Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion by Bill Niven (review)

Hitler and Film offers the first comprehensive overview of Adolf Hitler's involvement in the Nazi film industry. Based on analysis of archival material, it sheds light on Hitler's surprisingly heterogeneous film-viewing habits. Its main focus, however, is on his interventions. Much has been written about Leni Riefenstahl's collaboration with Hitler, though there is much less about his involvement in the making of films about sterilizing the disabled or about the Spanish Civil War. He attended premieres of films he wished to see associated with the National Socialist cause and conferred a range of privileges on actors. During the war, he closely monitored the weekly newsreels. He followed the making of films about the German military campaigns and the supposed Jewish threat. No less than Joseph Goebbels, he sought to exploit the propagandistic potential of film to its full extent.

Goebbels and Hitler visiting the UFA studios in 1936. (Courtesy of Wikimedia)