Editing Cinema of Germany (section)

===1933–1945 Nazi Germany===
{{anchor|Nazi Germany}}

The uncertain economic and political situation in Weimar Germany had already led to a number of film-makers and performers leaving the country, primarily for the United States; Ernst Lubitsch moved to Hollywood as early as 1923, the Hungarian-born [[Michael Curtiz]] in 1926. Some 1,500 directors, producers, actors and other film professionals [[emigration|emigrated]] in the years after the [[Nazi]]s came to power. Among them were such key figures as the producer [[Erich Pommer]], the studio head of Ufa, stars Marlene Dietrich and [[Peter Lorre]], and director [[Fritz Lang]]. Lang's exodus to America is legendary; it is said that ''[[Metropolis (1927 film)|Metropolis]]'' so greatly impressed [[Joseph Goebbels]] that he asked Lang to become the head of his propaganda film unit.  Lang fled to America instead, where he had a long and prosperous career. Many up-and-coming German directors also fled to the U.S., having a major influence on American film as a result. A number of the [[Universal Horror]] films of the 1930s were directed by German emigrees, including [[Karl Freund]], [[Joe May]] and [[Robert Siodmak]]. Directors [[Edgar Ulmer]] and [[Douglas Sirk]] and the Austrian-born screenwriter (and later director) [[Billy Wilder]] also emigrated from Nazi Germany to Hollywood success. Not all those in the film industry threatened by the Nazi regime were able to escape; the actor and director [[Kurt Gerron]], for example, perished in a [[Nazi concentration camp|concentration camp]].

[[File:Titania-Palast bei Nacht 2.jpg|thumb|The ''[[Titania-Palast]]'' in [[Berlin-Steglitz]], an [[Art Deco]] style movie theater opened in 1928]]

Within weeks of the ''[[Machtergreifung]]'', Alfred Hugenberg had effectively turned over Ufa to the ends of the Nazis, excluding Jews from employment in the company in March 1933, several months before the foundation in June of the ''[[Reichsfilmkammer]]'' (Reich Chamber of Film), the body of the Nazi state charged with control of the film industry, which marked the official exclusion of Jews and foreigners from employment in the German film industry. As part of the process of ''[[Gleichschaltung]]'' all film production in Germany was subordinate to the ''Reichsfilmkammer'', which was directly responsible to Goebbel's [[Propagandaministerium|Propaganda ministry]], and all those employed in the industry had to be members of the ''Reichsfachschaft Film''. "Non-Aryan" film professionals and those whose politics or personal life were unacceptable to the Nazis were excluded from the ''Reichsfachschaft'' and thus denied employment in the industry. Some 3,000 individuals were affected by this employment ban. In addition, as journalists were also organised as a division of the Propaganda Ministry, Goebbels was able to abolish film criticism in 1936 and replace it with ''Filmbeobachtung'' (film observation); journalists could only report on the content of a film, not offer judgement on its artistic or other worth.

[[File:Leni Riefenstahl, 1935.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Leni Riefenstahl]] was a major director in Nazi Germany. Her film ''[[Olympia (1938 film)|Olympia]]'' from 1938 about the [[1936 Summer Olympics]] had a major impact on modern sports coverage<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://entertainment.time.com/2011/09/22/the-all-time-25-best-sports-movies/slide/olympia-1938/ | title=Olympia | magazine=Time | date=22 September 2011 | last1=Corliss | first1=Richard }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1063673/eighty-years-since-riefenstahls-olympia-a-piece-of-sporting-film-history | title=Eighty years since Riefenstahl's Olympia - a piece of sporting film history | date=8 April 2018 }}</ref>]]

With the German film industry now effectively an arm of the [[totalitarian]] state, no films could be made that were not ostensibly in accord with the views of the ruling regime. However, despite the existence of anti-semitic propaganda works such as ''[[The Eternal Jew (1940 film)|The Eternal Jew]]'' (1940)—which was a box-office flop—and the more sophisticated but equally anti-semitic ''[[Jud Süß (1940 film)|Jud Süß]]'' (1940), which achieved commercial success at home and elsewhere in Europe, the majority of German films from the National Socialist period were intended principally as works of entertainment. The import of foreign films was legally restricted after 1936 and the German industry, which was effectively [[nationalisation|nationalised]] in 1937, had to make up for the missing foreign films (above all American productions). Entertainment also became increasingly important in the later years of [[World War II]] when the cinema provided a distraction from Allied bombing and a string of German defeats. In both 1943 and 1944 cinema admissions in Germany exceeded a billion,<ref name=spio>[http://www.spio.de/media_content/610.pdf Kinobesuche in Deutschland 1925 bis 2004] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204111257/http://www.spio.de/media_content/610.pdf |date=4 February 2012}} Spitzenorganisation der Filmwirtschaft e. V</ref> and the biggest box office hits of the war years were ''[[Die große Liebe]]'' (1942) and ''[[Wunschkonzert]]'' (1941), which both combine elements of the [[musical film|musical]], wartime romance and patriotic propaganda, ''[[Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten]]'' (1941), a comic musical which was one of the earliest German films in colour, and ''[[Vienna Blood (film)|Vienna Blood]]'' (1942), the adaptation of a [[Johann Strauß II|Johann Strauß]] comic operetta. ''[[Titanic (1943 film)|Titanic]]'' (1943) was another big-budget epic that arguably inspired other films about the ill-fated ocean liner.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fiebing|first=Malte|title=Titanic: Nazi Germany's Version of the Disaster|year=2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JcAkAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA127|page=127|publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=9783844815122}}</ref> The importance of the cinema as a tool of the state, both for its propaganda value and its ability to keep the populace entertained, can be seen in the filming history of [[Veit Harlan]]'s ''[[Kolberg (film)|Kolberg]]'' (1945), the most expensive film of the Nazi era, for the shooting of which tens of thousands of soldiers were diverted from their military positions to appear as extras.

Despite the emigration of many film-makers and the political restrictions, the period was not without technical and aesthetic innovations, the introduction of [[Agfacolor]] film production being a notable example. Technical and aesthetic achievement could also be turned to the specific ends of the Nazi state, most spectacularly in the work of [[Leni Riefenstahl]]. Riefenstahl's ''[[Triumph of the Will]]'' (1935), documenting the 1934 [[Nuremberg Rally]], and ''[[Olympia (1938 film)|Olympia]]'' (1938), documenting the [[1936 Summer Olympics]], pioneered techniques of camera movement and editing that have influenced many later films. Both films, particularly ''Triumph of the Will'', remain highly controversial, as their aesthetic merit is inseparable from their propagandising of Nazi ideals.

{{See also|Nazism and cinema|List of German films 1933–1945}}