Nazi Cinema As Enchantment

The Nazi regime did not merely terrorize its citizens into submission; it also seduced them by offering stability, a traditional value system, a sense of belonging, and hope of a better standard of living. Nazi cinema's popularity rested on its ability to express positive social fantasies and promote the enchantment of reality, so that one would want to share in the dream at any price. This is an interdisciplinary study, written for scholars and students in the fields of film studies, German studies, history, critical studies, and political science, that explores how cinema participated in the larger framework of everyday fascism. The book examines how five film genres - the historical musical, the foreign adventure film, the home-front film, the melodrama, and the problem film - enchanted audiences and enacted shared stories that can tell us much about how family, community, history, the nation, and the war were imagined in Nazi Germany. The book analyzes thirteen motion pictures, many of which are not well known to English-speaking audiences: Wunschkonzert, Die große Liebe, Tanz auf dem Vulkan, Damals, Die Degenhardts, Opfergang, Kautschuk, Robert und Bertram, Verklungene Melodie, Frauen für Golden Hill, Das Leben kann so schön sein, Der verzauberte Tag, and Via Mala. Based on exhaustive research in German archives, the book examines, in addition to the films themselves, articles from the propaganda ministry's official organ, Der deutsche Film, daily trade sheets, fan magazines, and even studio press packages for individual stars and films. Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien is Professor of German at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.

German cinema of the Third Reich, even a half-century after Hitler's demise, still provokes extreme reactions. "Never before and in no other country," observes director Wim Wenders, "have images and language been abused so unscrupulously as here, never before and nowhere else have they been debased so deeply as vehicles to transmit lies." More than a thousand German feature films that premiered during the reign of National Socialism survive as mementoes of what many regard as film history's darkest hour. As Eric Rentschler argues, however, cinema in the Third Reich emanated from a Ministry of Illusion and not from a Ministry of Fear. Party vehicles such as Hitler Youth Quex and anti-Semitic hate films such as Jew Süss may warrant the epithet "Nazi propaganda," but they amount to a mere fraction of the productions from this era. The vast majority of the epoch's films seemed to be "unpolitical"--melodramas, biopix, and frothy entertainments set in cozy urbane surroundings, places where one rarely sees a swastika or hears a "Sieg Heil." Minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Rentschler shows, endeavored to maximize film's seductive potential, to cloak party priorities in alluring cinematic shapes. Hitler and Goebbels were master showmen enamored of their media images, the Third Reich was a grand production, the Second World War a continuing movie of the week. The Nazis were movie mad, and the Third Reich was movie made. Rentschler's analysis of the sophisticated media culture of this period demonstrates in an unprecedented way the potent and destructive powers of fascination and fantasy. Nazi feature films--both as entities that unreeled in moviehouses during the regime and as productions that continue to enjoy wide attention today--show that entertainment is often much more than innocent pleasure.

On Nazi cinema

This is the first publication to bring together comparative research on the international expansion of Third Reich cinema. This volume investigates various attempts to infiltrate - economically, politically and culturally - the film industries of 20 countries and regions either occupied by, friendly with or neutral towards Nazi Germany.

German cinema of the Third Reich, even a half-century after Hitler's demise, still provokes extreme reactions. More than a thousand German feature films that premiered during the reign of National Socialism survive as mementoes of what many regard as film history's darkest hour. As Eric Rentschler argues, however, cinema in the Third Reich emanated from a Ministry of Illusion and not from a Ministry of Fear. Party vehicles such as Hitler Youth Quex and anti-Semitic hate films such as Jew Suss may warrant the epithet "Nazi propaganda," but they amount to a mere fraction of the productions from this era. The vast majority of the epoch's films seemed to be "unpolitical"--Melodramas, biopics, and frothy entertainments set in cozy urbane surroundings, places where one rarely sees a swastika or hears a "Sieg Heil." Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, Rentschler shows, endeavored to maximize film's seductive potential, to cloak party priorities in alluring cinematic shapes. Hitler and Goebbels were master showmen enamored of their media images, the Third Reich was a grand production. The Nazis were movie mad, and the Third Reich was movie made. Rentschler's analysis of the sophisticated media culture of this period demonstrates in an unprecedented way the potent and destructive powers of fascination and fantasy. Nazi feature films--both as entities that unreeled in moviehouses during the regime and as productions that continue to enjoy wide attention today--show that entertainment is often much more than innocent pleasure.

Coming to terms with the past has been a preoccupation within German culture and German Studies since the Second World War. In addition, there has been a surge of interest in adaptation of literary works in recent years. Numerous volumes have theorized, chronicled, or analyzed adaptations from novel to film, asking how and why adaptations are undertaken and what happens when a text is adapted in a particular historical context. With its focus on adaptation of twentieth-century German texts not only from one medium to another but also from one cultural moment to another, the present collection resides at the intersection of these two areas of inquiry. The ten essays treat a variety of media. Each considers the way in which a particular adaptation alters a story - or history - for a subsequent audience, taking into account the changing context in which the retelling takes place and the evolution of cultural strategies for coming to terms with the past. The resulting case studies find in the retellings potentially corrective versions of the stories for changing times. The volume makes the case that adaptation studies are particularly well suited for tracing Germany's obsessive cultural engagement with its twentieth-century history. Contributors: Elizabeth Baer, Rachel Epp Buller, Maria Euchner, Richard C. Figge, Susan G. Figge, Mareike Hermann, Linda Hutcheon, Irene Lazda, Cary Nathenson, Thomas Sebastian, Sunka Simon, Jenifer K. Ward. Susan G. Figge is Professor of German Emeritus at the College of Wooster, Ohio, and Jenifer K. Ward is Associate Provost, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle.