Cinema de Weimar até ao 3º Reich: poder e “Nationalcharakter”

Although the Volksempfänger radio and the Hugenberg press functioned as preferred vehicles of political propaganda even before the Third Reich, cinema was also used for these purposes. After the seizure of power and against the resistance of its Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels, Hitler chose Leni Riefenstahl as principal director of the staging of the ideology of Nazism. With the help of UFA the new way was exploited to 'document' both the alleged 'German spirit' and the influences considered negative and harmful to the 'soul of the people'. The film, as a "collective" product (Eisenstein, Vertov, Brecht), has always been consciously instrumentalized, both by Nazi and Soviet propaganda and by the politics of other countries. However, there are approaches by historians, sociologists, and film critics who link certain trends in German filmmaking during the Weimar Republic to the rise of Nazism (Kracauer, De Caligari to Hitler, 1947, Eisner, The Demonic Screen, 1952). This communication proposes a critical look of these approaches.