subscribe to this page
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1993.5.G3 K2913 1989
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1993.5.G3 K2913 1989
Call#: Van Pelt Library--4 East--Temporary Location Annenberg PN1993.5.G3 K2913 1989
Call#: Van Pelt Library--4 East--Temporary Location Annenberg PN1993.5.G3 K2913 1989
“The Politics of Representation”
This chapter starts with a description of the contrasting images of the filming of the extravagant film Kolberg with the harsh realities of war. Germany was constantly being bombed by the allies; the people were seeking refuge in bomb shelters while director Veit Harlan was concerned with finishing filming. This introduction shows the ridiculousness of the whole situation. This situation illustrates how the priorities of the Nazis were very misguided. Goebbels, who was also overseeing the project, allowed for Harlan to draw away almost 200,000 troops from battle for use in the film. Kolberg was a film about a historic battle at Kolberg in which the citizens were key to victory. The film was meant to inspire, but it was released only a couple of months preceding eventual defeat. The film’s propaganda was lost because the war was already lost. “Today, Harlan’s Kolberg has become an emblem of the Third Reich’s unshakable belief in the demagogic power of images” (Kaes 3-4). The Nazi political system relied on keeping its power through the maintaining of an appearance of strength and a belief in the system, which were both fostered by propaganda through film. The keeping up of these appearances became a major goal of the Nazis that often interfered with other priorities i.e. the war effort. The only reason the Nazis were successful was because of the Godlike status the Nazis were able to give Hitler through the use of these appearances, which were built using film.
The argument of this chapter directly supports the claim that the Nazis placed an overly high value on film because of the over importance of image and appearances to the Nazi system. Goebbels and the Nazis should have recognized, though, that the resources spent on keeping up these appearances with extravagant films like Kolberg would have been better utilized directly in the war. The maintaining of appearances should not matter once fear of survival is an issue, but Goebbels obviously did not realize this. The Nazis should have changed their priorities once the threat of defeat became evident. It is unbelievable that even a couple months before defeat Goebbels still had the production of Kolberg completed. The propaganda generated by film was seemingly more important to Goebbels than military victory. Such misguided priorities and principles doomed the Nazis.
tagged adolph_hitler book film germany goebbels image kolberg nazi nazi_cinema propaganda by lcuzz ...on 02-DEC-08
Call#: Ctr for Adv Judaic Studies Lib, 4th & Walnut Sts. CJS PN1993.5.G3 K7 1942
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler, a psychological history of the German Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947.
“Nazi Views And Measures”
All films in Nazi Germany were propaganda films. Newsreels and features were the two forms of propaganda. Newsreels were a means of propaganda not information. The purpose of newsreels was to give the German people skewed world views. The production of newsreels greatly increased at the onset of WWII. While newsreels portrayed falsified messages, the scenes shown were never faked—they were always actual footage taken on site. This element made these propaganda newsreels more believable. The Nazis prided themselves on the fact that the cameramen for newsreels were like “regular soldiers, doing a soldier’s full duty, always in the first lines…” (Kracauer 276). The deaths of these cameramen and reporters at the front lines were emphasized to the public to reiterate the fact that the reporters were, indeed, amongst the soldiers on the war front. These newsreels were considerably long, so that the propaganda techniques could be repeated for increased effectiveness. While newsreels were long, unlike feature films, newsreels were produced rapidly so that the information was timely and viewed as actual news.
While in my thesis I use the broad term film, I only consider the term to describe feature films. This chapter highlights the importance of the newsreel. The newsreel is a form of film propaganda that I really should not have ignored. Because of the newsreel’s entirely different nature, its inclusion would have given my thesis more depth. The newsreel did not have the same production costs or length of time needed for production because all the footage is filmed live at the scene. Considering these facts, newsreels as film propaganda were much more cost effective than feature films. While newsreels directly told Germans what to believe, newsreels still were subtle forms of propaganda because they were being portrayed in documentary style as fact. In my thesis I argued that film was overvalued by the Nazis at times because of its great cost when resources were needed badly for the war effort. Newsreels, though, would have served as a good compromise. Still, though, when the situation with the war became very dire, resources should never have been diverted from the war effort.
tagged book cine_101 film germany nazi nazi_cinema newsreels propaganda war wwii by lcuzz ...on 02-DEC-08