DICTATING THE PAST: THE CAPTURE OF MEDIEvALI5M IN NAZI CINEMATIC PROPAGANDAAND THE ROOTS OF THE HOLOCAUST
Jeremiah Garsha
WINNER OF THE JOSEPH MuLLIN PRIzE IN HISTORY (ORIGINAL RESEARCH)
T begins innocently enough. A scythe-wielding farmer mows through Istalks of wheat, piling his uprooted harvest into a horse drawn cart. The wheat is transported to an ancient windmill, yet inside of this mill the wheat is threshed by anachronistic, ultra-modern German machi nery. The pressed flour is given to a very rural baker, a true medieval artisan, who painstakingly bakes it into loafs of bread for young, blond children and their mothers to eat. The above description is the opening scene of film, Blut undBo den (Blood and Soil). The film was one of the first in a pantheon of Nazi sponsored cinema. From the beginning, medievalism was a central trope of Nazi propaganda. Blut und Boden,with its combination of premodern imagery blended with Nazi led modernity, had a much more sinister intention then the opening scene announced. Behind all of the reimagined premodern symbols, or medievalisms, in Nazi propaganda, was a systematic attempt to guise the ultra-radical Nazi agenda under a masquerade of traditional and conservative ideolo gy. The Nazi Party’s policy was always a racial policy. The creation of a racially pure German nation required an education campaign of the general German public. for the Nazis, the core threat to the racial state was always the presence of Jews. As Nazi policy shifted from Jewish expulsion to genocide, each change in policy was marked by an altering of the messages within Nazi propaganda. The medium of film, as Joseph Goebbels (Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda), pointed out, “is one of the most modern and far-reaching ways of 132 Jeremiah Garsha influencing the masses.” Goebbels was quick to see cinema as a means that could “educate public taste according to the dictates of the Party.” When the Party’s instructions became genocidal, Nazi cinematic propa ganda had already made racial enmity more acceptable to the German public. In searching for the proximate origins of the Holocaust in the 19305 and r94os, the questions of how, and to what extent, “ordinary” Germans became complicit in a campaign of systematic mass murder remains contested.2 It is clear that the Nazi Party waged a powerful—and ultimately successful—propaganda campaign, which manipulated Germanic culture and history for nationalistic and later, genocidal purposes. Certainly it is not sufficient to maintain that the public was simply deceived by Nazi rhetoric, as the extent to which Nazi propagan da had on influencing popular opinion will always be debatable. ‘Whilethis article will not assess the level of compliancy the German public played in creating or allowing the Holocaust, it does argue that the Nazis shrewdly and skillfully manipulated and re-imagined a past filled with medievalisms, which they combined with long standing Völkisch ideology within propaganda and therefore contributed to broader acceptance ofthe Holocaust. The Völkischmovement, which is discussed in some detail below, was a response to the Industrial Revolu tion and a large component of nineteenth century German nationalism, ripe with organic metaphors and anti-Semitism. Bydefining Jews asthe longstanding, bourgeois and industrialized “other” and contrasting this image with an idealized “pure” and medievalized Aryan Volk, Nazi propaganda used medievalism to create ethnic unity and justify imperial expansion, while slowly shifting toward a campaign of genocide. Four documentary-style propaganda films, released between the ge nesis of Nazi rule in 1933 and the beginning of the Holocaust in 1940, demonstrate how the Nazi Party used a re-imagination of German history to gain public support for a radical agenda of racial purity. The films Blut und Boden (Bloodand Soil) [1933], Ewiger Wald (Eternal Forest) [1936], and Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) [1940] each exemplified unique themes of Nazi nationalism. The films began with nationalistic calls for unity and a redefinition towards classifying the German people in terms of heredity and birthplace. They then moved toward militaristic
Quoted in Veronica Ortenberg, In Search of the Holy Grail: The Quest for the Middle Ages (New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), 112. Seethe arguments between Daniel Goidhagen’s Hitlers WillingExecutioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Random House, 1997), and Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion lol and the final Solution in Poland (New York: HaperCollins, 1992). Both are drawn from the same primary source material, yet each posits dramatically different conclusions.
