Propaganda and the German Cinema 1933-1945 (review)

BOOK REVIEW PROPAGANDA AND THE GERMAN CINEMA 1933-1945, David Welch, 353 pp., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 0-19-822598-9 The declared purpose of this book "is to examine Nazi film propaganda as a reflection of National Socialist ideology." Dr. Welch has succeeded well for the most part. His work reveals extensive archival research, careful analysis of secondary sources, and sensible organization. One of the best parts of this book is a discussion of the mechanics of translating ideology into film propaganda as a direct preparation for action. Thus Chapter IV, "Blood and Soil," reveals the ways in which film was used to prepare Germans for the killing of the congenitally ill. The nazi euthanasia program began in 1939 and was officially halted by a direct order from Hitler in 1941 after Bishop Galen of Munster spoke out against these murders. This policy had been accompanied by the screening of a number of "commercial films" dealing with euthanasia, of which the most notorious was Ich klage an. While it is well, and possibly even necessary, to establish categories in a monograph of this sort, some films and their directors cannot be neatly pigeonholed as Welch sometimes has a tendency to do. For example, Herbert Maisch, the director of several historical films, including DIII 88, about the German Air Force, Friedrich Schiller, and Andreas Schlüter, about a famous baroque architect, though designated "politically unreliable " by the nazis, was allowed to continue to make films because of his obvious gifts. Goebbels was lenient in some instances toward artists, and the German film world during the Third Reich has been described as "a hotbed of limited resistance." Welch writes of Friedrich Schiller that "Schiller is merely presented as a prototype Hitler," but this description , as well as the inclusion of Andreas Schlüter in the category of "Fuhrertype . . . biographies" may be somewhat too simplistic. Goebbels had reason to be cautious about "Schiller" which might indeed have been construed as "an appeal for freedom of opinion and against the suppression of free speech.: In order to be sure this film made what he thought was the suitable point, Goebbels had the last word "Freedom!" uttered by Schiller, cut from the final print. While contemporary critics disagree about the intent of the existing version, Maisch' s origi92 nal seems to have been an anti-authoritarian protest. This was in keeping with his anti-militarist beliefs. One of his earlier films, Starke Herzen about an early post-World War I communist rebellion in Hungary, was forbidden to be shown after it had been completed in 1937. In the last of Maisch' s historical films, Andreas Schluter's career is destroyed when the foundations of his gigantic Mint Tower crumble at the unveiling ceremony. To perceptive viewers among a nation led by what was hailed, or heiled, as "a polymathic genius" whose "gifts" included architectural designing, and whose armies were overextended in September 1942 when Schlüter was released, the implications of such a film were perhaps more than one-sided. Even nazi leaders disagreed about Maisch's films. While Goebbels called Dili 88 an "irreproachable film of national destiny," Hermann Goring was less happy with it and complained that Maisch had been the wrong man to entrust with the job. Categorizing films according to director presents problems. Welch's conclusion is cogently argued, and few would disagree with his final point that, "Instead of building a German cinema that would conquer the world as the vanguard of the Nazi troops, Goebbels died leaving a demoralized and declining film industry that would take almost thirty years to rediscover itself." Totalitarian controls seem not only to destroy artistic integrity, but also to poison creativity. Richard Geehr, Bentley College continued (n.om page 83 "Sues National Film Corporation on Note" in TT1 27 Hay, 1916, p. 14. ^8See "Hudson Brings Action Against Film Company" in TT1 30May, 1916, p. 10-A; "Parsons to Continue Production 1n Tampa" in TT, 12 June, 1916, p. 12, which also reprints the Motion Picture News blurb, "Parsons Will Produce in East"; and "Will Probe Affairs of Film Corporation" in TT, 16 June, 1916, p. 7. 9"Wi11 Ask U.S. Agents to...