Moritz Föllmer’s study of culture in the Third Reich first appeared in German in 2016. Now it is available in English. It is a surprising book in some ways. If we reflect on culture under Nazism, we might think of the films of Leni Riefenstahl, or the attempt to create dramatic forms such as the Thingspiel (an outdoor theatre movement celebrating national rebirth, which came to an end in 1935). We might also think of the tedious blood and soil novels romanticising the Germans’ relationship to the land, sarcastically described as ‘Blubo’ literature by, among others, Thomas Mann. But Föllmer has very little to say about any of this.
He does provide discussions of key Nazi-period films such as Veit Harlan’s notorious Jud Süß (1940) or Rolf Hansen’s The Great Love (1942), in which the actor Zarah Leander plays a singer who falls in love with a German fighter pilot. Föllmer’s book also considers the role of architecture in Hitler’s vision of Germany’s urban transformation. But for the most part Föllmer is not so interested in Nazi attempts to produce distinctive artistic forms or modes of expression.
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