Ex Pos’r FAcTo DICTATINGTHE PAST 133 expansion and an obsession of ethnic purity by means ofJewish elimina tion. This article also examines the film Olympia [1938], as a further example of the flexibility of medievalism in propaganda and how the Nazis absorbed antiquity into their national narrative. This article focuses on a relatively understudied aspect during the Nazi period, the capture of medievalism, and with it the loaded notion of medieval and modern anti-Semitism, all within the newest propaganda medium—cinema and film. Yet, the terms “anti-Semitism,” “medieval ism,” and “propaganda” are vague and loaded semiotic snares, often concealing more than they reveal.3Before moving into a deconstruction and contextualization of specific films,we must first unpack and redefine certain core terms. The definition of “anti-Semitism” used in this paper is the one con cluded by Gavin Langmuir in his collection, Towards a Definition of Antisemitism. In many ways the definition itself is a medievalism, as it includes “not only [the] racist manifestation but all instances in which people, because they are labeled Jews, are feared as symbols of sub- humanity and hated for threatening characteristics they do not in fact possess.”4Interestingly, Langmuir argued that anti-Semitism under this definition began in the Middle Ages.5 The use of the term “anti- Semitism” in this paper refers to both the legacy ofJewish discrimination and to the Jews as a symbol of corruption. Nazi propaganda was never based on truth or accuracy, but rather on projecting a re-imagination of what was never there. In this sense, the term “propaganda” is also expanded to a broader definition, referring to not only the standard State sponsored pieces of literature, posters, and film, but also includes how the Nazi Party chose to portray itself. for the purpose of this paper, unless specifically stated, “propaganda” and “cinematic propaganda pieces” will be used interchangeably. I use the term “propaganda” for any film that, at its core, is an attempt to directly influence the viewers’ perceptions and opinions. The “medievalism” in Nazi propaganda films followsthe same gener al definition of “medievalism,” the romantic recreation of the Middle Ages, with one major difference. It was not the Middle Ages that the Nazis were reimagining, but rather a nineteenth century romantic notion of the Middle Ages, and the Vdlkisch movement that followed. The Vdlkischmovement will be discussed momentarily, but the definition of “medievalism” used in this article includes both general medievalism as
I have borrowed this phrase from Professor Trevor Getz. Gavin I. Langmuir, Towards a Definition ofAntisemitism (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 191—192. Emphasis added. Ibid., 192.
VOLUME XIX 2010 134 Jeremiah Garsha outlined above, and the transformation of Romantic medievalism and Völkisch medievalism during the National Socialist period. In this way Nazi medievalism takes Jean Baudrillard’s simulacrum one step further, creating a copy of a “copy of an original that never existed.”6Therefore, the term “medievalism” in this paper is synonymous with a reimagined premodern past. Anti-Semitism in propaganda was neither particular to Nazi Germa ny, nor was the portrayal of medievalism for nationalistic aims exclusive ly used by the Nazis. In combining all three of these aspects within a uniquely Nazi racial ideology, however, Nazi propaganda paved the way for both public acceptance of a Judenrein Reich (an empire cleansed of Jews) and the militaristic expansion of Lebensraum (living space). Before we explore specific Nazi propaganda, we must first examine the Vôlkisch movement in some detail. Volldsm became the habitus out of which the Nazi Party established itself as a legitimate inheritor.7 The Party reached back to Volkism both to legitimize itself and to further its nationalistic aims. Volkism rejected the rationalism of the Enlighten ment following the rapid urbanization caused by industrialization.8 While not unique to Germany, it was there that a romantic reaction morphed into the very Germanic Völkischnotion, which formed the core of all Nazi cinematic propaganda. Much like the milieu preceding Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the Völkisch movement began at a time of crisis and chaos in Germany. Following the formation of the German nation-state, in 1871, and the rapid growth of industrialization in the decades that followed, many Germans experienced widespread feelings ofalienation. Workers became dislocated, moving from the rural countryside to growing cities in search of economic opportunities. This increased the overall feeling of disen franchisement, as hundreds of thousands of Germans abandoned the rural countryside and traditional craftsmanship for industrialized urban jobs as manufacturers. The move left many feeling both inwardly isolated and outwardly alienated from society. Historian George L. Mosse, an expert on the German Völkisch movement, has argued that the move ment began as a desire for unity, as individuals wanted “to feel like they
6 have borrowed this phrase from Daniel T. Kline’s Virtually Medieval” in David W. Marshall, ed., Mass Market Medieval: Essays on the MiddleAges in Popular Culture (North Carolina: McFarland, 2007), 169. I use a broad meaning of the term ‘habitus,” referring to a type of cradle and frame work; See Bruce Holsinger, The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 96. Mark Levene, Genocide in the Age of the Nation State: Volume II: The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide (London: lB. Tauris, 2005), 1.
