United Academics Journal of Social Sciences - June 2011 by United Academics

War, Memory and Biography part II - Commemoration & Representation Love and Loss in the First World War - Sarah Haybittle Stereotypes in Post War German War films - Richard McKenzie Remembering Those Who Have Fallen - Daniel Alexander & Andrew Haslam

Bittersweet Experiences of the London Blitz - Steve Spencer Leni Riefenstahl - Oscar Broughton & Elke Weesjes

FOCUS The United Academics Journal of Social Sciences is interdisciplinary, peer reviewed and interactive. We provide immediate Open Access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. In doing so, this journal underlines its publisher’s ethos, which is to ‘Connect Science & Society’. United Academics is an independent platform where academics can connect, share, publish and discuss academic research. Furthermore it facilitates online publications while respecting the author’s copyrights. We will publish themed issues bimonthly, each consisting of a collection of articles, work-in-progress pieces and book reviews showcasing the broadest range of new (interdisciplinary) research in Social Sciences from both established academics as well as students. While many academic journals are online and a growing number are available in openly accessible venues, the internet has not been utilized to its full extent. Therefore we have created a journal which truly does tap the power of the web for interactivity. To begin with research papers and other contributions published in this journal, contain interactive media such as videos maps and charts in order to make research more accessible and engaging. Secondly, in order to extent the peer review system, which is currently still limited with only a few colleagues reviewing papers, we invite the United Academics community to submit commentaries. By opening up the commenting and feedback process we will foster better critique of work. We want to encourage researchers to interact with the research, provide feedback and collaborate with authors.

CREDITS Editor-in-Chief: Elke Weesjes Executive Editor: Mark Fonseca Rendeiro Design : Michelle Halcomb Editorial Board : Mark Fonseca Rendeiro, Anouk Vleugels, Ruth Charnock, Danielle Wiersema Daphne Wiersema Questions and Suggestions: Send an e-mail to: journal@united-academics.org Advertisement : Send an email to: advertising@united-academics.org Address : Oudezijds Voorburgwal 274 1021 GL Amsterdam

CONTENTS EDITORIAL

ARTICLE ONE

Seeking the Shadow of a Dream Grown Vain: Love and Loss in the First World War.Sarah Haybittle By: Sarah Haybittle

ARTICLE TWO

Stereotypes in Post War German War films By: Richard McKenzie

ARTICLE THREE

Remember those who have fallen: The Role of Design and Archives in the Remembrance and Commemoration of the Great War and WWII Commonwealth War Dead By: Daniel Alexander & Andrew Haslam

ARTICLE FOUR

Vicarious/Precarious: Bittersweet Experiences of the London Blitz By: Steve Spencer

BIOGRAPHY

Leni Riefenstahl: Fallen Film Goddess or Greatest Female Director in Film History? By: Oscar Broughton & Elke Weesjes

June

EDITORIAL War, Memory and Biography PartII

rt has the unique ability to bring the collective as well as individual experiences of war and suffering into the public discourse. Artwork which draws on the subject of war can have many different functions: it can be used as a powerful tool of propaganda, it can be a pictorial record or a commemoration of how war shaped lives. Through art, traumatic individual memories can be woven into a larger context of community grief, reconciliation and healing. Our last issue was themed War, Memory and Biography. This month we build on that theme with contributors who focus on commemoration and representation. Richard McKenzie explores war films in East- and West Germany, discussing the narrow set of stereotypes which German war films draw on. This month’s biography is about the controversial dancer, actress and film maker Leni Rieftenstahl, highlighting her struggle to shrug off the reputation as the Führer’s confidant and the Third Reich’s most gifted and glamorous female propagandist. Sarah Haybittle’s article explores the art of visual storytelling, through a fusion of object, image and text, against

a back drop of social history. She presents a fascinating and moving account of a British soldier and his sweetheart who exchanged letters during WWI. Daniel Alexander & Andrew Haslam discuss the representation of war, especially its aftermath, remembrance and the representation of remembrance. In their article they apply Commonwealth War Graves and Memorials as an example through which to explore issues surrounding the remembrance of war dead. By presenting new photographic images of key archive documents: letters, drawings, photographs, alongside new imagery of the cemeteries and memorials photographed in France and Belgium, they have created a visual narrative that investigates the design processes behind a commemorative project of this size.

Steve Spencer also utilised both literary and visual sources in researching Londoner’s different responses to the Blitz. He argues that Londoners found themselves in a world which can be characterised as ‘carnivalesque’, where comedy is a prelude to horrific tragedy or vice versa. In his article he emphasizes that British society during the Blitz appeared topsy-turvy; norms and rules were disrupted; bodies were displaced and even mutilated. Throughout this kaleidoscope of mayhem the constraints of propaganda, control and regulation sit sideby-side with the chirpy resilience and quirky manifestations of individual Londoners showing that there were perhaps multiple interpretations of the phrase immortalised by Churchill, “Business as usual”.

Finally. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve finished your thesis, you turned it in, you completed your studies & your work disappears on a shelf somewhere. Was it all a waste of time?

NO. 5

United Academics Magazine brings it back to life. Your thesis in our magazine? Contact us.

ARTICLE ARTICLE ONE

Love and Loss in the First World War

Seeking the Shadow of a Dream Grown Vain By: Sarah Haybittle

Love and loss in the First World War By: Sarah Haybittle

This article documents a journey; a trip back in time, to an archive seen through the lens of my research, in which a moving story of love and loss is buried. My practice-based research explores narrative, memory, and the telling of stories. Recent work has explored the First World War from the perspective of the women left behind, hidden histories of women who endured not just the privations on the home front, but also the unrelenting emotional tension of uncertain futures while their husbands, brothers, sons and sweethearts, were away at war.

poem by Vera Brittain became a source of creative inspiration, resulting in an artist’s book and installation piece. Her beautiful words were the catalyst for further explorations, that of the deeper intangibilities of those less formalised relationships: blossoming romances, unrequited loves, awkward shynesses, hidden feelings and repressed desires. Many young women were in the very early stages of their first relationship and found it impossible to move on after the death of their sweethearts. An aching sense of disloyalty pervaded. After the war, with the death of so many men, there were two million so-called, ‘surplus women’, whose expectations of life underwent sudden and sometimes devastating changes. To make matters even more difficult, general attitudes towards these women were also less than forgiving. The shapeless silhouette that emerged after the war, whilst serving as an act of rebellion against the restrictions of corsets and a symbol of the bright young things, also became a concealment of the contours of the feminine form. The folds

and drapery veiling dashed hopes and lost opportunities, as the lack of men became a reality in these women’s lives. Having been brought up to see marriage and children as their only goal in life, they had to adapt to life alone. Being scorned by society was a double blow. I would argue that all these lost loves are further casualties of war. The Imperial War Museum provided the source material for further creative re-

Jock’s letter

ARTICLE ONE

Meg’s draft reply

search. I uncovered documentation relating to a young woman, Meg, whose life had been catalogued, bound, and buried within the recesses of the archive. This particular collection attracted me because, rather than material relating to women’s war work, the letters had a story to tell: a moving account of a romance between Meg and a soldier named Jock, who served in the 3rd Battalion Queen’s Own Highlanders, who

had seen active service in Ypres. Jock was shot and subsequently hospitalised with a lung wound. I could see why the letters would interest the Museum, they contained detailed accounts of life in the trenches, but what held my attention was the last line of the description of the collection’s contents: ‘with his final letter informing her of his love for another girl.’ It caught my imagination, inspiring a visit to view the papers. Turning instinctively to the back of the pile of letters, fast forwarding over the entire epistolary relationship, I found Jock’s last letter. It was tinged with tragedy – three pages worth of wafer thin layers, crisp with age and bearing the marks of time, whose fragility belied the weight of the words embedded onto their surface. In beautiful script he politely proffers greet-

ings and news, then reveals, ‘but there’s something I want to tell you about Meg, something which I didn’t mean to ever tell you, but now feel I must tell.’ The repetition of the word ‘tell’, three times, emphasising what was to follow, and no doubt expressing Jock’s guilt. In contrast, Meg must have sped over those words wanting to know what followed. He does not immediately say however, protracting the paragraph, and her pain, yet further, with more talk of what she will think of him, another delay in articulating his cruel message, ‘accelerating the beat of the pendulum.’1 Finally, he elaborates, ‘when I was in hospital I met a nurse there and we became very friendly, it wasn’t long before I realised how much I was in love with her, so I told her and found out that she also cared for me, but, alas, she’d sworn never to marry owing to a weak heart and nothing I could say or do would make her relent.’ His letter ends by begging Meg’s forgiveness, ‘I know how cruel I’ve been to you Meg, but try to forgive and tell me what and how I should do now. Won’t you write and tell me please? If I don’t

hear from you again I shall conclude that I’ve offended you beyond all forgiveness.‘ From the archive description I knew Meg had drafted a reply, I tentatively turned the page to find her response, ‘The heart is not of me to tell you what and how you must do. May fate one day grant you your heart’s desire, and time be good enough to help me endure and survive this bitterness,’ her sad words trail off both literally and symbolically. The last, poignant word, ‘bitterness’ compressed at the edge of the page, as she ran out of space in which to express her sadness. It is not documented whether or not she sent her reply. ‘The letter is at the same time both a medium of the narrative, and an element in the plot.’2 I turned from the back of the file to trace the path that had led to such sadness. It was like leafing through shadows, the turning of the tissue-like pages produced a quiet whisper, the sound of ghosts caught in motion, fluttering through the archive, as Jock’s words brought the past hauntingly into the present. Echoes through time barely per-

ARTICLE ONE

Page from artist’s book inspired by Vera Brittain Poem

ceptible through the rustle of language. His letters provided a very vivid account of life at the front, history at my fingertips, as Jock talks of his and fellow soldiers’ attitudes towards the Germans, rumours about torture, particularly to men in kilts. He recalls atrocities, of his having killed German prisoners in revenge, his narrow escape from mortar

explosions, and then of frustration at being hospitalised. He writes, unbelievably, that he was keen to get back to the trenches. Meg must have dared to hope, as time moved on, that he would return to marry her. He gave her good reason to think so, signing himself ‘yours as always’ and speaking of love and times to come. However, pep-

pered throughout his letters were opposing sentiments towards Meg, passing comments, sometimes cruel, hinting perhaps of what was to follow? In one, he wrote: ‘what’s the trouble now, been ill, had an accident, or merely fallen in love? Let me know by return, so that I may, at least, offer my sympathy or congrats.’ Yet he continued to correspond with her, talking of the future, but constantly making excuses for his slow responses. How unexpected to have her hopes dashed towards the end of the war. Not, as one might have predicted, through his death, but by the devastation following his declaration of love for someone else. Meg’s romance is unravelled through the letters, a relationship punctuated by the post and war. The letters express not just one life, but multiple lives, as both personal and public histories are revealed through the written word. The different players in the drama narrated by the letterform, whose materiality adds richness to the poignant narratives they articulate. In reading these private exchanges one becomes drawn into their world.

