cinema and the swastika: the international expansion of third reich cinema
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This article was downloaded by: [Queen Mary, University of London]On: 05 October 2014, At: 22:35Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Historical Journal of Film, Radio andTelevisionPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/chjf20
Cinema and the Swastika: theinternational expansion of Third ReichcinemaTobias Hochscherf aa University of Applied Sciences Kiel , GermanyPublished online: 20 Apr 2012.
To cite this article: Tobias Hochscherf (2012) Cinema and the Swastika: the international expansionof Third Reich cinema, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 32:2, 311-313, DOI:10.1080/01439685.2012.670377
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2012.670377
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‘Print is the lever, we have come to feel, that can move the world’. The same pointmight be made in 2012, as the old media grapples with the ‘new’.
BRIDGET GRIFFEN-FOLEY
Macquarie University� 2012 Bridget Griffen-Foley
Cinema and the Swastika: the international expansion of Third ReichcinemaRoel Vande Winkel and David Welch (Eds)Hampshire/New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 (2nd revised edition)xxivþ360 pp., illus., bibliography, filmography and index, £19.99–$32.00 (paper)
This is not the first time I am writing about Cinema and the Swastika: the internationalexpansion of Third Reich cinema. When my first review of the hardback edition waspublished by this journal in 2007, I welcomed the book as an important contributionto the study of Third Reich Cinema. In fact, what makes Cinema and the Swastikavaluable to students and researchers of cinema history is that it looks at thiscontroversial period of German film-making from an international perspective.Why, then, publish another review? My previous praise for the book’s innovativeand informative approach was not without demurs. The review, actually, was morecritical than most—we should not forget the scholarly acknowledgement of the bookin having been awarded the Willy Haas Prize. Besides the retail price of well over£55.00/$90.00, my earlier review criticised the cover design, which features aprominent graphic Swastika regardless of the fact that Cinema and the Swastika arguesagain and again that insignia of National Socialism were carefully avoided by Germancompanies so as to not spoil the films’ promotion abroad. But let me come back tothis later.
The revised paperback edition under review brings together the expertiseof scholars from various countries. It, thereby, goes beyond the many books on thesubject by claiming that Third Reich Cinema cannot be adequately understoodby studying German cinema within national boundaries. As the book under reviewconvincingly argues, the extent of pan-European cooperation, foreign film tradeagreements and the mobility of film personnel, prove how film under the leverageof National Socialism must be studied within broader European and indeed globalframeworks. As I wrote before, Cinema and the Swastika ‘marks a paradigm shiftin Third Reich Cinema studies from a critique of ideology to a multi-faceted scenarioof intercultural permutation and tension. Rather than viewing Third Reich Cinema asa mere political phenomenon, it also takes into account economical and culturalaspects such as Goebbels’ declared plans to challenge Hollywood’s hegemony’.
All 24 chapters of the anthology offer thoroughly researched case studies. Therevised and amended introduction (five extra pages were added to this edition)presents a comprehensive summary of developments in Third Reich Cinema studiesand draws connections between single contributions. The focus of the chapters is onproduction, reception and content rather than on films’ aesthetics. The authors thusrefer less to cinematic devices (such as editing, cinematography or mise-en-scene)
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in order to support their findings and rely predominantly on release materials, tradeagreements, admission figures, contemporary reviews and narratives of individualfilms. These materials, together with a number of illustrations, are located withindifferent national and regional contexts by the authors.