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life
Werburg,
linkage
using
that
farm
documentary
of
farmers
Source
economy
to
was
rootedness,
and
family,
be
to
“Green
with
group
creation
modernity
the
particular
with
the
The
the
“the
The
the
a
they
Hans
dressed
peasant
also
Richard
sought
central
to
family
to
muse,
of
beau
Nazi’s
Party” of
land,
farm
who
serfs
with their
new
1933 land
this
can
soil
the
von
the
the
als
by of
is
at
is
of of
by
are
life the
139
the
the
the
zoro
that that
1933
rate,
now Jews
Nazi
Nazi
from
He
times
film’s
bread
urban
of
family
round which
(Oxford:
forcing
cities,
sacks
reclassi
the
striking.
Berlin,
the
drums
products
XIX
bread
economic
perceived
The
being
While and
Jewish
of
and
Jews.
malevolent
fruits
Nuremberg
cart,
three
population.
farm
nourish
law
Their
hands
a
same
standard
workers, the
Germany
tenement,
“othered”
mortality
city
transported
invader,
milk
are
middleman. in
1935
male
release,
demonstrate
foreign
This
which
the
Jewish
city.
beard
exotic an VOLUME
Nazi
Jewish
drawn
message
The
products:
of the
rural of
and cannot
in
the
original
produced
did
interpreted
international
as
particularly
empty
infant
rates
of
the
businesses.
fhrther
become
it
of
these
tombstones.
is
limit
1871.”
out upon
L(fe
even
the
an
has
they
dense
Boden’s and
horse to
crane
in
to
mass
abundant
showing
bourgeois
foreign
thus
a
implicit
film
a
underscoring
and vitality.z7
his
so clear;
Jewish
flows
und
owned
into
would
depicted
industrialized
PAsT
of
growing
was
and
shows
is
the
stereotypes and
effective,
the
in
is
mortality
with
approval
emancipated
gathering
Kaplan
with
of
Jews
Blut
in
follows,
THE the
therefore
Volk’s
what
the Despair:
migrating
others, industrial
foundations
representing
of
milk
money
Jewish
Nazi
moves
unification
filled
power Boden
suit,
Holland,
in
public
infant
to
the
pockets
an of cosmopolitan
and
farmer
of
after
is
and
message
scene
the
and what
“the
and images
Marion
by
und
modernity
the
bloodlines,
since
the
nature
unclean.26
first
communal feed
of
family
all
that from
.
countryside,
soil,
most
crosses,
The economically
. a Dignity t7.
DIcTATING
segregate
seizing
with
by
middleman
to
rises,
show
ship
market bottles
Blut
towards
into
can
the
way, months
and
business
the
by
not
Jews
along
to
of
montage the
1998),
historian
white
whispering
after
The
food
this
and
step A
Between
viewers
belongings
large
of
was
Empire.
German than
of
racially
were
three
uprooted
tanker
carried
In
of
Volk
half
a
and
Germany’s
vegetables
moving
a Press,
in
Germany.
the
first
conforms
modern
sea
Volk
city
and
conspiratorial
the
stripped
move
threshed
juxtaposed
of
Just
acts their
Kaplan,
a
a in example
agriculture
he Unvölkisch, market.
Boden.
uproot.
fast
is
the
British prices
A.
boycott As
from
the
afford.
tells
by
Holocaust
and
in up
one
second
an
to
presence
first
German
as
of
grown butter,
und
the
smiling
in
early
the originally
University
which
organized
as The
1933
joyfully
to
working
rooted
existed
the
The The
Blut
time Marion
not
Volk
impure, longer ‘
6
used
the Oxford
only
narrator
images replaced
factories. higher
migration
Laws, as
fied packing
had
Hitler’s
Party boycott
cascade.
participation
secretive Dressed These
eyeglasses, shown propaganda.
April
hard
Danish
offloaded are
across
train Volk.
no
wheat
the were
Ex 2001),
ty
ness wrote
its front
calls
subsequent
overt but the
represents
the
German reimagined putting
cede with
young
behind
Völkisch singing,
miraculously Aryan
The
under
their of
stalks who
larger will
reduced
smaller
caused narrator, 140 30
l
and
PosT
call
freshly
David
Ibid. Ibid.
Boden.
peasantry
While
While
Blut
of original be
the
in
85.
have cinematic
children.
horse
connection
to
that
are
purity,
the
map
Volk
for
and
cinematic
three
the by
the
a
FACTO
“Blut
lifeblood,
Welch,
the and
as
und
to
tradition,
human
again
“there
baked
unity,
Blut
stayed
Nazi
improper
Historian
not
a
the
they
drawn
Swastika.
shows
films Völkisch
90,000
blond.
hard
are
short farm
entire
million.2S
Boden
smaller
doubled
Ewiger
und by
Propaganda
only
The
film
und
features,
flag,
tilled
building
slowly
are
highlighting
this
bread,
face
expounding
to
rooted
propaganda.
family,
Boden”
and
cart,
nourishing
that
film,
Boden
original
the
“blood the
also
The
residents.
