Talk:Nazism and cinema

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The nazi film policy was mainly run in order to establish a folkish-nationalist dictatorship in the Third Reich after the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party. It is inseparably linked to Jospeh Goebbles' Ministry of Natianal Education and Propaganda. Goebbels appointed himself the patron of German film, who made the German Film Industry an important part of the Nazi propaganda machine, with the help of a number of measures like management and controlling of the film production, censorship, aryanisation, repression and support of single actors and companies. Because entertainment had a political function during the National Socialism, it was no contradiction that the majority of motion pictures were apparently of unpolitical nature.

After the Nazi Party had gained some experience with the production of campaign movies, during the period of silent movies, the National Film Production concentrated then, after the accession of power (1933), on the synchronization and bringing the German filmindustry into use. This synchronization process was extremely succesful and incorporated 1938 also the film economy of the affiliated Austria (Ostmark respectively Alps - and Danube regions). The process reached its conclusion with the founding of the state-monopoly UFA-concern 1942. Beyond all political aims Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler were also personally fascinated by movies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.153.170.189 (talk) 11:17, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Co-productions

Could you say something about co-productions with allies, such as the Florián Rey films shot in Germany during the Spanish Civil War? --Error (talk) 18:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

External Link

I’m a Harvard undergrad whose friends have taken Harvard’s class on Nazi Cinema. A site with interactive lecture blogs that I found really interesting (it essentially made up for me not taking the class) was: http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/fall2007/fc76/. I also think the lecture notes are pretty interesting for anyone interested in this topic.

Anyone can read and contribute to the commentary of the texts on the site. If you read through a lecture or two and agree, I'd encourage someone with more Wikipedia clout than myself to post on the actual Nazism and cinema page. Let me know what you all think. I'd love to hear your thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbrasky100 (talk • contribs) 17:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Documentaries like "Forbidden Films" (2017) by Felix Moeller and "Hitler's Hollywood" (2017) by Rüdiger Suchsland deal with this topic.

3D Nazi movies

The Wired.com article Filmmaker discovers Nazi 3D movies from the 1930s by Hugh Hart says there were some Nazi 3D movies called So Real You Can Touch It and Six Girls Roll Into Weekend made in the 1930's. Wikipedia does not have articles for these movies, nor is 3D mentioned in this article. Category:1930s 3D films only has a measely single film, so including these two would triple its size. Anybody know more about this? Jason Quinn (talk) 04:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Quoting myself from a 3D Film talk page entry (which was, IMO, very prematurely archived, as at least one well-intended editor subsequently reintroduced the "new discovery" into that article and others will likely continue to do so from time to time):

A short paragraph about two recently discovered 3-D "Nazi propaganda films" from the 1930s, which I am about to delete, is based solely on a cited news article which is a classic example of careless and clueless reporting in the popular press.

The discovery of the physical prints themselves is interesting news, but these "previously unknown" films, as the cited article describes them, are So Real You Can Touch It and Six Girls Roll into Weekend [sic], its rough translations of Zum Greifen nah and Sechs Mädel rollen ins Wochenende, two short films which have been prominently mentioned in nearly every account of pre-1952 3-D films published during the past sixty years. Both are already mentioned elsewhere in this article. The news of their reemergence might be added there if a less problematic source can be found to support it, but it would probably just be excess detail in the context of this general article.

As to their content, Ray Zone's 2007 book [Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952] describes the first as "a short commercial film promoting insurance" (the newspaper article usefully reports that it is musical and includes "close-up shots of sizzling bratwurst on a barbeque") and the second as a self-promotional film made by Zeiss-Ikon, a manufacturer of cameras, projectors and other optical devices, including attachments used to photograph and project 3-D. Given the time and place they were filmed, it would be surprising if there are no swastikas to be seen in them, and perhaps the mere presence of what was then the German national symbol would brand them as "Nazi propaganda" in some people's minds. They were certainly not made "for Goebbels' propaganda ministry" as the news item claims. All films shown in Germany during the Nazi era had to be passed by that dicatatorial and meddling organization, but the subject matter and short length of these two commercial films seem unlikely to have provided much opportunity to inject any substantial "Nazi propaganda". AVarchaeologist (talk) 06:13, 8 May 2012 (UTC) [End of quote.]

I subsequently learned that even the unearthing of these particular prints is hardly newsworthy—other prints of them (and, IIRC, the original negative of one or both) have long been among the known holdings of other German archives. An excerpt from Sechs Mädel rollen ins Wochenende was screened as part of the 2003 World 3-D Film Expo at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. One blogger commenting on that event describes it as a "tacky German girls swimming short". Apart from the unfortunate timing and location of their existence, it is unclear why these German bathing beauties are labeled "Nazi starlets" by the news report. Do they form a living swastika as part of a water ballet? Brandish copies of Mein Kampf? Swoon over personally autographed portraits of AH? As to a possible reason for the claim that the films were made for the Ministry of Propaganda, it seems likely that they begin with the display of some sort of censor's certificate of approval which might well have left that impression in the overenthused and underinformed mind of their recent "discoverer". AVarchaeologist (talk) 12:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the great information, AVarchaeologist. So maybe they are not "Nazi films" but they do appear to be 3D films of note, even if they were essentially long commercials rather than artistic expressions. At the very least I intend to make redirects for these films with category entries for Category:1930s 3D films. The redirects, I guess, could point to the 3D film article's "Early systems of stereoscopic filmmaking (pre-1952)" section. If you have a better suggestion for the redirect, let me know. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:56, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Anti-semitic films should be described

Only one is listed here, without comment. Xx236 (talk) 12:58, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The German article contains several lines, references are needed.Xx236 (talk) 13:04, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

An RfC of interest

An RfC of possible interest to the editors of this article can be found here.

Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:10, 31 July 2023 (UTC)