Becoming a Nazi Town: Culture and Politics in Göttingen between the World Wars

6. Making Mass Culture Local, 1930–38

153 Chapter 6 Making Mass Culture Local, 1930–38 Six nights in December 1930 was all it took to make Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front into the most controversial film in Germany between the world wars. After just six nights in Berlin with protests in and out of the theater and across the country, the Appellate Censorship Board reversed the Censorship Board’s original approval of the American movie and banned it. For several weeks, conflict about the film grabbed front-page headlines in Göttingen , a singular feat that indicated its significance for national politics. Like other films about the Great War produced in Weimar Germany, Milestone’s offered a variety of ways to come to terms with a cataclysmic defeat.1 But since no one in Göttingen actually saw All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930, it served chiefly as a political lightning rod. The Blue Angel, on the other hand, drew large audiences across Germany the same year. Hailed as the first artful sound film, Josef von Sternberg’s feature that launched Marlene Dietrich’s career engendered discussions in Göttingen about the role of music, movie stars, and “sex appeal” in cinema. The Blue Angel played to sold-out crowds in Göttingen in June 1930. Heinz Koch called it nothing less than “an eternal mirror” on the human condition, one that said, “Ecce homo.”2 The reception of these two movies reveals a great deal about cinema’s role in Göttingen around 1930. Coverage of the two flashpoint films helped bolster conservative and right-wing ideas. Misogynist readings of The Blue Angel and the politicized discussion about All Quiet on the Western Front allowed the increasingly powerful supporters of Nazism in Göttingen to articulate their “solutions” to the many problems of the Weimar Republic. In contrast, Göttingen critics across the political spectrum embraced G. W. Pabst’s Westfront 1918 that year, indicating that politically neutral treatments of the Great War fared better in this increasingly right-leaning town. Films may not have convinced voters in Göttingen to support Hitler’s party. But at the very moment that the NSDAP and the Brüning government were asking Germans to repudiate democracy and trust instead the authority of one man (Hitler, Hindenburg, 154 Becoming a Nazi Town or Brüning), most Göttingen reviewers were pushing interpretations of these movies that celebrated traditional male control of the public sphere above party politics. These readings dovetailed with Nazi ideas, which had helped the Party assume control of the Town Council in 1929 and garner the largest support of any party from Göttingen voters in the 1930 Reichstag elections. Developments in cinema chronicled in the previous chapter created an environment conducive to conservative interpretations of mass culture. Films and events of 1930 helped reinforce that vision, which in turn strengthened Nazism. In conjunction with other changes, this shift in the most popular mass culture indicated that Göttingen had become a “Nazi town” by 1930. More than other cultural activities, cinema necessitated close cooperation between providers of cultural products, local authorities, and the national film industry. Working closely with the Magistracy especially strengthened Göttingen cinema owners’ support for conservative visions of mass culture’s value. A declining economy and tightening regulations intensified this connection in the early 1930s. After 1933 Third Reich leaders in Göttingen and Berlin used existing laws to remold cinema. Göttingen’s Magistracy and police continued to do the direct work of supervising cinema. The Third Reich’s ability to make cinema a tool of its policies rested squarely on an effective balance of cinema owners’ needs, local regulation, and national aims. The fact that Third Reich laws designed to alter cinema caused limited disruption in Göttingen indicates that those involved in cinema had struck this balance before 1933. Even the regime’s increasingly desperate attempts in the late 1930s to rejuvenate the failing film industry did not much alter moviegoing in Göttingen. Only the war’s major upheaval signaled a real change in Göttingen cinema life. This chapter traces cinema’s development into an important pillar of Nazism in Göttingen. Conflicts surrounding cinema around 1930 made it a medium for Göttingers to envision alternatives to Weimar democracy. New rules, movies, and local discussions about their meaning in the Third Reich then allowed Göttingers to take part in the changes the new regime brought to Germany...