Völkisch ends
four
we
nutrition,
and
ideal
film
Wald
and
on
until
in
necessary
which
the
earliest
grow
film
intended
see The
the
sought
film
and
in
size,
cinematic
the
Blut
with
tall
now
million
genre.3°
threshed,
used
is
now
only
and
(Eternal
the
it
Jeremiah
that
family
the
grain
a
graph
glorified
Agricultural
ideology.
barns,
into
and
upon
und
the ends
is
the
shows perfect protected
As
a
will
projected
German
medievalism
Nazi countryside.
return
soil”
to
now
pockets
it
inhabitants
largely Germany
importance
nation
With
the
Boden
a
work
morphs
is
solidify
consisting
do
continues
Nazi
the
with
only
column
Forest)
complete
propaganda
not
overflowing
campaign,
it
Garsha
Cinema: father
example
to
the
The
to
theme;
in
its
propaganda
by
urban
of
of
only
now
and
is
for
for
these
the
campaign;
rural
defense
the
the
into
film,
significant
the inhabitants
is
farmers.29 used
for
unloads of
mass Party
1933—1945
remaining
agrarian
to
in
instead
filled
of
of
shown
with
Nazi
establishing
Hereditary
of year
identical
growth.
nationalistic
mortar,
children
existing
worker
reduce
Berlin.
three
more
created
with
film,
these
medievalism’s
members
of
with
large
Party’s expert
2050,
the
child
(New
the slowly
of
wheat.
landscape.
than
but
in children
Blut
same
left
“Today,”
the
as
as
and
showing firmly
.
film
wheat,
soldiers
a
many
rural
marching Swastika
.
York:
Act,
also
a after
and
by
the
pantheon
David
will
just
what
city
base
propaganda
aims
the
and
dying
und
As
served
notions
1960
returns
Volk
7.
rooted
the
savior
ways.
has
Berlin
be
child,
of
the
it
but
Like
B.
says
useful
smiling
among
Welch
images to
of
united
Wheat
Welch
Boden
passes
Tauris,
Berlin
those
most
flags.
off, there
now
uni soil,
pre
and
and also
as
the
the
By
to
all
of
to of
in
is
a a
a a
1-
is
to
In of
as
of
in an and
141
we
the
the
the
the i,no.
I. and
and
was
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was 2010
by
Blut
film
exist
shots
in
of
Aryan
fierce,
one
biased
from
rooted
milita
Roman
was
past
Rhine ancient
Wald’
German
War
uses
film
forest
film
the
after
inside
XIX
grounded
its
present
the
for
an
audience
that
the
village.
the
angle
screen the
Boundaries
of
the
firmly
the
events
the
as connection
‘Ewiger
passage
of
years
the
on with
World
rootedness
low
rural mounted through
Sonjevski-Jamrowski
placed
Germania:
underscored
rearmament
themes
in
the
that
the after
VOLUME
“Lebensraum,”
undefeated
“from support
narration
blood by
“/olk:’
illusion
Lebensraum
as
above the
von
invading
three
are Ecological
planted
the
for
as pagan
historical exhorts
and
the
after
by
the
The of
Roif
defeat and
soil,
thus
time.3’
public
journeys between
Tacitus’
feet recreation
1936,
shortly
expansion
characters
Lebensraum
showed
off its
“Forest as invasion
and
in
narrator,
the
invoking
year
in
of
and
Social
the
within to
PAST
eternal
an
maintaining
this
that
deceased
both of By
28.
the
narrator
create
one
caskets.
viewer
pseudo-documentary,
creating
implication.
is
primitive, drawn
Wilke,
Wald’s
reimagine
Versailles
an
through
landscape,
a
justification
to that
THE
directly the
Springer
the
is
to
of
says
is
The
with
notion
horses,
following
(Eternal)”
for
rooted 7936,
‘Volk’,”
justify
always
described produced
Sabine
and
surprise on
as
in
built
the
to
length,
canopy,
wooden Ewiger
Hanns
major
yet moving
and
weighted
where
Volk,
was
German
no
Treaty attempt
Reich,”Journal
ever-present
history
forest,” a
by
firmly
as
tribes
and contrast
Lee
full is “Ewiger
DicTATING emphasize
“Forest
an
recreated
and
Germany
the
the
are stand-ins
G.
the
are
It
a re-imagination
the
tradition. soldiers
Third
Wald
[Lebensraum].3z
and
to Romans,
prospective.
