Benjamim Maack wrote an interesting article on the work of Heinz Rühmann during Nazi Germany, to be read at SPIEGEL online from January 28th 2009.1
65 years ago, on January 28th 1944, the movie Feuerzangenbowle was premiered in Berlin.2 This funny comedy that would later became a cult film for pupils and students alike, was nearly forbidden: Nazi Minster of Science, Education and National Culture (Reichserziehungsminister) Bernhard Rust saw it to undermine the authority of schools and teaching staff. Heinz Rühmann, well-known and popular main actor of this and many more movies, went to the Wolfsschanze, Hitler’s headquarters. After Göring assured the movie would be funny, Hitler ordered it to be shown to the German people.
But I am not talking about this anecdote of a comedian (and neither about the congenial title, that is unfortunately untranslatable)3. Rather the author describes the difficult relation between an artist in a tyranny: when does the artistic work stop, when does the artis become a follower, if not an active collaborator? Did Rühmann really support the Germans’ morale so much that they continued to fight and to bear war and dictatorship – or is such an assumption overestimating the power of propaganda? Could he save members of his staff to be sent to the front, or shouldn’t he have emigrated?
All these questions Rühmann had to face by himself. There are no easy answers, however, especially not from the moral high ground of those who were happily born late.
- Heinz Rühmann was one of the most popular German actors ever. ↩
- Feuerzangenbowle, literally “Fire-tongs punch” was a traditional alcoholic drink of the German student fraternities. If you want to know more about the drink: here we go. ↩
- The title “(M)Untergang” is a combination of “downfall” (Untergang), referring not the least to the movie about Hitler’s last days, but adding an “m” it literally means “jolly walk” (there is no such word in German). ↩