Nazi Cinema as Enchantment: The Politics of Entertainment in the Third Reich

by Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien

Explores how entertainment cinema served everyday fascism in Nazi Germany.

Hitler's regime not only terrorized its citizens; it also seduced them, offering stability, a traditional value system, a sense of belonging, and hope of a better standard of living. Nazi cinema was part of this seduction, expressing positive social fantasies and promoting the enchantment of reality, so that one would want to share in the dream at any price. This interdisciplinary study, based on exhaustive research in German archives, examines how thirteen films from five genres - the historical musical, the foreign adventure film, the home-front film, the melodrama, and the problem film - enchanted audiences and enacted shared stories that can tell us much about how family, community, history, the nation, and the war were imagined in Nazi Germany.

Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien is Professor of German at Skidmore College.

304 pages, Paperback

First published December 29, 2003

Reviews

[Michael Samerdyke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very impressive book. O'Brien covers a selection of genre movies of the Nazi era, such as musicals, family melodramas and adventure films, writing in an accessible, jargon-free style. The films she picks are not those usually discussed when talking about cinema in the Nazi era. O'Brien demonstrates a strong command of the history of both the Nazi regime and film in general. The result is a very informative and thought-provoking book.