the
history.
conflict
in
burial,
was
justifying expansion
the but
directed
events
beyond As
Wilke,
from
attempted the
like serving
deciduous
the forest
in They
Robert
period
significant
by
a
a
signifier
space
triumphant
a and
(“we”)
violated Ewiger
VHS,
Hitler,
past,
logs
move
violent traversing
26—27.
historical
Völkisch
Wald
taken historical repel
1997); time
Lee
Laws.
pure. German
Nature
themselves
wir
The expansion.
appear
The
to placing
Germans,
in
the for
in originated
of
historical
living
Wald,
out
communal
Hitler of
added
rootedness
militaristic
next
area are
Film,
By
Boden.
first
towards
and in
2005)
through
Nazi!
They
while
of
form
our expansion,
“We Ewiger
Lex
up
the
also
German
und
Boden.
The The
Quoted just Ewiger Religion “ ‘ (Spring, (1936; 1
the
nation.
Völkisch
defending foreigners.
legions.
ristic and
constantly
part, retelling ground,
obsession and,
build released, geographic
film
scene not
inhabitants plural
hollowed Volk.
moving
und history look
present warlike,
reenacted attempting
promote Nuremberg Blut
Lx
and
Boden
into
rallying
echoed. when
only need
Hitler’s
Create to
with
underscores
‘German
the
dissolves cities,”
Vollc
makes
forest and
eternal
of
recreated
heroic the
heroic
ideology
must
narration
example This,
142
“have
Fichte’s
n
6Quoted
the
the
PosT
Welch,
Ewiger Lee
Ibid.,
Fichte,
A
insignia
forest.”6
it
the
Following
glory
seeks
artisans
to
could
the tour
be
and
is invented
arguably,
Crusades.
theme
no
and
room
this
dead.
defenders
like
power
Eastern
expand call
.
eastern
FAao
In
best
statement
knights
Addresses
of
Wald;
willing
Propaganda
in
into
from
fear
medievalisms,
Wilke,
narrator
of
to
utilizing
to
of
stating
apparent,
Viking
ibid.;
for
medievalism
also
of
the
Ewiger
for
As
the
illustrated
the building
of
justify
The
of
of
Lee
the
the
Lebensraum,
the
in
European
the
Middle
borders
unity
‘Forest
the
Welch, the
The
is
rooted
become
the
take
war”
to
wood
Middle
of
and
to
order
camera
that
SS,
image
longships,
that
a
Roman
the
commands,
and
the
bodies die
the
nation
Völkisch
Wald,
Germany’s
forest,
phalanxes
Wilke,
direct
as
up
coupled
as connecting
on and
Propaganda
German
German
Ages.
Germanic
that
the
soil
power
rooted
so
of
to
the
by
‘Volk’,”
your
Ages as
at
skeletal
powerful,
of
Empire,
follows
Czechoslovakia,
proving
survive,
to
that
“Forest
burn,
and
invasion,
as Viking
the
forest
Jeremiah
is
play.
Viking
allusion
and
made
a
The
movement
Nation,
the “fight
“are
Cinema, swords! the
would
with majestic
30.
existing
past.
following
its
of
expansion the
“[t]o
and
presented
a
as
only
wooden natural
strength
narrator
and
the
armored
Grofldeutschland.
built
inheritors!”8
the
ships
their
superimposed
that
a
ships
‘VoIk’,”
the
like
for
the land
135—139.
The
sentiment
$8.
a
to
be
the
Garsha
Nazis’
Expand
permanence
soil
spire
large
German
in
the
with
Ewiger Nazi
tree
incomplete sail
the
the
ships.”35
film
give
may
resources.
for
example East
32.
the
frames
tells
of
need
into
with
Poland,
knights
soil
across
of Vikings,
top, early
elite
funeral
the propaganda
the
modern
then
way
Cinema, small,
the
you live
us,
Wald
a
which
the
for
the
to
Here
glory
Vikings
gothic
This
a
fighting
soil,
to ancient
the
to
“they
Völkisch
of
is
moves
and
can
of
spread,
common
all
are
Rhineland,
notion
The
without
show
rural
This
pyre
88.
call
a
echoed
medievalism.
the
by
screen,
we
expand
purposes,
Hitler
your
and
suggests
medieval
doubly
beyond
hear
owe
cathedral,
very
embracing
is
Volk.
for
is
are directly
rune
consumes
force
villages.37
into
that
that
the
linked
the
the
existence.”33
their
expansion,
an
the
repeatedly
shown
motif
next within
harbingers
the
“German
explicitly That
ominous
power
to
becomes
Blut
film
the
but
with
allusion
that
village,
words;
a
forest!