As I read the letters it occurred to me that they are all to her, what she thought or said in response is unknown. Jock’s voice is dominant, it is his story that is being narrated, a one sidedness, meaning that, despite it being Meg’s collection, she fades as he narrates. It was a paradox, because the letters are only a trace of a life, yet somehow suddenly made history seem human, tangible and so very real and raw. Just as clothing without a body speaks of absence, so too with letters. The letters articulate not just the personal accounts, but also vividly narrate the war. In addition to the tales embedded within the letters themselves, their containment in the archive adds another layer of narrative – the provenance of the letters, as objects within the museum, sustains yet more layers of both story and history. The collection of letters has been viewed approximately 25 times in the last ten years, the visitor’s name or purpose unrecorded. Each visit is a re-telling of the story, perpetually augmenting and extending its history. From the quiet intimacy of the fragile

ARTICLE ONE

papers and the sanctuary of the research room, I was transported back to the modern day, ricocheting between two distinct temporalities, and plunged back into the main hall of the museum, where large exhibits screamed of a very real embodiment, physicality and horror of war. Their scale and

Section of scroll based on Jockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letter

unforgiving surfaces at variance with the quiet subtlety of the private words of war. I explored the First World War section, where history is narrated through objects, a promenade tour, flashing by in fast forward, as one moves from case to case, theme to theme, cutting a pathway through

Section from scroll based on Jock’s letter

the war. The artefacts on display, separated by a glass veneer, possess a cold objectivity, moving from the trenches to weapons and uniforms, and then on to the home front, where ration books, uniforms, and ephemera are displayed; distant, dispassionate pieces, sanitised for public consumption. These objects, so placed, act as social representations, addressing the practicalities of war, whereas the tactility of the letters and the stories contained within them, portray the human consequences, or silent histories. These political,

social and psychological layers of history co-exist within the dimensions of the museum, through which humanity permeates. It was not until a few days later, once I had received a photocopy of Jock’s last letter, that I realised I had missed a vital piece of the story. He says, referring to his rejected marriage proposal, ‘So I gave it up in despair, and then you came along and I forgot.’ I had not noticed this line when reading the letters in the research room, perhaps because I had been so moved by the story. It shed new light on the sequence

ARTICLE ONE

of events, demonstrating that Meg had not known Jock when he was fighting in the trenches, thus, had not experienced the anguish of waiting for news. She did not meet him until after he had been shot, declared unfit for active duty and posted to war work in the North of England. The sad fate of the nurse is yet another layer in the story – pivotal to the drama’s plot – she nevertheless remains distant, enigmatic, and silent. I had been at the mercy of my own subjectivities, had assumed much and, like capricious memory, unconsciously constructed my own version of their story before even arriving at the archive; assumptions based on the description of the collection. Yet there were discrepancies with the narrative sequence compounding the confusion, since, although the letters in the collection start mid-war, the tone of the first letter suggested that others had preceded it. Jock’s letters gave the impression that they had been courting for some time, nothing I read suggested otherwise. I had unwittingly and shamefully invented a new reality for them. It is, perhaps, all too easy to allow oneself

to find what one is looking for, rather than what really is! This raises an interesting aspect of research – that of the relationship a researcher has with their research material. The entwined lives of Meg, Jock and the nurse are moving accounts – powerful mechanisms for engagement and communication, offering a different view of history. There is another chapter to the tale, and to find it we must return to the research room. Having acquainted myself with Meg, I wanted to know what had happened to her after the war. In addition to Jock’s letters the archive contained transcripted letters from Meg’s friends, dating from the end of the war through to the 1930s. I was almost too scared to look, for I hoped that they would reveal that Meg had eventually found happiness. What I found, well, that’s another story...

Endnotes 1.Genette, Gérard, Narrative Discourse: an Essay in Method, Cornell University Press, NY, 1980, p158 2. Ibid, p217

SARAH HAYBITTTLE is undertaking practicedbased PhD in the School of Arts and Media, at the University of Brighton. Her research, entitled Fugitive Tales from the Edge of Memory: a visual interpretation of female narratives, 1900-1939, explores the art of visual story telling, through a fusion of object, image and text, against a backdrop of social history. It investigates the political and social contrasts and confinements experienced by women from the turn of the 20th Century until the beginning of the Second World War, this period chosen both for its aesthetic appeal, and to encompass the widespread constitutional, social, and moral reforms it witnessed. The co-existence of theory and practice are integral to the research. Artistic practice and critical theory are used to explore the creative potential of making the invisible, visual: addressing the ways in which the parallel perspectives of biography, creativity and social history â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a synthesis of art and society â&#x20AC;&#x201C; can be developed and maximised for their potential to engage and communicate. The visual tales are not complete stories, rather they are fragments, inspired by archive, story, or anecdote, often harnessing the elusive aspects of memory, a blurring between fiction and fragile experience. Borrowed memories are reconstructed into new realities as part of the research methodology. These intimate tales are translated into a visual language, where narratives act as ambassador through which to document, and give voice to, otherwise hidden aspects of history. Artworks act as mediator between distant and contemporary worlds, a poetic utility between audience and understanding, biography giving a human dimension to history, thus enriching it.

ARTICLE TWO

Stereotypes in German War Films

By: Richard MCkenzie

ARTICLE TWO

n 2011 a UK film magazine1 produced a list of the 500 greatest films which all film lovers ‘must see’. The list includes classics like Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind2 and George Lucas’ Star Wars3 but only includes 10 films about World War II. Since the number of war films included in the list is so small, it is even more remarkable that three of these ‘must see’ films are German. The three films that made the list are4: Reitz’ Heimat5, Peterson’s Das Boot6 and Hirschbiegel’s Der Untergang.7 This list fits in with my own research on German film. I am currently writing a Phd which will examine how East and West German films which deal with World War II, produced in the 1950’s and 1960’s, have informed German cultural memory of the war. In the course of my investigation I discovered that German war films draw from a narrow set of stereotypes that continue in to the 21st Century. Stereotypes: East vs West The Hollywood war film stereotypes have been well documented but the German

war film stereotypes have been less well codified. In the 1980’s, Baier began the work of identifying the stereotypes that make up a German, especially a West German, war film. He identifies the Prussian Officer who carries the Ritterkreuz (The Iron Cross) and is an anti-fascist even though he is serving the fascist regime. He identifies the ‘führergläubiger Fahnenjunker’(Führer supporting noble) who despite all evidence to the contrary believes in ‘Endsieg’( Final Victory). There is the aesthete for whom war is foreign and who is at heart an intellectual. He is balanced by the ‘harter Landser’(the tough trooper) for whom soldiering is a natural experience and who is always chosen for the toughest of tasks. As in the Hollywood genre there is “the resourceful NCO who knows how to find something to eat, even in the toughest situation.” Finally, the list of identifiable stereotypes concludes with the ‘hinterhältiger Schleifer’ (the coward who hangs at the back of the charge) and ‘Faktotum des Trupps’ (the Quartermaster) .8

Denazifying fascism Seeβlen is extremely critical of West German war films claiming that they ‘denazify…and demilitarise’9 fascism. He complains that many 1950’s West German films saw the German soldier as ‘nothing less than a victim’10 and that in the use of stock father figures, such as O.E. Haase

playing officer and resistance roles, a myth of ‘honesty’ was created which allowed the officer class to become “… typical Germans, who are answerable to God rather than the Führer ….”11 He comments that German war films on both sides of the Iron Curtain contain resistance stereotypes, however he criticises them for finding the motivation to resist, not from their own horror of fascism, but from an external force such as God or Socialism.12 Moeller examined the West German war films finding few images of the Western Allies but a very negative image of the Soviet forces stating “Allied bombs were faceless…however the face of the Red Army soldier was all too familiar.”13 The presentation of the Red Army soldier as a rapist and killer who had forced the Germans out of their traditional Heimat in East Prussia added to the sense of loss and German victimisation presented in West German war films. Moeller argues that the totalitarian Red Army soldier is used as an antidote to the notion of collective guilt foisted on Germany by the Western Al-

ARTICLE TWO

lies. German film makers could “by pointing the finger at the Russians, …insist that totalitarianism was a universal phenomenon of the twentieth century …[and] not a uniquely German creation.”14 Baier, Seeβlen and Moeller concentrated mainly on the West German output, however the stereotypes they identified, plus a number of additions, can consistently be found across the span of German war films, no matter in which Germany they were produced or in what era. Central to any German war film is the sense of the extreme waste and pointlessness of war. While in a Hollywood film such as Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan15 the hero might die, or as in Attenborough’s A Bridge too Far16 the battle may be lost, the struggle itself is epic and the cause- noble. In German films, however, it does not matter how attractive or brave the hero, all heroism is wasted in death. This is seen in the character of bemedalled pilot Hans Joachim Marseille in Weidmann’s Der Stern von Afrika17 (FRG) or Wolzow, who also fulfils the role of hard

