Hans Westmar

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox film/short descriptionScript error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". Hans Westmar (full title: Script error: No such module "Lang". "Hans Westmar. One of many. A German Fate from the Year 1929") was the last of an unofficial trilogy of films produced by the Nazis shortly after coming to power in January 1933, celebrating their Kampfzeit – the history of their period in opposition, struggling to gain power. The film is a partially fictionalized biography of the Nazi martyr Horst Wessel.

Plot

The film concentrates on the conflict with the Communist Party of Germany in Berlin in the late 1920s. When Westmar arrives in Berlin, the communists are popular, hold large parades through Berlin and sing "The Internationale". When he looks into the cultural life of Weimar Berlin, he is horrified at the "internationalism" and cultural promiscuity, which includes black jazz music and Jewish nightclub singers. That scene dissolves into images of the German fighting men of World War I and shots of the cemeteries of the German dead.

Westmar decides to help organize the local Nazi Party and becomes, through the course of the plot, responsible for its electoral victories, which encourages the Communists to kill him.

Production

The recently established Volksdeutsche Filmgesellschaft produced the film based on Hanns Heinz Ewers' novelistic biography of Horst Wessel.Template:Sfn It was among the first films to depict dying for Hitler as a glorious death for Germany and as resulting in his spirit inspiring his comrades.[1] His decision to go to the streets is presented as fighting "the real battle".[2]

This was the third adaption of Wessel's life after being covered in Blutendes Deutschland and a short made by Franz Wenzler in 1932. Wenzler was the director and Richard Fiedler, a SA-Oberführer, oversaw the film's production. Giuseppe Becce and Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend of Adolf Hitler, composed the music. Hertha Thiele declined an offer to star in the film.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Along with SA-Mann and Hitlerjunge Quex, Hans Westmar was the last of the trilogy of films released in 1933, and designed to present an idealized account of the Nazis' 'heroic struggle' to come to power in Germany.Template:Sfn

Release

Hans Westmar was shown to a group of Nazi leaders, including Hermann Göring, on 3 October 1933. It was met with praise, with Template:Ill writing in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung that it was "one of the best he had ever seen". The film was scheduled to be released on 9 October, Wessel's birthday.Template:Sfn

The film was banned shortly before its premiereTemplate:Sfn since Horst Wessel was shown in prostitution and in a Christian milieu. According to the Nazi Film Review Office the film "does neither do justice to Horst Wessel's personality nor to the national socialist movement as the leader of the state".[3]

Goebbels justified the ban as follows:

"As national socialists we do not particularly value to watch our SA men marching on stage or screen. Their realm is the street. Should however somebody try to solve national socialist problems in the realm of art, he must understand that also in this case the art does not come from ambition but ability. Even an ostentatious display of a national socialist attitude is no substitute for an absence of true art. The national socialist government has never demanded the production of SA-movies. On the contrary: we see a danger in this excess. […] In no way does national socialism justify artistic failure. The greater the idea that shall find a form the greater the aesthetic demands have to be."[4]

Goebbels allowed the film to be shown on the condition that the title be changed from Horst Wessel to Hans Westmar. It was approved by the censors on 23 November and released on 13 December.Template:Sfn One reason may have been to avoid "de-mystifying" Wessel.[5] Part of the problem was that authentic depiction of Stormtroopers, including picking fights with Communists, did not fit the more reasonable tone that the Nazis adopted in power and would undermine Volksgemeinschaft. The fictionalised Westmar, unlike Wessel, does not alienate his family.[6] It was released in the United States in 1939.Template:Sfn

See also

References

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  1. ↑ Erwin Leiser, Nazi Cinema p24 Template:ISBN
  2. ↑ Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, p462 Template:ISBN
  3. ↑ Alfred Bauer: Deutscher Spielfilm Almanach 1929–1950. New edition 1976, p. 190. Original in German: "weder der Gestalt Horst Wessels noch der nat. soz. Bewegung als der Trägerin des Staates gerecht"
  4. ↑ Erwin Leiser: „Deutschland, erwache!“ Propaganda im Film des Dritten Reiches. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1968, p. 30. Original in German: Wir Nationalsozialisten legen an sich keinen gesteigerten Wert darauf, daß unsere SA über die Bühne oder über die Leinwand marschiert. Ihr Gebiet ist die Straße. Wenn aber jemand an die Lösung nationalsozialistischer Probleme auf künstlerischem Gebiet herangeht, dann muß er sich darüber klar sein, daß auch in diesem Falle Kunst nicht von Wollen, sondern von Können herkommt. Auch eine ostentativ zur Schau getragene nationalsozialistische Gesinnung ersetzt noch lange nicht den Mangel an wahrer Kunst. Die nationalsozialistische Regierung hat niemals verlangt, daß SA-Filme gedreht werden. Im Gegenteil: sie sieht sogar in ihrem Übermaß eine Gefahr. […] Der Nationalsozialismus bedeutet unter gar keinen Umständen einen Freibrief für künstlerisches Versagen. Im Gegenteil, je größer die Idee, die zur Gestaltung kommt, desto höhere künstlerische Ansprüche müssen daran gestellt werden."
  5. ↑ Robert Edwin Hertzstein, The War That Hitler Won p 262 Template:ISBN
  6. ↑ Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, p. 85 Template:ISBN

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Works cited

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External links

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