create
pulled
power
to
scene
Volk
clear
as
The
also
that
end
they
not
the
the
the
the
the
the
the
of it DICTATING THE PAsT 143 forest is destroyed by a peasant rebellion, which was out of control without strong centralized leadership, such as could have been found under the Nazis. The forest, however, has been replanted and the camera focuses on a row of trees lined up in single file. Quickly the image is overlaid with rapid shots of young Aryan soldiers, blending the trees and the militant Volk into one. The final element of Nazi ideology, an obsession with racial purity, begins in the latter half of the film. Surprisingly, Ewiger Wald breaks from the traditional transparent anti-Semitism, and instead depicts French-African soldiers as the classic “other.” The use of the black Africans as a warning against racial mixing is quizzical. On one hand, pronounced racial differences mark the African soldiers as the extreme “other,” cautioning the Aryan Volk to maintain racial purity. On the other hand, for National Socialism the corruption of blood came from inward threats, specifically Jews. Certainly the context of the occupying Africans in Ewiger Wald warns against blood mixing, as the narrative voice bemoans the “rotten decay” and the burden of the forest being overtaken by a non-native blood.39While on the surface this scene is meant to recall the humiliation of having the Rheinland stripped by the French following the Great War, the underlying notions of ethnic cleansing are particularly strilcing.The final scenes of Swastika carrying lumberjacks cutting out “what is sick and of foreign race” follows the standard Nazi fixation of a pure Aryan Volk by violent means.4° While EwigecWald remains a remarkable example ofmedievalism as rationali zation for expansion, its replacement of anti-Semitism with stark racial disparities and notions of ethnic cleansing do remove it slightly from the traditional collection of Nazi cinematic propaganda. Before moving on to the final example of purely anti-Semitic cine matic propaganda, we must briefly examine how Nazi propaganda absorbed the classical period into its Völkischmedievalism while using it to further strengthen the idea of a “pure” and healthy Aryan Volk. The Berlin Olympics occurred the same year audiences first viewed Ewiger Wald, and just a few months after Germany’s bloodless invasion of the Rhineland. Hitler saw the Olympic Games as a chance to legitimize the Nazi Party to a global audience, as well as a chance to showcase the physical prowess of the rooted Volk. He recruited director Leni Riefens tahi, who was made famous by Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), her 1934 propaganda masterwork about the Nuremberg rallies. In order to understand how the Nazi Party successfully incorporated
Ewiger Wald. 40 Lee and Witke, “Forest as ‘VoIk,”38.
VOLUME XIX 2010 Ex
Movements Press,
rion statement
outward Howard its
matic inheritors athletes.
corruption racial
representatives
sical
Berlin German journeying
er, the
ceremony,
Olympic from alluding industry
mortals. ground
flame transform
raw
point the
imagined a
ether.
only Roman
4 time 4’
‘°
PosT
frame Dr. Olympia Herodotus, Quoted Collection, George
Richard
The
ruins
Berlin
The
nature, past
1987),
examine
Marathon
science,
propaganda.
of than
Fertig,
before
Carl
Olympics,
The
and
and
FACro
torch
the
appearances
film
to
“Never,”
torch,
and
Olympic The to
in of
130. L. reality
in of i.
D.
into
was
of
emphasizes
coliseum,
to
of
Herodotus’ anything
Germany
Diem.44 the Tell,
Mosse,
Welch, with
Greek
tethered shot
torch, mind 1975), Herodotus, 2000).
Mandell,
the
begins
modernity.”42
time
Germany,
this,
was
the
torch
Greco-Roman
handoff
in
Aryan
today Third
“Fest
of
to
existing
suggests
Acropolis, their
192.
he
fact twenty The
Propaganda
the
nearer
culture
existed.
a
Hitler
Sparta
from outward
came
athletes,
der with
reference
said, is
The
else.
to
a
as
Nationalization under
invented Reich.
trans.A.
best
athletes,
feet
presented popular
Vblker.
story
carried the
the
literally the
Nazi
signs
to
in
a
to minute
“was
to
that
praised
and
The
indication
When
sweeping bare
Napoleonic
Jeremiah
pure
Soon
dominate
land
connection
and detailed
the beauty,
Olympics
By
ask Hitler’s
D. “
about
Riefenstahl
culture. of
DVD,
to
history
the
humanity Acropolis
Godley
in
tradition
by
examining always
German
in
passing
inner
ancient
and
for
Prometheus
and
an
in
images prologue
1934
the viewer the directed
of
a
an
Olympia
assistance.43
image shot Wars
(Champaign,
which unspoiled the
(London:
watchful
Garsha
runner
more
of
existing
into
the grass.
purity,
Athenian by
Cinema,
The
framed
physical inner
Masses:
the
of
world
and
slowly
in the
Through
quickly of
is also
by
medievalisms
the
Völkisch
of of
as
Aryan seeing
its
smoke
according
increasing
torch The Leni
William
neatly pivotal
across
German
giving
and virtue.