Landser and Nazi believer, in Kunert’s Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt18 (GDR). In Wicki’s Die Brücke19 (FRG) this waste becomes obvious as a class of Gymnasium pupils sacrifice themselves on the altar of debased fascism and become a stock stereotype for the German war film. The stereotype itself predates World War II and possibly springs from Remarque’s book, Im Western nichts neues, filmed by Hollywood in 1930. The stereotype is picked up on both sides of the Wall in Die Brücke and Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt. Even Der Untergang hints at the stereotype with groups of children and teenagers losing their lives while pointlessly defending Berlin. Baier identifies the aesthete and often he is represented as a gentle piano playing character. This character is tortured by the experience of war and the sensitivity of piano playing characters like Peter Weise in Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt, Leutnant Fuhrmann in Hunde, wollt ihr ewig Leben20 (FRG) or Unteroffizier Vierbein in 08/15 (Teil II)21 (FRG) means that

they do not survive the war. Where the pianist character is omitted, such as in Wolf’s Ich war neunzehn22 (GDR), there will be references to German classical literature and music. In this case one of the main characters, Sasha, who regularly quotes Heine but is killed in the final scenes. Allies and Enemies The transition from callow youth to soldier is marked by a stock barracks scene where we meet Baier’s NCO and see a scene that directly references Lew Mile-

stone’s 1930 film All Quite on the Western Front. In this scene the young recruits are being trained and, at the appropriate command, have to throw themselves on the ground rehearsing the action of taking cover. This scene is repeated in 08/15, Die Brücke, Fabrik der Offiziere23 (FRG) and in Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt. The young men are hardened up and prepared for the battlefield where one would expect them to engage the enemy but, as suggested by Moeller, the opposite is often the case. Only rarely will the Western Allies be overtly depicted, perhaps appearing as contrails in the sky as bombers attack German cities, as in Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt or Nackt unter Wölfen24 (GDR) or as distant targets through a periscope in Das Boot. The Soviets will appear as

ARTICLE TWO

faceless rapists and murderers in West German films such as; Wisbar’s Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen25(FRG) or Schlöndorff’s Die Blechtrommel26 (FRG) or, if shown at all, as liberators and friends in DEFA films, such as; Ich war neunzehn or in Beyer’s Königskinder 27(GDR). Soldiers are not portrayed as monks and an attempt is made to re-humanise and rehabilitate the Wehrmacht soldier as an ordinary man who can love a woman. The ‘attractive’ Landser is a common stereotype within the genre, although there is a variation of this story that is unique to West Germany. Here the soldier falls in love with an enemy woman and in doing so is marked out as a character, who will die before the end of the film. We see this in Unruhige Nacht28 (FRG) and Der Artzt von Stalingrad29(FRG) where a character falls in love with a Russian woman. This type of relationship also appears in Der Fuchs von Paris 30(FRG) where the hero falls in love with a Parisian, and Rommel ruft Kairo31(FRG) where a character falls in love with a British woman. In each case

the male Landser character dies. Redemption Seeβlen and Moeller both identify that the German soldier is displayed as a victim of the Nazi’s who is often commanded by a fatherly officer character. The stereotype of the Landser as victim begins in the first post war German film Die Mörder sind unter uns 32(SBZ) where the hero, Mertens, suffers from shell shock because of the war crimes ordered by his war criminal commanding officer, Brückner. In many films a fatherly officer character stands between the Landser and the ‘other’ Nazis or warmongers. Actor O.E. Hasse’s record in this role is outstanding, playing fundamentally the same role in at least 4 films: Canaris33, 08/1534, 08/15 (Teil II) and Der Artzt von Stalingrad in the 1950’s. He plays an avuncular character, who trulyas Seeβlen says- is more afraid of God than the Nazis.35 The Landser victim stereotype is developed differently in the west and east films. DEFA’s films ask the Landser to reject the regime he serves and move from the passive role of victim

to the active role of fighting the regime, as Holt does in Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt and Willi Lomer does in Wolf’s Ich war neunzehn. The western film only allows redemption by acts of resistance such as O.E. Hasse’s portrayal of Admiral Canaris in Canaris (FRG). If there is no resistance the Landser remains simply a victim as in Hunde, wollt ihr ewig Leben or even Oskar in Die Blechtrommel. Nazi characters are depicted as grotesque, heartless and ‘other’; and not as representative of the ordinary German. This stereotype can be seen starting in the 1950’s with characters like SS-Gruppenführer Schmidt-Lausitz in Käutner’s Des Teufel’s General36 (FRG) and carries on via the depiction of the Nazi’s in Die Blechtrommel to the 21st Century. The Holocaust A consistent east/west stereotype of the Holocaust victim appears to be missing from the canon. Despite its anti-fascist background and its elevation of socialist victims of the Nazis, East German films

West german Films, especially those from the 1950’s, avoid the holocaust dealt extensively with the Holocaust, beginning with Ehe im Schatten37(SBZ) and continuing through the films of Konrad Wolf such as Professor Mamlock38 (GDR) and culminating in Beyer’s Oscar® nominated Jakob der Lügner 39(GDR). West German films however, especially those from the 1950’s, avoid the Holocaust. Thus in Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen, Die Brücke, Hunde,wollt ihr ewig Leben, Des Teufels General, or any or the other west films referenced it is the German’s who deserve the audience’s sympathy and who are the victims of National Socialism. This West German tradition of German victimhood in the face of National Socialism and the war has survived in to unification and can clearly be seen in Richter’s Dresden 40(D) or Der Untergang.

ARTICLE TWO

Conclusion The German war film remains a staple of the German film industry with films continuing to be produced in to the 21st Century. A review of the films made from 1946 to 2011 shows a remarkable continuity of stereotypes. While these stereotypes develop over time, their basic form has remained fundamentally unchanged since they were laid down by East and West German film makers in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. As such, it would be entirely possible for a 1950’s audience to watch a modern film and recognise the stereotypes of wasted youth, the destruction of culture, failed love, the brutalising training, the ‘honest’ officer, the grotesque and ‘other’ Nazi, and the unquestioned notion of the German soldier and civilian as a victim of the war, of the allies and -above all- of the Nazis. Endnotes 1 Empire Magazine Website, (2011) The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time 2 Fleming, Victor, (1939), Gone with the Wind, USA, Warner Bros. 3 Lucas, George, (1977), Star Ward, USA, Lucasfilm

4 The listed films about World War II are, in order of listing: Casablanca (1942), Schindler’s List (1993), Come and See (1985), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), Sophie’s Choice (1982), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Heimat (1984), Downfall (2004), Das Boot (1981), The Big Red One (1980) 5 Reitz, Edgar (1984), Heimat, BRD, Edgar Reitz Filmproduktions GmbH 6 Peterson, Wolfgang, (1981), Das Boot, BRD, Bavaria Atelier GmbH 7 Hirschbiegel, Oliver, (2004) Der Untergang, D, Constantin Film Produktion GmbH 8 Baier, Eberhard (1980) Der Kriegsfilm, Aachen, Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft für Jugendfilmarbeit und Medianerziehung e.V pp 68-70 9 Seeβlen, 2000, 257 10 Seeβlen, 2000, 258 11Seeβlen, 2000, 258 12 Seeβlen, 2000, 261 13 Moeller, Robert G., (2003) War Stories, the search for a usable past in the Federal Republic of Germany , Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press p5 14 Moeller, 2003, 5 15 Spielberg, Steven, (1998), Saving Private Ryan, USA, Amblin Entertainment 16 Attenborough, Richard, (1977), A Bridge Too Far, USA/ UK, Joseph E Levine Productions 17 Weidenmann, Alfred, (1957), Der Stern von Afrika, BRD, Neue Münchener Lichtspielkunst GmbH 18 Kunert, Joachim, (1965), Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt, DDR, DEFA 19 Wicki, Bernhard, (1959), Die Brücke, BRD, Fono-Film GmbH 20 Wisbar, Frank, (1959), Hunde, wollt ihr ewig Leben, BRD, Deutsche Film Hansa GmbH & Co 21May, Paul, (1955), 08/15 (Teil II), BRD, KG Divina-Film GmbH & Co. 22 Wolf, Konrad, (1968), Ich war neunzehn, DDR, DEFA

23 Wisbar, Frank, (1960) Fabrik der Ofiziere, BRD, Deutsche Film Hansa GmbH & Co 24 Beyer, Frank, (1963), Nackt unter Wölfen, DDR, DEFA 25 Wisbar, Frank, (1960), Nacht fiel über Gotenhafen, BRD, Deutsche Film Hansa GmbH & Co. 26 Schlöndorff, Volker, (1979) Die Blechtrommel, BRD, Franz Seitz Filmproduktion 27 Beyer, Frank, (1962), Königskinder, DDR, DEFA 28 Harnack, Falk, (1958), Unruhige Nacht, BRD, Carlton Film GmbH 29 von Radvanyi, Géza, (1958), Der Artzt von Stalingrad, BRD, KG Divina-Film GmbH & Co. 30 May, Paul, (1959) Der Fuchs von Paris, BRD, Kurt Ulrich Film GmbH (Berlin); Comptoir d‘Expansion Cinématographique 31 Schlief, Wolfgang, (1959), Rommel ruft Kario, BRD, Omega-Film GmbH 32 Staudte, Wolfgang, (1946), Die Mörder sind unter uns, Deutschland (Ost), DEFA 33 Weidenmann, Alfred, (1954), Canaris, BRD, Fama F.A. Mainz Film GmbH 34 May, Paul, (1995) 08/15, BRD, KG Divina-Film GmbH & Co. 35 Seeβlen, 2000, 258 36 Käutner, Helmut, (1955), Des Teufels General, BRD, Real-Film GmbH 37 Maetzig, Kurt, (1947), Ehe Im Schatten, Deutschland (Ost), DEFA 38 Wolf, Konrad, (1961), Professor Mamlock¸DDR, DEFA 39 Beyer, Frank, (1975), Jakob der Lügner, DDR, DEFA 40 Suso Richter, Roland, (2006), Dresden, D, Teamworx Television & Film GmbH

Richard McKenzie studies at Reading University where his Phd, “Looking at the foundations of a ‘New Germany’ – An investigation of East and West German genre films dealing with World War II”, will be completed in 2013. Richard’s MA examined 2 critical East German war films, Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt and Ich war neunzehn. He has studied in Reading, Göttingen and Kiev and relaxes by standing for election in unwinnable constituencies.

