Marshall. L. "A Nazi Piece of Work," Herald Sun 06 May 1995. LexisNexis. 1 Dec 2008

     While Kolberg, has been criticized for being such an extravagant film that was filmed very late in the war and so close to Germany's defeat, there was another film that was being produced after Kolberg.  The production of this film went on almost until Germany’s defeat.  With shortages, bombings, and death only twenty miles away, Goebbels ordered the making of another extrazagant film, Das Leben geht weiter or Life Goes On. The set designer of this last film of the Nazi era, was instructed to “spare no expense to recreate the aftermath of the devastating Berlin air raids in November 1943”(Marshall).  This film was meant to be an updated version of Kolberg that just as extravagant.  The idea of the film was Goebbels', who definitely became obsessed with film.   This last film had mostly been forgotten in history.  This is in part because those involved were embarrassed they were part of the film , so they did not talk about the film.  The other reason is that the footage was completely lost.
    Most film historians view Kolberg as Goebbels' last production and biggest folly, but Das Leben geht weiter apparently takes its place.  This last film shows how illogical Goebbels was.  Germany did not have the resources to endure in World War II, but Goebbels felt that it had the resources to make a 2.5 million marks budget film.  Goebbels' priorities were very misguided.  He definitely should have had someone checking his power.  Goebbels wasted so many of Germany’s resources on useless film production.  Kolberg was barely viewed by audiences and Das Leben geht weiter was never finished and the footage was completely lost.  Even if these films had been viewed, they still would have been wasteful because the resources were needed so much more for the war effort.  Goebbels definitely overvalued film to the point where he was willing to sacrifice the war.  While this wasteful film production was not the cause of Germany’s loss, it definitely did nothing to help Germany endure with so many resources were being diverted away from the war.

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.

Baird, Jay W. "From Berlin to Neubabelsberg: Nazi Film Propaganda and Hitler Youth Quex." Journal of Contemporary History 18.3 (1983): pp. 495-515.

Jay W. Baird’s article discusses how the film Hitler Youth Quex twisted parts of the historical reality of a young member of the Hitler Youth’s story into a narrative that “channeled idealism into action in support of the state.” Baird argues that the “although grounded in fact, reality gave way to symbol” in the film, going further to discussing how filmmakers used symbolism to convey their message of nationalism to audiences. Baird extensively dissects the story of Herbert Norkus (the hero of the film) and analyzes how certain segments of the story are portrayed in the film in order to inspire audiences to relate to the film and move them in a way that audiences leave with a heightened sense of nationalism and patriotism. Some examples that Baird discuss are: twisting elements of the story to fit into the mold of a passion play, the use of stereotypes to portray the “Jewish-Bolshevik” as the enemy, and the romanticization of the role of the youth.

This article is helpful to my research because it describes techniques that another film created to be Nazi propaganda used in order to inspire change. While Jud Suss is commonly regarded as a film that directly cultivated a feeling of anti-Semitism in Nazi-Germany, Hitler Youth Quex is commonly regarded as a film that directly inspired many youth to support and join the Hitler Youth. In addition, Baird argues that Hitler Youth Quex “set the standard for subsequent Nazi film propaganda.” It is useful to compare the techniques used in both films to better understand what aspects of a Nazi propaganda film are effective in inspiring change in attitude as well as inciting audiences to take action as a result of absorbing the messages in a film. In this case, both films drew from the creation of a sense of unity and nationalism among the audience as well as the sense that Jews are non-human entities incredibly different from the upstanding German citizen.

Friedman, Lester D. "The Edge of Knowledge: Jews as Monsters/Jews as Victims." MELUS 11.3 (1984): pp. 49-62.

Friedman argues that many of our deepest feelings about minorities are formed and cultivated by visual media, such as film or television. He borrows film critic Robin Wood’s simple formula for horror films: “normality is threatened by the monster.” (49) This postulate is then applied to the representation of Jews in film. Friedman argues that usually films tend to avoid including any sort of allusions to specifically ethnic characters as to make the film as universally appealing as possible. He argues that once a character is identified with a specific ethnicity or race, then that character takes on a wealth of political, social, and sexual connotations that increase the complexity of the film. However, these connotations also run the risk of offending certain audiences. He examines the role of the Jewish “monster” in Paul Wegener’s The Golem, a German Expressionist film from 1920.

This idea of the Jew as the “monster” is one that is repeated in several of the texts that I have selected for this project. Here, it is applied not to Jud Suss, but to The Golem, a German film created twenty years prior to the creation of Jud Suss. However, many of the stereotypes of Jews that are used in The Golem are seen again in Jud Suss, as well as other anti-Semitic films created in Germany. It is interesting to note how Jewish stereotypes are treated even before the rise of the Weimar Republic and to draw comparisons between the representations of Jews in The Golem and those in Nazi films.

Additionally, Friedman discusses a question similar to my thesis: “What demonic power could match Hitler’s feat of turning members of the most humane professions into murders and supporters of a totally immoral regime?” (56). According to the article, the answer lies in propaganda’s ability to depict the world as “vast and terrifying horror movie” where the lines between good and evil are very clear. German audiences internalized the depictions of good and evil that were fed to them through various cultural texts, one of which was the Jewish “monster.”

  Kolberg. Dir. Veit Harlan. Perf. Horst Caspar, Gustav Diessl, Heinrich George, Kurt Meisel, Kristina Soderbaum . DVD. UFA, 1945. 

    Kolberg is a historical epic of the Nazi film era.  It is about the patriotism of the people of Kolberg during the Napoleonic wars and the importance of the average citizen.  The film highlights the patriotism of Nettleback.  He steps on the toes of his superiors to make sure that victory was had in Kolberg at all costs because that is what the people of Kolberg desire, for they are a proud and loyal people.  The officer in charge of Kolberg’s defense is doing a poor job and conflicts with Nettelback, imprisoning Nettelback, who was merely trying to correct the deficits in Kolberg?s defenses.  Nettelback sends his trusted Maria to the king to ask for a different officer for Kolberg.  Maria meets with the queen and is struck speechless by the Queen’s beauty and majesty.  She is successful in getting Nettelback’s request granted.  The way Nettelback and the newly appointed officer work together shows how the citizens and the government can truly combine efforts for the greater good.  Romance also finds its way in the film with Maria and Lieutenant Schill.  The reoccurring theme throughout the film is that a citizen must be willing to sacrifice all for his country.  Honor and loyalty to one’s country trump all else. This theme is illustrated in Maria and Lieutenant Schill's conversation about their willingness to sacrifice all for Kolberg and how only then would it be enough.
    Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, felt that Kolberg would inspire the citizens to support World War II by drawing on astounding examples of patriotism by average citizens and its great significance to Germany.  Because of the importance Goebbels placed in the impact of the film, he was willing to divert many of Germany’s much needed war resources to the making of this movie, which was the one of costliest of this era.  Two hundred thousand troops were used in the making of the film, troops that were taken away from battle.  The cost of the film was very extravagant, and Germany really did not have the surplus of resources to accommodate such a project.  Film production began in 1943 and was not completed until 1945, so the film’s impact as a source of propaganda was very minimal, considering Germany was on the brink of defeat and most of the theaters were closed from the mass destruction from the Allies’ bombings.  “The film remained virtually unseen as the city fell to Soviet troops” (Thompson and Bordwell 274).  Overall, Kolberg was a great folly of Goebbels and a waste of money and resources that Germany could not afford. (Thompson and Bordwell 274)
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History An Introduction. 2nd. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.