95.
the
Riefenstahi’s
“free
a
physical
external connected
Political
against
eye.
nature.
than come
Illinois: geographical
Riefenstahl
running athletes
the
appearance
Yet
vanishes,
most sun
from
the
racial rising
Heinemann,
from
ideology,
connected
The a
Third
distant
part
it following
here
into
tool
Olympic dissolves
Symbolism dawn
University
The
to
a
is
aesthetics
the
importantly
appearance
obsession
found
passing blue
Reich
of
up
[any
some
are
today.”45
purity
focus, nascent
(1938,
of
the
the
ancients
stone
the
Olympia.
as
through
of
the
shorelines,
situated we
1922),
of sky
(New
image
reference
runner
this
creation,
The organiz
the Olympic
26
Volk
the in and
of
into
they
gods
need
statues
as
Aryan
of of
Illinois
back
miles cine 256—7.
Crite
Nazi
with clas
York: Mass
This is
1936
and
into
the
the
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are
ofJ
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to is a
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the
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145
from
and
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and
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race
for
zoo6).
Jews
Jude
Nazi
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press,
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acclaim, fabricate
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in
emerging
appear XIX
Utah,
Thus,
sought
complete.
Germany.
ghettoiza
in
ewige
December
und
he
to
film,
the throughout
of
Jewish invasion
had
vermin,
not
permanently
representing
threat
available
in
business,
German
from
1938
rats
they
Jews
searching
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conditions.
Blut
are
of
living
and
nearly
war,” 1939
as
forced
the
order
and
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entire
creating
through
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in
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masks
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into
[1936],
on-linel;
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released
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infamous
Reich
“Jews
conditions
The
stream
of
of
moved
culture
physical
and
a
toward
Jews
Hitler that sixth
3239952;
deplorable
Wald
were
death.”47
Third to
caused
world
victims,
diss.,
again
resulted
behind
leaders
had
received recycles
in
faux-documentary,
footage
rootedness
Hitler’s
PAsT the
the
Empire. depicts
AAT September
with
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[database
the
filthy
steps
images
date
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German
also
notion (Ph.D.
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release,
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Party
Ewiger
THE homes
and
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to
film
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into
of
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upon
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the
repeated
opens
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Olympia
number
Jude
together
from
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direct
plunge
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the
and
east,
in is
film’s
themselves
with
unity
films
but
analysis”.
film
for
Full
inherently
shortly
Poland
question—how
Despair,
of
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documentary
that
ewige
foster
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Jackson,
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complete
DICTATING
of
result
war,
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of
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to
The
and
uprooting
dissolving
them,
coinciding
expansion
Dec
clustered
exclusion
were
boycotts, the
(publication
to message
conceal
public
expanded
will
Jewish
Theses:
motifs
actual
myth-ritual
into Ernest
Riefenstahi’s time
should
the
debuted
eradicated.
A
Jewish
films.
Dignity
1933
audience
social The
[‘940],
were
act
Jews
anti-Semitic
&
from
the
before
the
narrator
the
they
of
be
attempt
speech
closer
after
to
enforced
Jews
the
the
Jude
1935,
the
world
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who
Sherland
German
the that
an
Jew)
“this
Jews
Germany
features
in
Between
in
the
nationalistic
in
sewers
who
overtly
Europeans.”8
tells the ghettos.
(1933—1934):
years
but
Nazi
before
the
ewige the
Jews.
beyond Since
“If
rule,
Jews,
Nazi
Jude therefore
332.
and
the
Solution
propaganda
Reichstag
Eternal
of
Ibid.,
Dissertations
film,
Kaplan,
illusion
The
Quoted
Dec
destruction
Two
most
the a 48
46
Europe.”6
In http://tvww.proquest.com
2008),
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the
infested
from
Nazi
civilized
reality,
Germans narrator
the
final ghettos,
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Kristallnacht, tion
remove
Poland. citizenship
systematically the
As
[i33] plunged formal
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soil.
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physiognomy.
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crime,
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them
narrator large
certainly imbued
Jew
rootless.
is
thu.49 is
German. 146
‘ “lbid.
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usually
in
Jews
Ibid.
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Susan
Der
heroic
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In
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children.