ARTICLETHREE TWO ARTICLE

The Role of Design and Archives in the Remembrance and Commemoration of the Great War and WWII Commonwealth War Dead

By: Daniel Alexander & Andrew Haslan

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWWGC) is responsible for the up keep of cemeteries and memorials of over 1.7 million soldiers in 150 countries through-out the world. The Commission has designed and maintains: 2500 cemeteries, 21,000 other burial grounds, 1,100,000 graves identified with a headstone and 760,000 names inscribed on 200 memorials to the missing.1 These cemeteries and memorials physically commemorate the dead from the Great War 1914 - 1918 and Second World War 1939 - 1945, both collectively and individually.

ARTICLE THREE

he Commonwealth War Graves Commission archive based at Maidenhead, contains over seven million photographs and 3 million documents2 (fig .1). It consists of five principal discrete archives: 1 the Document Archive, 2 the Administrative and Enquiry Archive, consisting of Memorial indices and Cemetery Registers, 3 the Photographic Archive, 4 the Drawing Office containing architectural plans for all cemeteries and memorials and 5) the Horticulture Department. As the project continues we will explore and photographically document discrete items within two additional archives, the Imperial War Museums collection of Grave Markers and Comrades Crosses and the Private collection of papers from the lettering designer MacDonald Gill, commissioned by the IWGC to design the lettering which records the names of the dead. The portfolio and papers of MacDonald Gill (1884 -1947) are owned by members of the Johnston family and will be on public display at the University of Brighton Grand Parade Gallery starting on July 22 2011.3

Fig. 2

Burying the Dead The Great War of 1914-18 registered the greatest number of casualties of any conflict throughout previous history, over 1.1 million British and Empire soldiers were killed.4 In their book Courage Remembered, Edwin Gibson and Kingsley Ward assessed the relative number of deaths of front line soldiers in the conflict. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Total battle casualties on the Western Front, killed and wounded, have been estimated at 50 per cent. To realize fully the appalling high level of the death and mutilation, one should also remember that the ratio of fighting soldiers to support

Fig. 3

troops was about one to five, so that statistically very few actual frontline men could escape at least some form of wound.’5 The sheer volume of casualties, the number of temporary graves and the length of the front over which soldier’s bodies were distributed created enormous problems for all the nations involved in the conflict. How were they to be buried? How were they to be remembered? (fig 2)

In 1914 a British Red Cross Unit led by Fabian Ware (1869 – 1949) (fig 3) was sent to France. Whilst their principal responsibility was caring for the wounded, the Red Cross began to collect information about the dead, noting names and the position of burials made by soldiers, usually from the same unit and as a consequence, referred to as ‘comrades graves’. During the conflict British and Empire soldiers were under orders to recover the bodies of their fallen comrades, as it was impractical to bury the bodies where they fell. Soldiers of both sides made simple wooden crosses or ‘markers’ to record when possible the name, rank, number, regiment and date of death (fig 4). This copy of the British Army General Routine Orders book, 1915 from the CWWGC archive was issued to Fabian Ware and it contains his notes in pencil in the margins (fig 5). The sections notated by Ware reveal his early interest in the burial of the soldiers. Ware realized that the process of recording the names, dates and position of the graves was vitally important

ARTICLE THREE

Fig. 4

for both the morale of serving soldiers and relatives on the ‘home front’. He made a base at the Hotel d’ Europe in Lille and took charge of the Red Cross Mobile Unit which consisted of volunteer drivers and a collection of motor vehicles in varying states of repair. This he called his ‘Flying Unit’6, and tasked his men with taking precise notes on the location of graves and temporary cemeteries. The value of Ware’s early work with the Red Cross Unit was identified

by Lieutenant Colonel Edward Stewart who visited Lille in October 1914. Stewart recognised that recording the names of the dead and the position of the graves was a complex task and that its accuracy could easily be compromised by shelling and subsequent fighting. He was concerned that the records should be made permanent, ‘On most of these graves the names were only inscribed in pencil and we have given instructions at once that they should be painted on, on the reverse side of the pencil inscriptions so as to avoid mistakes’7. Subsequently Ware’s Unit began to concentrate on grave records and was renamed the ‘Graves Registration Unit’ and attached to the British Army. On May 21st 1917 the units work was formerly recog-

nized by Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) King George V (1865 - 1936) and Parliament which decreed that ‘His Majesty to constitute by Royal Charter an Imperial War Graves Commission’. The Imperial War Graves Commission was founded. The Design Brief

Fig. 5

The vision for the Imperial War Graves Commission was laid out in a single slim Report written by Sir Frederick Kenyon (1863 - 1952), Director of the British Museum and first published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office in 1918 (fig 6). This 24 page document has formed the enduring design brief outlining all of the principal elements which constitute the memorial architecture of the cemeteries, later collectively referred to by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) as the ‘Silent Cities’8. Prior to

ARTICLE THREE

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

writing this report Kenyon and Fabian Ware, together with a small group of officers and a photographer from the Graves Registration Unit carried out an extensive tour of the battlefields, reviewing the com-

rades graves and temporary cemeteries in which graves were identified by either markers or crosses (fig 7). The report demonstrates Kenyonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pragmatism, administrative and diplomatic skills, as well as setting out a radical, progressive and equitable set of principals by which the design of the cemeteries abroad would record the names of the dead in perpetuity. The key principal Kenyon outlined was Equality of treatment. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;What was done for one should be done for allâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;9. Equality was to be established on two premises: social and geographical. With regards to the former all the names of the dead were to be recorded and in the same manner. This broke from the traditions of all previous British military losses in

which relatives or regiments commissioned monuments by subscription, often resulting in ‘the monuments of the more wellto-do overshadowing those of the poor’10. Kenyon was critical of the visual design of memorials erected by subscription, questioning the nature of ‘good taste’… ‘poor quality’11, and stating ‘the total result would be a few good but many bad with a total want of congruity and uniformity’12. In Kenyon’s view without equality ‘The whole sense of comradeship and common service would be lost’13. For the second premise, that of geographic equality the denial of repatriation meant none of the bodies were to be repatriated but were to be buried abroad. There was considerable opposition to this principal as bereaved relatives, particularly those of conscript soldiers, felt the government had taken their sons to war, seen them die for the Empire and were now denied the dignity of a family funeral and burial in their country of birth. To Fig. 8

facilitate the principles of overseas burial, the governments of France and Belgium donated land to the British government for the purpose of interning the dead. Recording the names of the dead and indexing the memorial locations The Administrative and Enquiry Archive at the CWWGC, consists of Memorial Indices and Cemetery Registers (fig 8). 97 large leather bound indices record the names in alphabetical order by surname and by war, a total of 1.7 million British and Commonwealth Service men and women. The

ARTICLE THREE

Fig. 9-11

indices with brown spines list the names of those killed in the Great War. Those with blue/black spines are of Second World War. Each page records the names of 30 lives lost (fig 9). The indices, organized alphabetically, are not a chronological account of loss throughout the course of the war but a summative record of the magnitude of death compiled after the hostility had ceased. The loss of each life is recorded as a single line entry. The lettering is typed on a page printed with a grey pre-ruled nine column grid: Regimental Number, Surname, Rank, Initials, Honors, Cemetery, Memorial, Country, Enquiry number. The arrangement of names within the indices imposes an order to the listing which bears no relationship to the comradeship of the trenches for it is unlikely that any of the men on a single page would ever have met during the course of the war. The sixth column of the indices gives details of the cemetery in which the grave is to be found, while the seventh refers to the memorial on which the name is inscribed. An entry is made in one or the other of these columns but not

Fig. 12-15

both. In the case of a body being recovered from the battlefield and identified, a grave with a headstone was erected and a cemetery number recorded in the sixth column. In the case of a soldier whose body was missing the number for a memorial was recorded in the seventh column (fig 10, 11). As a record of death, preserving the names of individual soldiers, it is spartan and impersonal, with each death recorded in no more than 25 or 30 characters. Only the second column â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Surnameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; carries an unabbreviated name, even the column of cemeteries has been transposed into a numeric code. The numeric codes recorded in the indices have lead administrative clerks to the Cemetery Registers for over 70 years. These books sit on a shelf above the indices. The anonymous code links to a cemetery name or memorial in the UK or overseas. It is only at this point that the location of a grave or memorial inscription is revealed. A page number in the register directs the clerk to a cemetery or memorial description. The names are arranged alphabetically by Surname,

Fig. 16

Fig. 17-18

Fig. 19 - 20

Service number, Rank, Initials, Regiment, Date killed, Year, Age, Next of kin, Plot and Grave number. If the grave is a CWWGC cemetery the details of individual soldiers are generally recorded in five lines. Each cemetery or memorial contains a copy of the register for that location, listing the names alphabetically. The Registers were designed by the book designer Douglas Cockerell who decided each book, in addition to the names and a frontispiece view of the cemetery or memorial, should include a map of the area and an account of the fighting responsible for the deaths and graves. Individual graves are identified by plot using Roman numerals on the map, by letter for the row and number for the grave. Prior to the information held in the indices being digitized, the books were working documents, used to answer queries from relatives concerning the location of a soldier. As can be seen in the visual examples here the ledgers were updated by hand as information or inaccuracies were revised. As objects these books record the names of the dead but also re-

veal the magnitude of the commemorative process. The typewritten names with hand written corrections have an indexical link to the individuals who typed out the lists of the dead and those who have used them to help locate where their names are marked for years after. Contemplating the rows and rows of names in the rows and rows of books offers a very different experience to viewing the beautifully serene cemeteries or magnificent memorials, these books display the day to day work behind this effort to record, update, access and preserve every name in perpetuity. As part of the research and as an outcome in itself we are photographing the archive documents that we have identified as being key to the narrative of the design and commemorative process. The photographic approach is systematic and methodical and will emphasize the materiality of the archive documents and their indexical link to the people who created, read, handled and made use of them (fig 12). By choosing to photograph the items in this way, as opposed to using the digitised

