Nazism and cinema
[1] The Nazis valued film as a propaganda instrument of enormous power, courting the masses by means of slogans that were aimed directly at the instincts and emotions of the people.
[6] Herbert Gerdes directed five Nazi propaganda films: Erbkrank (1936), Alles Leben ist Kampf (1937), Was du Ererbt (1938), Schuld oder Schein (1921), and Das Große Geheimnis (1920).
It demands permanent alertness; it’s full of surprises concerning the change of time, space, and action; it has an unimaginable richness of rhythm for intensifying or dispelling emotions.
[citation needed] For conceiving a Nazi film theory, Goebbels suggested as formative material the Hamburg Dramaturgy and Laokoon, or the Limitations of Poetry by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and also demanded "realistic characters" pointing to Shakespeare.
UFA and Tobis Film, who were financially struggling in 1936, now had the majority of their stock controlled by Cautio Trust Company, created by Winkler.
[29] UFI was a vertically integrated monopoly, covering the entire European film market under German hegemony, with foreign imports cut off.
Fritz Hippler, the director of The Eternal Jew, was placed in charge of the film section of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP).
[30] Since the period of the Weimar Republic, there had also existed an extensive system of educational film hire services which was extended under the Nazi administration.
[45] The Soviet Union dismantled Ufa within its occupation zone and created the state-owned DEFA to manage a film monopoly in East Germany.
[47] Anything that hinted at national weakness or promoted democracy were banned in the country along with other studio projects if they portrayed an image of Germany or history that the Nazis did not want the world to see.
Fox and Paramount even collaborated on news reels with the Nazis that were shipped all around the world, in the hopes of getting their frozen assets back.
[48] These new incentives put in place by the Nazis led to Universal scrapping a project about the sinking of the Lusitania and delaying its sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front to 1936.
that showed poor treatment of prisoners at the hands of Germans, and further punished the studio even after they acquiesced by blocking subsequent releases that were expected to perform well in Germany.
Georg Gyssling kept an eye on Hollywood scripts and activities, including writing letters to Will H. Hays' office when he found something that he or his bosses did not approve of.
The majority of the 5,506 cinemas that existed in 1939 within the so-called Altreich (the "Old Reich", i.e., Germany without Austria and the Sudetenland) were small companies run by private owners.
[55] However, in order to improve the image of Nazi Germany, Goebbels made great efforts to form a star system.
The publicity campaign for Leander was run by the press office of the Ufa, which concealed her past as a film actress already well known in Sweden and put their money right away on her charisma as a singer with an exceptionally deep voice.
Prominent politicians such as Hitler, Goebbels, and Hermann Göring appeared in public flanked by popular German film actors.
Magda Goebbels left a screening of the film Die Reise nach Tilsit, because it seemed to her too close a telling of her husband's relationship with Lída Baarová, which had resulted in the actress being sent back to her native Czechoslovakia.
The Nazi film theorist Fritz Hippler wrote in his 1942 book Contemplations on Film-Making: "Enough has been written as to whether 'celebritism' is beneficial or harmful—but one way or the other, it cannot be denied that throughout the world a main motive of people going to the movies is to see the faces they know and love" and Hippler suggested that the stars to be chosen for Nazi cinema should have "European standard" and at the same time appeal to the "Germans' ideal of beauty", so that Germans could identify with them.
[58] Non-German actors in the Nazi cinema included Zarah Leander, Marika Rökk, Lída Baarová, Pola Negri, Adina Mandlová, Johannes Heesters, Iván Petrovich, Laura Solari, Angelo Ferrari, Germana Paolieri (Italian), Nikolay Fyodorovich Kolin, Boris Alekin (Russian), Igo Sym (Polish), Rosita Serrano (Chilean).
Although most of the male stars were exempted from military service, some—such as the popular Heinz Rühmann—participated in the war as soldiers, often accompanied by newsreel film crews.
[61] Richard Oswald, Reinhold Schünzel, Wolfgang Zilzer, Henry Koster, Curt Alexander, and others fled Germany after the rise of the Nazis.
Curt Oertel, Hans Deppe), based on the novella by Theodor Storm Der verlorene Sohn i.e., The Prodigal Son (dir.
Harry Piel), a real time film about two friends, a German and a British criminal investigator who solve a case in Lisbon Der Dschungel ruft i.e., The Jungle Calls (dir.
Carl Froelich), a film about the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Der Schritt vom Wege i.e., The False Step (dir.
Wolfgang Liebeneiner), based on the play Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie by Eugène Marin Labiche Befreite Hände i.e., Liberated Hands (dir.
Günther Rittau), about two brothers, a violinist and a violin maker, guest star: Georges Boulanger, singing: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Frauen sind keine Engel i.e., Women are not Angels (dir.
Max W. Kimmich, Luis Trenker), about the development of Suramin "to save Africa" from trypanosomiasis Altes Herz wird wieder jung i.e., Old heart rejuvenated (dir.
Paul Verhoeven), about a famous chemistry professor, based on the play "Swedenhielms" by Hjalmar Bergman Der weiße Traum i.e., The White Dream (dir.