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that
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and
statement,
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of
says
the
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prostitution
“buy refused
.
It
meant
translated
not
Aryan
the
Jackson, maintain
.
suggesting
Der
Jews.53
as
a
also
Jude,
as
legend,
must
race
that
und deconstructs
Vdlkisch
Nazis
most
one
medievalism
and
the
“rooted,”
it the
plague,
The
lands
via
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in
landscape,
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as
uploaded
nevertheless
artisans
The
Verwertungs,
to
simultaneously
of
“Creating
of
wherever
the
myth
be
year sell,
film
and
blood.
an
threatening
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the
Vdlkisch course,
help
parasites.”52
pure
as
the
in
while
Jude
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film’s
and
urban
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the
organic allusion
leprosy,
but
claims
the
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after
connotation
is
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somewhere
web
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international
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of
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is
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glorification
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to
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and
and to
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produce.”5’
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directed
1940),
Jew,
because
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York: roamed,
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Garsha
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http://video.google.com/videoplay
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conditions
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from carried
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scene
how
by
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the
adjective
of
of Jews,
to
comes
pottery,
Volk Jews
aJudenrein
Fritz
In
rats
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cholera,
their
farmers,
wrongs
rural wander
first
faces
of
ordered
gambling
reminds
all
has
on
this
Christian
of
loosely
the
followed, Christian the
Hippler
Eastern
following are
while
the
of
ideology
of
unrooted
scene
in
the
a
2007),
way
in
production
as
of
and
film
and
double
Germany, cross
responsible
racial
the
of
dysentery,
film
eternally,
the
without
Ewiger
pure
the
Nazi
society, “othering”
the
the
originating,
modernity.
(Berlin,
and
150.
of
digging
in
shows
form
myth
Europe.
carrying elements
is
Lebensraum
up
scene
purity
invasion
viewer
the
this
film
was
meaning
blond nature,
a
organized
notion
to Wald
light
of
Deutsche
manual
literally film
and
about
context
images
lingers
forever
is
Jewish
and
Golgo
shows
in
for
overt
with
Jews
why
with
and
also
and
The
the
and
the
But
and
but
is
its
of
all
so
of
in
a a DICTATING THE PAST 147
Russia, which was closely followed by the Einsatzgruppen death squads and the subsequent mass murder of millions of Jews and Slaysbeginning in 1941. The four films examined in this paper are but small pieces of propa ganda, and on their own did not significantly create a campaign of genocide. When deconstructed, however, the films do reveal a great deal of information regarding the ways Nazi ideology portrayed itself. The prevalence of Vdlkisch notions of belonging and ‘otherness” within these films underscores the important role these themes had in influencing the masses. The Holocaust did not come about at one decisive moment, but was rather carried out slowly. It began with a redefinition of identity, so crucial in films like Blut und Boden. German remilitarization and expan sion following the humiliation of World War I were crucial steps toward establishing Nazi led dominance and legitimacy, and the messages of Ewigec Wald underscored the importance of a Volk rooted together in a shared and undiminished history. finally, films like Der ewige Jude dramatically colored the Jews as the rootless and wandering “others,” a subhuman race of plague-carrying vermin, infected with modernity and threatening the entire, racially-defined, German Volk, inheritors of the Classicand Medieval Ages. The film attempted to persuade audiences to agree with the Nazis; that the logical conclusion to vermin infestation is extermination. In order to reach such a conclusion, these films built upon one another. In the early years of Nazism, Blut und Boden and Ewiger Wald developed the notion of Völkisch connectedness through the home soil. Not only did this provide a platform for Nazi ideology to take root, but it also reinforced the nineteenth-century notions of German nationalism. The films argued that ethnic Germans had a shared and close relation ship to natural landscape of Germany. Olympia helped transform these feelings of German unity into a physical glorification of the Aryan Volk. The film used poetic imagery and a reimagining of antiquity in order to root the newly created Aryan supremacy into ancient tradition. By1940, Der ewige Jude overtly gave the Volksgemeinschaft a common enemy, drawing strongly off of anti-Semitic legacies. The dehumanized and threatening symbol ofJews, once identified, became marked for elimina tion. When taken together, the medievalisms presented in each of these films helped foster greater public acceptance of Nazi policies, including The final Solution, and reveal the deep roots of the Holocaust.
Jeremiah Garsha receivedhis BAin Historyfrom UCSanta Barbara, with a minor in German Literature and Language. His current research focus is comparative genocide inAfrican and European History. Upongradua tionfrom SFSU,he willserve as a Peace Corps volunteer before applying to PhD programs.
VOLUME XIX• 2010