ARTICLE THREE

versions that have been scanned and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cleaned upâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; we aim to contextualise the archival items as objects within the design narrative and convey a sense of their age, condition, and retain connections to their previous users. Through both the selection of items and this method of documentation we will make visable some of the working processes of the commemoration that the items are part of. As discussed above the indices are a key example of this. From the list of names in these indices we will now discuss how they appear in the cemeteries or on the memorials. Headstones In his report, Kenyon outlined the approaches to the

Fig. 21 & 22

design of the headstones, which he felt should be more reminiscent of an ‘English Church yard than a cross’14. He stated ‘Each grave will have its own headstone, of uniform dimensions, on which the name of the dead will be carved’15. ‘The rows of headstones in their ordered ranks carry on the military idea…’ and ‘… will serve as the centre and focus of the emotions of the relatives who visit.’16. There was significant opposition from some bereaved public, many of whom wanted to preserve the cross form and dismissed the headstones as, ‘so many mile markers’. ‘The headstones should normally be 2ft 6in in height and 1ft 3in in width…’.17 A cost of £10 per headstone was set (fig 13). He also stated that ‘…each regiment, or convenient unit, should have its own pattern of headstone’.18 MacDonald Gill (Max) (1884 - 1947), brother of the better known letter cutter and carver Eric Gill, was commissioned to design the regimental badges with Douglas Cockerell as advisor. Religious symbols for those of ‘all faiths’ were designed: Cross, Star of David, Crescent Moon. The

relatives of those of no faith could specify a plain stone but those whose faith was unknown were generally marked with a cross. Max Gill was also commissioned to design the inscriptional font. This is entirely made up of caps, reflecting Roman inscriptional carving and has none aligning numerals and a Roman numeral set (fig 15). Max Gill designed two separate alphabets both of which are still used, one for the Great War and a slightly deeper cut version for the Second World War. The lettering was inscribed by a mechanical pantograph engraving system developed specifically for the Commission. Within the overall unified visual design scheme, Kenyon recognized the need for the personal memorial of the individual death, and proposed the addition of a text or prayer chosen by the relatives of, ‘no more than three lines’19. This proposal lead to the Commission writing to the next of kin of all of the identified soldiers. The ‘Verification’ form (‘V’ Form) was the administrative mechanism which allowed relatives to select a text of ‘no more than

ARTICLE THREE

66 characters’ which included inter word spaces. The relatives would be charged three and half pence per letter, though in reality inscription charges were often waved. These epitaphs are engraved on the lower part of the headstone and a number is engraved on the edge of each headstone that lies at the end of a row. This ‘Row number’ corresponds to the cemetery registers and enables the cemetery visitors to locate individual headstones. For those soldiers whose bodies could not be identified the poet Rudyard Kipling was commissioned to write a series of headstone epitaphs: ‘A soldier of the Great War known unto God’, for an unidentified body, ‘Believed to be buried near this spot’, or, ‘buried in this cemetery’, for bodies recorded in the location were the grave marker may not have survived or for burials in which the grave was destroyed by subsequent military action, ‘Their Glory shall not be blotted out’. Some of the Great War epitaphs supplied by the families were critical both of the war and the loss of the individuals

life. ‘He died for us in Vain’ 16684 Private Harold Kitchen 8th Battalion, Lincolnshire regiment Died 27 January 1918, aged 20. ‘Shot at dawn one of the first to enlist a worthy son of his father’,10495 Private Albert Ingham 18th Battalion, Manchester Regiment Died 1st December 1916, aged 24 (Shot for Desertion, his family were originally told he had died of wounds). ‘The pity of it’, Captain Authur Reginald French 5th Baron De Freynce 3rd Battalion, attached 1st Battalion, South Wales Borderers, Died May 1915, aged 35. ‘Glory of Youth glowed in is veins were is that glory now?’ 17539 Harold Worth 20th Battalion, Manchester Regiment Died 1 July 1916, aged 19. Others in the Second World War had begun to be far more political and moved away from Kenyon’s original description of a ‘short prayer or poem’.20 The example seen here has the epitaph, Mother I’ve weighed the risks, which I prefer to living in a world dominated by Nazis, Bill’ 155302 Sergeant Air Gunner W T McDonald Royal Air Force, Died October

Fig. 23

25th 1942 Age 27 (fig 16). The arrangement of the headstones Kenyon and Edwin Lutyens (1869 - 1944), the CWWGC principal architect originally envisioned the headstones facing east ‘toward the aggressor’, in rows of twelve like a great army. For practical reasons this was not universally adopted. The concept of rows is retained but the number per row and the orientation varies (fig 17). Each headstone stands above the grave of a single soldier and Lutyens idea of a ‘level field’ rather than a raised grave mound is both a visual and practical solution. Though it is not mentioned in Kenyon’s report in cases where two or more soldiers

died together and the body parts could not be separately identified the headstones are arranged so that they touch, a visual acknowledgement of the circumstance of death and the subsequent burial. In cases where many men died together or were buried in mass graves and the bodies are indistinguishable all the stones in a row stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ (fig 18). All the headstones on the Western Front and the majority worldwide are cut from Portland Stone, unless the climate requires the use of a harder granite. The quarries are a reminder of the ongoing work of the commission. In these images we documented the continuing work undertaken

ARTICLE THREE

by Albion quarries. All the stone is hewn from a single Portland quarry face for new graves such as those at The Fromelles (Pheasent Wood) Military Cemetery or the replacement of headstones that have eroded and lost the inscriptional definition of the name (fig 19 , 20). Approximately 4,500 headstones21 are replaced annually because of erosion, which threatens to remove the inscribed name. This â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Unending Vigilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;22 is evidence of the ongoing work of the Commission and the dedication to the preservation of every individual soldierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sacrifice. The memorials and the photographic approach to the project The Menin gate memorial contains the names of over 50,000 soldiers whose bodies were never found. This is an area of the project where we have completed the original photography and can demonstrate the photographic approach we will apply to other documents, artifacts and architecture. (fig 21,22). The photographic documentation

of the sites will be approached in a similar methodical way as that of the archive. We aim to create objective imagery of the cemeteries and memorials that align visually with the archive drawings and architectural plans. To do this we are photographing the cemeteries and memorials with a large format architectural camera allowing us to remove distortion from the images and capture a great amount of detail. This scientific, systematic approach will aim to remove the emotive subjectivity that exists in much of the imagery of remembrance and instead allow for a formal study of the design of the cemeteries and memorials. These items will also be shot to scale so that when viewed collectively the relative size of the objects, for example the crosses, or the cemeteries themselves can be compared. The cemeteries will be shot from the air in order to allow for the study of the number and layout of the graves. The memorials are shot so that the lists of names engraved onto the stone tablets are all readable to the viewer. These, in turn, link back to the lists of typewritten names

in the archive indices. Construction of the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery During the period of our original research a discovery was made of a mass grave in Fromelles in northern France. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission designed and built a new cemetery for up to 400 graves. The design and build of this cemetery gave us the opportunity to document the application of the design principles outlined in Kenyons 1918 report, as they were interpreted 90 years later. We have done this through both still photography and the creation of a time lapse film. The film covers 11 months from the build up to the completion of the cemetery in the summer of 2010. Two hundred and fifty bodies were found and buried, 96 of these have been identified through the use of DNA testing. To create the time lapse film we worked with engineer Justin Pentecost who built a camera and computer rig that shot a high resolution photographic still every 30 seconds, creating in total 500,000 images.

These were then edited together to create a film showing both the construction of the cemetery and the passing of time and changing of seasons over the course of these 10 months. The stills from the film, which will be held by the Imperial War Museum are themselves an archive of this act of commemoration, carried out in 2010 but based on the design plan written in 1918 (fig 23). Our exploration of the archive and the creation of the film both focus on the design process behind the final memorials and cemeteries. We believe that this emphasis on, and exploration of, the process allows for an alternative view of the act of commemoration. In order to record the names in perpetuity there is an ongoing process that is usually unseen but in itself is just as emotive and powerful as the completed cemeteries and memorials.

Daniel Alexander is a London based Photographer and Lecturer. He ran the Photography Pathway on the MA Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. He has been a visiting lecturer on the BA (Hons) Advertising and Editorial course at the University of Gloucestershire and since 2008 has been a Senior Lecturer in Photography at the University of Portsmouth where he is currently the BA (Hons) Photography Course Leader. He is currently working with Andrew Haslam on a practice based research project ‘Designing the Commonwealth War Graves’, jointly funded by Portsmouth University, Central Saint Martins and The University of Brighton, exploring the representation of war and its aftermath, remembrance, and the representation of remembrance. The project will be completed in 2014 with an exhibition and book. www.danielalexanderphotography.co.uk, www.1day6cities. org

Andrew Haslam graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1987. Since then he has run his own studio in London, creating none fiction science, history and geography books for children. In 1994 he won the American Institute of Physics Award for Science Writing and in 1997 the Geographic Society Gold medal for most significant contribution to Geography. In 1997 he became Head of Typography at the London College of Communication before returning in 2000 to be Course Director for MA Communication Design at CSM teaching on the course for ten years. Whilst continuing to live in London he has recently moved to the University of Brighton as Academic Programme Leader for Visual Communication. His new book Lettering a manual of technical processes is due to be published by Laurence King in September 2011. Andrew worked with Daniel Alexander Course Leader for BA Photography at the University of Portsmouth.