Whilst the editors are right in criticising that the Federal Republic of Germanyand its subsidiaries ‘show little interest in producing scholarly editions of key filmsproduced in Nazi Germany’ (p. 22)—a fact that makes the study and teaching of thiscontested period rather more difficult—additional information could have been givenabout the whereabouts and blind spots of archival holdings (such as the lack of reliabledata to ascertain the economic success of German films at home and abroad).Still, offering preliminary thoughts and laying out the various aspects dealt with inthe subsequent chapters, the introduction and opening chapter by Welsh and VandeWinkel give a literature overview by explaining the state of research on theinternational expansion of Third Reich Cinema. Having been revised and expandedfor the second edition, they more than ever help to contextualise various phases ofGerman cinema from the year the Nazis came to power to the beginning of war andthe unconditional surrender in 1945. The first chapter in particular offers a detailedaccount of instruments introduced by the National Socialists to gain control over theGerman film industry and, as a second step, to dominate the European market.One such measure, the International Film Chamber (Internationale Filmkammer),is the subject of the following chapter by Benjamin George Martin. Founded as apolitical–economic organisation, the Chamber was part of German efforts ‘designedto enshrine German dominance in new international networks and institutions anda large-scale cultural campaign, celebrating the idea of a distinctly ‘‘European’’ cinemadefined by its cultural depth and national rootedness, in contrast to what critics sawas the vapid cosmopolitanism and empty materialism of American film’ (p. 25). Thesubsequent contributions take up many of these aspects as they take a closer lookat the reciprocal filmic relations between Germany and numerous other countries orregions, many of which are sidelined if not altogether absent in previous publications.Covering not only territories occupied or annexed by Nazi Germany but alsobefriended Fascist nations and countries Germany entertained ‘neutral’ relations with,the edited collection encompasses Western and central Europe, Scandinavia, Italy,Spain, Japan, South America and the USA. Examples that demonstrate the broadscope of the book include the chapters ‘Nazi Film Politics in Brazil, 1933–42’ by LuizNazario, ‘The Influence of German Cinema of Newly Established CroatianCinematography, 1941–45’ by Daniel Rafaelic, and ‘Brown-red Shadows: TheInfluence of Third Reich and Soviet Cinema on Afrikaans Film, 1927–48’ by KeyanTomaselli and Michael Eckardt. In addition to the geopolitical territories and countriescovered in the previous edition, the book now features the new chapter ‘German FilmPolitics in the Occupied Eastern Territories, 1941–45’ by Ralf Forster. It throwslight on the largely unknown Zentralfilmgesellschaft Ost (Central Film Company East),which was seminal in coordinating all film-related activities in Poland, the BalticStates, and other parts of Eastern Europe that were occupied by German forces duringthe war.
In its attempt to present nuanced assessments of the complex frameworks ofbilateral cinematic relations as well as individual filmic case studies, the book offerssynoptic overviews and comparative analyses of German film policy and exports.
312 H I S T O R I C A L J O U R N A L O F F I L M , R A D I O A N D T E L E V I S I O N
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Cinema and the Swastika, in so doing, benefits from the contributors’ language skills andexpertise in different national cinemas insofar as the anthology draws upon a wealthof archival sources. By introducing findings and aspects that have, if at all, only beenavailable in languages other than English, this edited collection stimulates furtherresearch on the issues addressed. As such, students and scholars of film history willappreciate the plethora of reviews, production files, personal correspondence andother archival materials that are referred to in the individual chapters.
And what about the points of criticism mentioned in connection with the firstedition? Well, with a price of £19.99 ($32.00) it is still not exactly inexpensive butcertainly good value. And whilst the huckstering and arguably delusive Swastika is stillto be found on the cover, the editors, perhaps inspired by my disapproval, have addedan explanation as to why posters with Swastikas could be seen despite the officialabandonment of Nazi insignia when promoting films abroad: ‘Another example of therelevance of international research into the distribution and reception of Third ReichCinema can be found in the mutilation of a French poster for (The Fantastic Adventuresof Baron) Munchhausen (1943). The fact that someone in German-occupied and Francetook the trouble—and the risk—of drawing swastikas on that poster and of inscribingit with ‘Kraut film, don’t go!’, testifies to the popularity of such film in occupiedterritory, but also to some people’s dissatisfaction with that popularity. (The poster isreprinted in Chapter 9 and also inspired the cover of this book.) It shows thatsome foreign cinema-goers considered German films to be harmless entertainment,whereas others saw them as political products, whose consumption was an act ofcollaboration’ (p. xxi). The editors, I must say, have made the best of my previouscriticism by using the modified film poster to highlight many of the central issues oftheir book.
Cinema and the Swastika, in summary, proposes an understanding of Third ReichCinema as a complex and dynamic period rather than a static and nationally specificaberration within European film history. As such, it goes beyond analyses of about adozen partisan films in the service of fascist propaganda that characterise a number ofprevious books on Third Reich Cinema. The editors and contributors ought to becommended for the second revised edition of this book—this time without demurs.
TOBIAS HOCHSCHERF
University of Applied Sciences Kiel, Germany� 2012 Tobias Hochscherf
Hitler im deutschsprachigen Spielfilm nach 1945—Ein filmgeschichtli-cher UberblickALEXANDRA HISSEN
Trier, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2010304 pp., illus., bibliography, filmography and appendix, E28.50 (paper)
Alexandra Hissen’s dissertation on the representation of Hitler in German-speakingfilms promises in its subtitle ‘A Film Historical Overview’. Presented in chronologicalorder it describes 16 films which are considered to represent how the German (andin one case the Austrian) society dealt with its National Socialist past (p. 5). Although
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