Thomas J. Saunders

Cinema in Democratizing Germany: Reconstructing National Identity after Hitler.

Heide Fehrenbach analyzes the important role cinema played in the reconstruction of German cultural and political identity between 1945 and 1962. Concentrating on the former West Germany, she explores the complex political uses of film--and the meanings attributed to film representation and spectatorship--during a period of abrupt transition to democracy. According to Fehrenbach, the process of national redefinition made cinema and cinematic control a focus of heated ideological debate. Moving beyond a narrow political examination of Allied-German negotiations, she investigates the broader social nexus of popular moviegoing, public demonstrations, film clubs, and municipal festivals. She also draws on work in gender and film studies to probe the ways filmmakers, students, church leaders, local politicians, and the general public articulated national identity in relation to the challenges posed by military occupation, American commercial culture, and redefined gender roles. Thus highlighting the links between national identity and cultural practice, this book provides a richer picture of what German reconstruction entailed for both women and men.

Review: Michael H. Kater, Hitler Youth, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA and London, 2004; 355 pp.; 0674014960,

Frey remarks, the intention was not simply to produce movies in the Hungarian language, but also to create a genre that the public could categorize as ‘Hungarian’. Hence, movies produced in the 1930s and 1940s reflected two tendencies: one nationalist, which was accompanied by anti-Semitism and the purge of Jews from the film industry, and the other social, which involved the reflection of the everyday experiences of ordinary Hungarians. Some of the themes introduced by Frey’s article are further developed by Patricia von Papen-Bodek’s analysis of the Hungarian Institute for Research into the Jewish Question, which was established in 1942. Contrary to other works published on the subject, PapenBodek argues that the Institute was instrumental in implementing the ‘Final Solution’ in Hungary. Although closely connected to the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), the subsidiary organization of the SS created by Heinrich Himmler in 1939, the Institute pursued its own agenda, thus reflecting the anti-Semitic programmes elaborated by those working within the Institute. In her concluding remarks, Papen-Bodek underlines one of the most important achievements of this volume, namely that innovative scholarship succeeds best when accompanied by fresh research into hitherto neglected topics. The scholarship dealing with Central and Eastern Europe has reinvented its academic identity many times since the collapse of communism in the early 1990s. But whether one associates the particular flavour of this scholarship with such prestigious names as Peter Sugar, Larry Wolf, Robert Evans, or István Deák, it is undeniable that this volume indicates the emergence of a new generation of scholars, one which will certainly add new interpretations to an area better known for its porous identity and contested borders than for its sound scholarship.