Figure notes

GC cemeteries (F)

The images in this article are comprised of a number of different types of photographs. There are photographs from the CWWGC archive, photographer unknown (A), reference photographs where the final photograph for the project is yet to be taken (R) and final photographs that have been shot for this project as described in the article (F)

13Ware, F, The Immortal Heritage, University Press Cambridge (1937) (R)

1 CWWGC Photographic Archive (F)

18 Headstones, trench burial (A)

2 Soldiers wash their hands in a shell hole, surrounded by comrades graves, Belgium, (A) 3Sir Fabien Ware, (A)

19 Portland Quarry, Hewn stones (F)

14 McDonald Gillsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s typeface (R) 15 Verification Form (R) 16 Headstones (F) 17 Aerial photograph of Tyne Cott Cemetery (A)

4Cromrades Crosses, (A)

20 Portland Quarry, headstones cut for the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery (F)

5Fabian Wares General orders book. (R)

21 Menin Gate memorial (F)

6The Kenyon Report, (F)

22 Menin Gate memorial detail (F)

7Tyne Cott, gave markers, (A)

23 Stills from the time-lapse of the construction of the Fromelles (Pheasant Wood) Military Cemetery, 2010 (F)

8CWWGC Enquiry archive, indices of names, (R) 9 Indices listing names of the war dead (R) 10 Indices listing names of the war dead detail (R) 11Indices listing names of the war dead detail (R) 12 Early conceptual drawing of the Cross of Sacfirice, which is erected in all CWW-

(Endnotes) 1 Summers, Julie, Remembered The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Merrell, 2007 London 2 Ibid. 3 Private collection owned by Andrew and Angela Johnston relatives of the Gill family 4 Longworth, Philip, The unending Vigil The History of the Commonwealth War Graves

ARTICLE THREE

Commission, Pen and Sword 1969, South Yorkshire 5 Gibson & Ward, Courage Remembered 6 Longworth, Philip, The Unending Vigil The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Pen and Sword, 1969, South Yorkshire 7 Longworth, Philip, The Unending Vigil The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Pen and Sword, 1969, South Yorkshire 8 Hurst, Sidney C, The Silent Cities an Illustrated Guide to the War cemeteries and Memorials to the Missing in France and Flanders: 1914 1918 Methuen & Co. 1929, London 9 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 10 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 11 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 12 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 13 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 14 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Sta-

tionery Office 1918 London 15 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 16 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 17 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 18 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 19 Kenyon, Frederic, War Graves how the Cemeteries abroad will be designed, HM Stationery Office 1918 London 20 Ibid 21 Information supplied by Peter Francis CWWGC Head of External Communications 22 Longworth, Philip, The Unending Vigil The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Pen and Sword, 1969

Get your Books now!

studymanager.nl 49

scan this code and Get â&#x201A;Ź10,- discount

ARTICLE FOUR

By : Steve Spencer

Vicarious/Precarious:

Bittersweet Experiences of the London Blitz

ARTICLE FOUR

hamberlain’s radio announcement that Britain was at war with Germany coincided with another air raid test in the capital, eerily reminding listeners that rehearsals would soon give way to the main performance where ‘sandbags ..., gas masks ..., the nightly blackout became a way of life.’1 The focus of the enemy’s campaign on London itself marked the start of the Blitz in September 1940 with a series of air raids, day and night. The anticipated demoralisation of the capital’s population would presumably persuade the government to cave in to German aggression.

Accounts of the Blitz were frequently reported and represented, then and later, in newspapers, literature, mass observation records, films, newsreels, photography and commissioned artworks. Recent online initiatives such as The People’s War (BBC) include recollections from a child’s point of view.2 The overriding tone often emphasises the chirpy resilience of Londoners in the face of upheaval and personal loss – to borrow Churchill’s phrase, “Business as usual”.3 Yet the Blitz also evoked incongruous feelings of fear and excitement, characterised perhaps in a Bakhtinian sense as ‘carnivalesque’, where comedy is a prelude to tragedy or vice versa; where norms and rules are disrupted, and bodies dislocated and mutilated within a topsy-turvy world. Peter Ackroyd suggests the parallels between London’s bombed landscapes and the capital’s earlier histories signify that the devastation was somehow not wasted. London’s past is unearthed, indicating simultaneously, where the city and its people had come from and where its future potential lay. The Blitz spawns, on the one hand, unexpected archaeological discoveries or revised interpretations of history; whilst on the other, reminding us of unenlightened attitudes and basic human instincts.4 The consequences of the Blitz devastated the lives of thousands and the prevailing conditions often exacerbated the horror. The severe winter of 1940 caused vehicles to

slide uncontrollably across frozen roads, fire engines to seize up and hosepipes to freeze solid. Bombs wreaked indiscriminate havoc: gas bursts created rapidly spreading fires; showers of glass and shrapnel littered the roads, falling masonry required careful negotiation on the streets.5 Novelist, Graham Greene, himself a fire-warden in Bloomsbury, describes the air raids in his fragmentary journal The Londoners. A cacophony of jarring words and sounds, abandoned bodies, uncoordinated activity, all contribute to a kaleidoscopic picture of a helpless, dislocated society. ‘All stretch-

er men and no wardens visible. What are a warden’s duties? The lectures no longer seemed clear.’6 Ironically, Arthur Rowe, the hero of his 1943 novel The Ministry of Fear, is ‘saved’ by a raid over his home during a heated argument. Greene conflates Rowe’s rising anger and the detonation of the bomb: his adversary is killed and the mangled remains of Rowe’s home assume new identities and orientations. As he navigates his way out of the wreckage with the help of the stars, ugliness turns to beauty as ‘three flares came sailing slowly, beautifully, down, clus-

ARTICLE FOUR

ters of spangles off a Christmas tree’.7 Ensuring the safety and freedom of Londoners required control and organisation. However, inequality was never far away. Domestic shelters were seldom effective, with many preferring the security of deep shelters often made available to the middle classes in hotels or public buildings. Underground Stations seemed a viable alternative, although heavily resisted by the government who feared that a ‘shelter mentality’ would prevail. Despite police intervention the authorities finally ceded to public pressure with around 80 stations housing some 177,000 Londoners during the raids. However, even these refuges had their limits.8 For some, air raids evoked contradictory feelings. Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent in 1940, witnesses ‘the most hateful, most beautiful single scene ... ever known’. His abiding memory is ‘the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London [coupled with] the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all’.9 Denis Gardner’s on-

line testimony evokes a similar frisson: ‘The scenes of destruction ... were both frightening and exciting.’10 It was during a night raid that Denis, a newspaper delivery boy in Peckham, smoked his first cigarette, offered to him by his Dad. Was this a symbolic bolstering of courage or a rite of passage, from boyhood to manhood, as ‘real’ time collapsed in his topsy-turvy world? Some plunged straight into the ‘action’ irrespective of the dangers. Time never seemed to stand still for Quentin Crisp whose war experience was almost unique. Rejected by the conscription authorities on the grounds of ‘sexual perversion’, Crisp worked as an artist’s model, ‘map[ping] London during the Blitz as a geography of newly liberated sexuality ... in which sexual morality and mores were suspended for the duration’.11 Crisp was taken (literally?) by the arrival of GIs, who ‘flowed through the streets of London like cream on strawberries, like melted butter on peas’. His taste buds tickled, he devoured ‘these “bundles for Britain”, [their] bodies bulging through every straining

khaki fibre’.12 In the heart of darkness of the West End, Crisp revels in the mass of silhouettes. Emerging from Leicester Square station, disorientated by blackout, he asks an invisible passer-by where he was: ‘He kissed me on the lips, told me I was in Newport Street and walked on.13 Another queer wandering the streets of London in the Blitz was Henry Fortescue, a fictional politician in Compton Mackenzie’s 1956 novel, Thin Ice.14 The narrative explores the tensions between Henry’s private sexuality and political role. Exploiting the blackouts to satisfy same-sex desires, Henry is eventually blackmailed by an unscrupulous encounter. The irreconcilable tension between his patriotism and homosexuality seals Henry’s fate, and, at the end of the novel, he is killed in the Blitz. For his friend, Henry’s death is a ‘mercy’. But for whom? His death at the hands of the Nazis seems more palatable than the arrest and prosecution of a politician in a wartime climate? Whilst Fortescue and Crisp are exhilarated in the capital, Patrick Hamilton’s

wartime heroine Miss Roach finds herself a ‘slave of solitude’ in the safer but stifling Rosamund Tea Rooms of suburban Thames Lockdon.15 She is showered with hard-to-find goods by her GI, but she soon realises she is one girl of many, treated royally one day, but replaced when her back is turned.16 She ultimately moves back to London, the ‘crouching monster’ which thrives on the oxygen of its suburban working men and women, and luxuriates in the comfort of Claridge’s Hotel. Cinemas were popular venues to escape the drudgery of war. They had served the Ministry of Information well, where propaganda films and newsreels informed audiences on both sides of the Atlantic that Britain was holding firm in the Blitz. For Crisp, the cinema was an ideal location to pick up men. But choosing the film was all important: war films were favourable (the soundtrack masked creaking seat springs); films with snow scenes were inadvisable (too much light in the auditorium)!17 A visit to the cinema features in the online testimony of James Tait, a young East End

