘Movement’, entitled Jahre der Entscheidung (1937/1939), though it was never actually screened due to the onset of the war. The compilation film Die große Zeit (1938), covering the years between 1933 and 1938, was released shortly before the plebiscite in Austria; the feature Altes Herz geht auf die Reise (1938) was banned. In April 1939, Junghans first emigrated to France and then later to the USA. 22 Der deutsche Film, 1(3) (September 1936), 86. 23 Carl Junghans, ‘Sowjetrussische Suite’, Der deutsche Film, 1(3) (September 1936), 87. 24 Junghans, ibid. 25 See Rother, Seduction, 45–103. 26 Anon. ‘Schule Riefenstahl. Der absolute Film’, Film-Kurier, January 25, 1936. See Rainer Rother, Leni Riefenstahl und der ‘absolute Film’, in: Harro Segeberg (Hg.) Mediale Mobilmachung I. Das Dritte Reich und der Film (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2004), 129–149. 27 Hermann Gressieker, ‘Leni Riefenstahl’, Der deutsche Film, 1(2) (August 1936), 40–41; also Rother, Seduction, 98. 28 Leonhard Fürst, ‘Deutschlands repräsentativster Film. Gedanken vor Leni Riefenstahls Olympia-Film’, Der deutsche Film, 2(9) (March 1938), 247–249. 29 See Stig Hornsh⊘j-M⊘ller and David Culbert, ‘Der ewige Jude (1940): Joseph Goebbels’ unequalled monument to anti-Semitism’, Historical Journal for Film, Radio and Television, 12(1) (1992), 41–67 and David Culbert, ‘The impact of anti-Semitic film propaganda on German audiences. Jew Süss and The Wandering Jew’, in: Richard A. Etlin (ed.) Art, Culture, and Media under the Third Reich (Chicago and London, 2002), 139–157. 30 Frank Maraun (aka Erwin Goelz), ‘Deutscher Sozialismus im Film’, Der deutsche Film, 4(11) (May 1940), 206. With reference to Maraun/Goelz, see Rolf Aurich, Welt im Film, in: Rolf Aurich and Wolfgang Jacobsen (eds) Erwin Goelz alias Frank Maraun (Munich, 2006), 11–77. 31 Ma. (Frank Maraun), ‘Symphonie des Ekels. ‘Der ewige Jude’—ein abendfüllender Dokumentarfilm’, Der deutsche Film, 4(8) (February 1940), 156–158. 32 See the exhibition catalogue Degenerate Art, Stephanie Barron (ed.) (Los Angeles, 1991). 33 The expression ‘zeitnaher Film’ or ‘Zeitfilm’—‘contemporary’ film—is not a common one in German. During the National Socialist regime, both these phrases were used to describe a film whose story was not only set in a contemporary frame but also depicted the present in total agreement with Nazi ideology. 34 Leonhard Fürst, ‘Woran liegt es?’, Der deutsche Film, 2(5) (November 1937), 125. 35 Anon., ‘Der deutsche Arbeiter und der Film’, Deutsche Filmzeitung (December 24, 1933), 8. 36 Anon., ‘Der Wunsch eines deutschen Arbeiters. Der Arbeitsfilm’, Völkischer Beobachter, Norddeutsche Ausgabe (September 9, 1937), 11. 37 Victor Schamoni, ‘Der filmische Film’, Der deutsche Film, 4(9) (March 1940), 172. 38 Goebbels, Die Tagebücher, Elke Fröhlich (ed.), vol. 3 (Munich, 1987), 352. 39 For a more detailed interpretation of these films and the use of documentary footage or the trend for a documentary ‘look’ in films made after 1939 see: Rainer Rother, ‘Zur Definition des ‘nationalsozialistischen Films’. Fiktionale und dokumentarische Formen’, in: Zimmermann and Hoffmann, Geschichte des dokumentarischen Films in Deutschland, 575–589. 40 Hans Spielhofer, ‘Vom Kostümfilm zum Gegenwartsfilm’, Der deutsche Film, 2(4) (October 1937), 109. 41 Michael Prinz, ‘Die soziale Funktion moderner Elemente in der Gesellschaftspolitik des Nationalsozialismus’, in: Michael Prinz and Rainer Zitelmann (eds) Nationalsozialismus und Modernisierung (Darmstadt, 1991), 313. 42 Frank Noak, Veit Harlan. Des Teufels Regisseur (Munich, 2002) is the new and extensive biography. 43 Two different new approaches are Eric Rentschler, The Ministry of Illusion. Nazi Cinema and its Afterlife (Cambridge, 1996) and Linda Schulze-Sasse, Entertaining the Third Reich. Illusions of Wholeness in Nazi Cinema (Durham, NC, 1996). 44 Leonardo Quaresima, Der Film im Dritten Reich. Moderne, Amerikanismus, Unterhaltungsfilme, in montage/av (2) (1994), 14. The following quotations, 14. 45 Ibid. 46 See Mary-Elizabeth O’Brien, ‘The spectacle of war in Die große Liebe’, in Reimer, Cultural History, 197–213.