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A trial is held and several witness are called. Hanna inherited a substantial sum when her father died, and Hanna’s brother Edward — who never liked Thomas and thought he himself should have received the money — accuses Thomas of killing his wife in order to get her inheritance. (more…)
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While researching my essay on Die große Liebe, I learned of the infamous pro-euthanasia Nazi film Ich Klage an. I’m glad I did. Oftentimes I watch these old cinematic artifacts for solely academic purposes, but with Ich Klage an, I found myself actually being engrossed in the story.
Ich Klage an, or I Accuse, is a propaganda film about a doctor whose wife becomes ill with multiple sclerosis, a rapidly progressive disease which destroys the nerves and reduces people to paralyzed vegetables. (more…)
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Harlan’s film, unlike Mendes’, was an enormous box office success,[1] and it is said that concentration camp guards and the SS were shown this film to remind them of their duties. It is fast-paced, and Harlan shows things: the oppression of Süß’s decrees, Theodora’s corpse, the angry mob, and the people fighting for their rights. Sturm’s calm, civil demeanor is contrasted with Süß’s slick manipulation and George’s overbearing yet sensual Karl. (more…)
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I’ve reviewed Munchhausen and Grosse Freiheit Nummer 7, films produced in the Third Reich that avoided discussing National Socialist philosophy regarding Jews. Which films from that era did? There was Der ewige Jude, Hitler’s favorite film on this subject given its depictions of Jews in caftans and beards, visually compared with rats scurrying down a drain. “That’s what I want to see,” Hitler said to Goebbels. “That’s what we need.” (more…)
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I have been wanting to write a review of Die große Liebe (The Great Love) for years. I read that it had the distinction of being the most popular movie in the Third Reich, and that got me curious. The only Nazi films that anyone has ever heard of are two that are discussed far out of proportion to their actual popularity at the time: the Hitler infomercial Triumph of the Will and Der ewige Jude, a helpful and informative public service announcement about the Jewish menace lurking in the shadows of Europe. As much as you hear about those two films, very few Germans actually saw either of them at the time. I wanted to see a Nazi movie that the average German actually watched and enjoyed. (more…)
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1943 was not a happy year for the Third Reich. After the disaster of Stalingrad came the catastrophe of Kursk, then the loss of North Africa. The Wehrmacht was on the defensive. America was beginning to enter the European theater in earnest. But it was a great one for German cinema due to the release of Munchhausen . Based on the exploits of Baron von Munchhausen, one of the literary world’s most famous yarn-spinners, it was a very high-prestige production made in full color, directed by Josef von Baky and starring Hans Albers as the Baron. (more…)
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When we think about Third Reich films, we always go to the usual: Triumph of the Will, Der Ewige Jude, Jud Süß, and Kolberg, Goebbels’ final, fist-shaking epic call to resistance as the Reich crumbled. Yet, German film a the time was quite varied, innovative, entertaining, and more than just propaganda films for the master race. Jewish writer Walter Laqueur observed that German film had a worldwide reputation in the 1920’s and ’30s, and even in the Nazi era films were made with a high level of competence and had considerable entertainment value. Unlike the other arts, movies under Hitler were given a great deal of latitude. (more…)