ARTICLE FOUR

lad, whose trip to watch cartoons is disrupted by an air raid. Evacuated from the cinema, the family become spectators to a transformed apocalyptic scene where the blackness of the street is illuminated by a blood-red sky that kept flaring and dying.18 However, the sense of exhilaration was sometimes short-lived and managing people dislocated by raids became an increasing problem. Greene recalls a middle-class couple bemoaning the tedium of their lives which comprised of a daily tread-

mill of entertainment, dinner and hotels.19 A number of texts illustrate in words and photographs the minutiae of wartime existence.20 Whilst some describe the pathetic plight of East Londoners â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;wandering about the streets ... unwanted and miserableâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;21, others show people pitched underground for hours in relative safety and plentiful company. One West End hairdressing salon operated from its basement shelter22; one of the Chislehurst caves served as a dance hall23; one local council organised evening classes in the shelters. Yet for all these accounts of chirpy resilience, disillusionment and frustration were never far: people fought to reserve the best plot on the platform; unsanitary conditions prevailed; sex-

ual opportunists engaged in brief encounters; thieves sought easy pickings. Images show bodies lying in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, personal goods strewn about. All this is a far cry from the spectral images of Henry Moore’s shelter drawing Tube Shelter Perspective (1941), which shows swathed Londoners sleeping peacefully in serried ranks.24 Surely, an idealised version of events: a heroic population, compliant rather than self-interested, blissfully unaware of events overhead. Or are these the ‘sacrificial dead’, Londoners resigned to meet the grim reaper? ‘The helpless bodies wallow in the grey fog of the indefinite floor, body outlines becoming less defined as the eye probes the depths of the tunnel ... [and recall] Blake’s images of Dante’s Inferno, the bodies prostrate and layered over one other’.25 These words echo those of Greene’s Inspector Prentice who notes wearily that ‘so many bodies are unidentifiable. So many bodies ... waiting for a convenient blitz’.26 A contrasting treatment of the Blitz by Sir Claude Francis Barry combines dra-

ma with patriotism.27 Barry’s large-scale canvases - with an explosion of colours using a pointillist technique - symbolise London’s resilience and resistance. Each brushstroke could be a shimmering spark falling from the sky. London Blitz 1940 (private collection) shows a defiant Tower of London amid the diagonal beams of the searchlights. The Heart of the Empire: our finest hour (1940) (Liss Fine Art), depicts the shimmering Thames, dominated by St.Paul’s Cathedral, with a regimental swathe of iridescent diagonal searchlights in the form of the letter V, reminiscent of Churchill’s victory sign. London sustained air raids until May 1941 after which a new wave of weapons was to assault the capital with even more devastating consequences. The topsy-turvy world of the Blitz revealed social tensions which were (and, arguably, still are) often eclipsed by recurring stories of stoicism, resistance and cheery pulling-together. Let the curtain fall on the ‘carnival of war’ with a fictitious finale by two queens who both rejected the

ARTICLE FOUR

idea of leaving London during the Blitz. Queen Elizabeth, wife of George VI, announced during a visit to the East End that she was now able to look the East End in the eye following an air raid over Buckingham Palace. This earned her the affection of the British people. Meanwhile when war was declared, another queen went out, bought two pounds of henna and paraded through the blacked out streets of the West End. This earned Quentin Crisp the affection of the American GIs. Such is the bittersweet nature of conflict! Endnotes

Head p.109. Greene kept his Journal between 1940 and 1941. 7 Greene, G. (1943) The Ministry of Fear. London: Vintage p.28 8 A short but intense raid over the City on 11 January 1941 resulted in fatalities and casualties in Liverpool Street Station, on a passing bus and in the ticket hall of nearby Bank Station. See Gardiner, J. (2004) Wartime Britain 1939 – 1945. London: Hodder Headline p.412 9 “The London Blitz, 1940,” EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2001) (accessed 15 March 2010) 10 www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/22/ a4093922.shtml (accessed 16 February 2010) 11 Bell, A. (2008) London Was Ours. London: IBTauris and Co. Extract accessed online at www.amyhelenbell.com/ (accessed 15 March 2010)

1 “London Goes to War, 1939”, EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2005) (accessed 15 March 2010)2

6 Greene, G. (1980) Ways of Escape. London: Bodley

Children’s wartime testimonies can

also be found in Robert Westell’s 1985 anthology Children of the Blitz: memories of wartime childhood. Harmondsworth: Penguin 3 Ackroyd, P. (2000) London: the biography. London: Vintage p.738 4 Ackroyd, P. (2000) London: the biography. London: Vintage pp.737-746 5 Gardiner, J. (2004) Wartime Britain 1939 – 1945. London: Hodder Headline pp.409-410

12 Crisp, Q. (1985) The Naked Civil Servant. London: Harper Perennial p.160 13 Crisp, Q. (1985) The Naked Civil Servant. London: Harper Perennial p.158 14 Mackenzie, C. (1956) Thin Ice. Harmondsworth: Penguin. The narrative spans a fifty year period terminating in 1941. The novel’s primary engagement with its readers concerns critical debates for/against homosexual law reform reflecting the activities of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (the Wolfenden Committee) 1954 – 1957. 15 Hamilton, P. (1947) Slaves of Solitude. London: Constable and Robinson

16Gardiner, J. (2004) Wartime Britain 1939 – 1945. London: Hodder Headline p.554 17 Gardiner, J. (2004) Wartime Britain 1939 – 1945. London: Hodder Headline p.159 18 www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/05/ a2014705.shtml (accessed 16 February 2010) 19 Greene, G. (1980) Ways of Escape. London: Bodley Head p.101 20 One useful text is Marwick, A. (1976) The Home Front: The British and the Second World War. London: Thames and Hudson; another which accompanied a television series, is Mack, J. and Humphries, S. (1985) The Making of Modern London 1939-1945: London at War. London: Sidgwick and Jackson 21 Marwick, A. p.49 22 Marwick, A. p.62 23 This and the next example are quoted in Mack, J. and Humphries, S. p.92 24 Henry Moore (1898-1986), Tube Shelter Perspective, 1941 (pencil, ink, wax and watercolour on paper 48.3 x 43.8 cm) Tate Gallery 25 Ware, T (2002) ‘Insight at the End of the Tunnel’ in Tate Magazine Issue 2. Article available online at www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue2/moore.htm (accessed 24 March 2010) 26 Greene, G. (1943) The Ministry of Fear. London: Vintage p.188 27 Images of barry’s work can be seen online at www.francisbarry.com/content/view/36/44/ and www.lissfineart.com/display.php?KT_ artists=Claude+Francis+Barry# (both accessed 16 February 2010)

Steve Spencer is an independent researcher formerly based at the University of Greenwich where he achieved a distinction in the MA Literary London programme. He has a strong interest in literary and visual representations of men and masculinities, especially in post-war British society. He is currently preparing a queer reading of Thin Ice, a novel by Compton Mackenzie, published in 1956. When not carrying out independent research, Steve indulges in another passion, painting.

BIOGRAPHY

Leni Riefenstahl Fallen Film Goddess or Greatest Female Director in Film History? By: Oscar Broughton & Elke Weesjes

he actress and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s personal and professional life continue to fascinate scholars worldwide. Some call Riefenstahl ‘the fallen film goddess’1, referring to the politico-propagandist aspects of her work and her controversial (working) relationship with Hitler. Others emphasise that enough years have passed since the Second World War, so that we should begin to be capable of a realistic perspective on this woman who has

often been called the greatest female director in film history; who made two of the most extraordinary documentary films of all time.2 Opinions are divided, for starters because of Riefenstahl’s conflicting post war press interviews, which make it difficult to find the truth about this remarkable but controversial woman, hindering any observer who tries to reach an informed opinion on her place in art and film history.

BIOGRAPHY

Early Days Leni, christened Bertha Helena Amalie Riefenstahl, was born in 1902 on PrinzEugen Strasse in Wedding, Berlin. Her father owned a company which sold heating and ventilation systems. As a result of the city’s countless new constructions and renovations during this period, the business expanded rapidly in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century.3 While her father kept the family materially secure, he was also a typical patriarch. The relationship between father and daughter was pretty tense, so much so that later in life Riefenstahl claimed:”my father was a despot.”4 In 1908 she was enrolled in primary school and impressed her teachers with her inquisitive attitude, however her vitality and spontaneity did not sit well with the Prussian school system.5 It was here that the strong streak of independence and self-determination which would define her life first showed itself. This instinct, fostered through the constant conflict with her father, created a determined spirit, as she would later recount, to “become some-

thing quite great.”6 It was here at school where she discovered her life long passion for gymnastics and sports.7 Her love of theatre and film also began to manifest while Riefenstahl was at school, however unlike her sporting passions her parents, in particular her father, disapproved of this course for their young daughter.8 First World War When the First World War began in 1914, Riefenstahl was just twelve years old and could, as most children her age, barely fathom the turmoil of the times. By 1916 the war blockade enforced by the Allies had lead to severe food shortages in Germany and in 1918 Allied victory was imminent. Following the abdication of the Kaiser, Germany burst into revolution and troops and revolutionaries fought fiercely across the nation. The streets of Berlin were the theatre of conflict. Yet to young Riefenstahl, all of these events seemed to pass right over her. As she later recounted: “the fact that the world war had ended, that we had lost it, that a revolution had taken

place, that there was no longer a Kaiser and king- all of this was something I experienced as if in a fog. The orbit of my consciousness was a tiny world.”9 While the events of global politics failed to catch her attention, she would soon discover something that would- dance. The call to dance In 1918, at only 17 years of age, Riefenstahl responded to a casting call for a role as an extra in the film Opium without telling her parents. The film itself was a so

called Aufklärungfilm (Enlightenment film) designed to warn audiences about the dangers of drug addiction.10 Even though she managed to get the part, she turned it down knowing that she would never gain her father’s permission. However the audition itself would have a profound influence on her as it was here where she first witnessed students from a local dance school performing ballet exercises.11 It was then that Riefenstahl realised that she wanted to devote herself to dance. Fortunately for her, during the interwar years, Berlin was the global capital of dance. It was in Berlin where famed dancers such as Eugenie Eduardova and Anita Berber began to congregate and foster a whole new generation avant-garde dancers. The problem, however, was Riefenstahl’s age. At her age, dancers started their professional career.12 Riefenstahl couldn’t even dance yet. Another problem was her father, who would never approve of her career choice. It was her mother who came to the rescue, enrolling Riefenstahl for

BIOGRAPHY

dance lessons without her father knowing. It didn’t take long before her father did find out which caused so much rage that the family was almost split apart. As penance, in 1919, Riefenstahl was sent away to a boarding school for a year. When she returned in 1920 she resumed her dance classes in secret while working as a secretary by day at her fathers firm. In 1921 the 19-year- old made her debut, performing a minor waltz at a student dance recital. In August 1923, when Riefenstahl turned 21, she left home and moved into a small flat in West Berlin. She further excelled as a professional dancer and after a few months Riefenstahl became financially independent from her father due to several well-paid performances. Her success combined with her newly gained independence gave Riefenstahl the strength and motivation to further develop her own personality. Dismissing her father’s influence she chose to pursue romantic relationships purely according to her own interests.13 A feat difficult to achieve for a woman, even in the heart of radical Berlin. Riefenstahl

was exceptional and somewhat rebellious, illustrated by her choice to lose her virginity with the tennis star Otto Froitzheim as well as her choice to reject the advances of the rich Jewish producer Harry Sokal who later helped fund her career. Transition into film Riefenstahl’s career as a dancer lasted only eight months due to a knee injury she suffered in Prague. Nevertheless her experiences performing in theatres made her realise that she didn’t want to give up her life as a professional artist. Knowing she would never dance again she turned to cinema instead. Having first attended the cinema as a ten year old, she was part of the first generation to truly grow up in a world of film.14 German cinema and in particular Ufa (Universum-FilmAktiengesellschaft) was a true Mecca for filmmakers and actors across Europe; the world’s only real rival to Hollywood.15 In 1925 Riefenstahl secured a place in the film Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit (Ways to Strength and Beauty) a cultural

film about the benefits of physical fitness which the film makers ambitiously called “regeneration of the human race”.16 Following this role and after seeing the Alpine film Der Berg des Schicksals (Peak of Faith) Riefenstahl resolved to meet the film’s director Arnold Fanck, a pioneer in mountain cinematography. She managed to get a part in his next picture. While she was unable to meet Frank when she first headed to the Alps, she was able to meet Luis Trenkern, an actor who frequently starred in Franks pictures, and gain a part through his influence. Here she again demonstrated her terrific will to succeed and also her ability to manipulate the male dominated world she inhabited. She went on to embody this Alpine genre through numerous roles in Franks films, most famously Der Heilige Berg (The Holy Mountain) released in 1926 in which she played

a dancer caught in a love triangle with two mountaineers. These pieces were especially characterized by high mountains and deep valleys,a perfect vessel for the image of the traditional German Volk17 as apposed to the avant-garde experimentalism of Berlin. Das Blaue Licht Riefenstahl’s career with Fanck was highly successful, which is why Fanck’s casting of Marlene Dietrich as the lead female in the 1930 film Der blaue Engel (The Blue An-

BIOGRAPHY

gel), came as a surprise and moved Riefenstahl to reassess their relationship. She responded by writing, directing and starring in her own film Das blaue Licht (The Blue Light) which was released in 1932. The film itself drew heavily from Fanck’s influences and was another Alpine based story about the conflict between mountain and valley life. Riefenstahl’s naivety about film production drove her to improvise and invent new solutions to film problems which more experienced directors would not have considered. Her particular fascination with photographic values lead to her experiment heavily with different light filters which gave the film, as Riefenstahl put it, “a magical effect.”18 However, the film was not a success in Germany and crowds drawn by Riefenstahl’s name were highly disappointed.19 Riefenstahl’s initial failure as a director lead her to return to Fanck and in 1933 she appeared in the film S.O.S. Eisberg (S.O.S. Iceberg). This was another Alpine adventure film, this time shot in Greenland, which was also when Riefenstahl first discovered Hitler’s infamous work

Mein Kampf. National Socialism had been on the rise in Germany, especially following the global economic downturn of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. It appears that Riefenstahl had refrained from taking an active interest in politics. However, as her co star Ernst Sorge commented later, “she found a visible way of expressing her great admiration for Hitler by hanging up his picture, framed in sealskin in her tent.”20 Directing for the Third Reich Upon returning to Germany in the summer of 1933 Riefenstahl arranged to meet Hitler.21 This was following Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany and large numbers of people in the German film industry had already begun to leave the country. They fled the National Socialists’ overt anti-Semitism which led many to cross the Atlantic in order to join the Hollywood film industry instead.22 Riefenstahl, however, stayed and given her largely apolitical position and distance from the Jewish centers of the film industry, she was soon invited by the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels

to create “a Hitler film.”23 While Goebbels would later become a bitter enemy of Riefenstahl due to her close relationship with Hitler, which would give her creative independence from the propaganda minister, their initial relationship was positive. Hitler, Goebbels and Riefenstahl met in 1932, when Hitler was on the threshold of power. Ernst Hanfstängle, who believed that the best restraining influences on the budding Fürher was the presence of suitable attractive feminine company, witnessed this first meeting. In his memoirs he wrote: ‘Leni Riefenstahl was a very vital and attractive woman and had little difficulty in persuading Goebbels and Hitler to go on to her studio after dinner. I was carried along and found it full of mirrors and other interior decorator effects, but what one would expect, not bad. There was a piano there, so that got rid of me, and Goebbels, who wanted to leave the field free, leaned on it, chatting. This isolated Hitler, who got into a panic. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him ostentatiously studying the titles in the bookcases. Riefenstahl

was certainly giving him the works. Every time he straightened up or looked round, there she was dancing to my music at his elbow, a real summer sale of feminine advance.’24 Riefenstahl’s relationship with the Führer has always remained ambiguous, nevertheless it is important to note that while hardly anybody knew about Eva Braun, everybody knew about Leni Riefenstahl.25 Actually, without suggesting this was in any way Riefenstahl’s fault, it was in that same year that Eva Braun made her first suicide attempt in response to the attention Hitler was devoting to politics and the company of other attractive women.26 Riefenstahl now began to work on Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith), a documentary celebrating the first Nazi Party Congress in Nurenburg in 1933. Interestingly, for a supposedly apolitical animal, Riefenstahl was remarkably in tune with Nazi propaganda needs.27 The documentary was followed in 1935 by an almost forgotten work entitled Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces) which Riefenstahl her-

BIOGRAPHY

self seems to prefer to overlook, since she omits it from her own list of films. This isn’t that surprising since the film glorified the Wehrmacht.28 Then came Triumpf des Willens (Triumph of the Will) in 1935. The film was a masterpiece of propaganda produced at the perfect time following the political assassination of Ernst Rohm leader of the SA, and the death of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg who had been the Reich president since 1925. This film has been discussed at length and critics generally agree that this masterpiece is a prime example of what screen propaganda can do. The most fascinating aspect of this film is the fact that the Party Congress held at Nuremberg from September 4-10 1934, was nothing more (or less) than a gigantic show staged for the making of this film: ‘The congress was actually staged for the camera like some colossal Hollywood production.’29 In his article, David Gunston comes to two conclusions: ‘Triumpf des Willens could never have been made by anyone not fanatically at one with the events depicted, nor equally could it have

been made by anyone not profoundly encompassed by the medium.’30 When the film was released it was an instant success. The Nazis decided it was their most effective propaganda achievement yet. Abroad, it was well received. The film won the most prestigious award at that year’s Venice Film Festival and, more surprisingly, it was awarded a special diploma at the Paris International Exposition. Hitler was delighted. Even Goebbels, who Riefenstahl had later called ‘a big enemy of mine’, had to admit that the film had scored a gigantic triumph. Leni Riefenstahl was the most celebrated film-maker in Germany in the summer of 1935. She was young and glamorous, a film star turned film-maker. She was a confidante of the Fürher himself and it looked as though she could do what she pleased.31 Olympia In 1935, soon after her masterpiece was released to every cinema in Germany, preparations began for both the staging and the filming of another great spectacle

- the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Riefenstahl was approached to film the event. Interestingly, directly after the war she told the US Army Intelligence that Hitler commissioned her personally to make the film. However in the late 1980s she claimed that she was asked to produce the film by Dr. Carl Diem, the General Secretary of the Olympic Organising Committee, on behalf of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). She claims that she initially refused because she didn’t want to run up against Goebbels once more. He couldn’t stand the fact that she worked independently with the direct authority of Hitler and had as little to do with Goebbels as possible. However, Diem persuaded her to change her mind. He told her that in the Olympic stadium the IOC and the Organising Committee would be in charge,not the Ministry of Propaganda (i.e. Goebbels).32 The project became Olympia, a successful film which has since been widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements. Riefenstahl was one of the first filmmakers to use tracking shots in a

documentary, placing a camera on rails to follow the athletes’ movement, and she is known for the slow motion shots included in the film. Her cinematic record of this world event, which can be seen as having a strong influence in modern sporting coverage, succeeds on three separate levels - as a factual record of a world sporting event, as a cunning and skillful piece of Nazi propaganda, and as a brilliant example of how artistic a documentary can be.33 After the film premier, Riefenstahl spent the next six months attending gala premieres throughout the capitals of Europe. In every city she became a celebrity. She showed the film in Vienna, Zurich, Athens, Brussels (were King Leopold publicly flirted with her) , Belgrade, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki. At the Venice Film Festival Olympia was awarded the ‘Coppa Mussolini’. This angered the British and American representatives who had wanted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to win. They felt the award had been politicised. An English version of the film was produced, but it wasn’t commer-

BIOGRAPHY

cially distributed in Britain until after the war. Riefenstahl’s trip to Los Angeles coincided with ‘Kristallnacht’ and the filmmaker and her work were consequently boycotted by Hollywood. Nevertheless in June 1939, the IOC awarded Riefenstahl the Olympic Gold Medal.34 The War Years Following the beginning of the Second World War Riefenstahl became a uniformed war correspondent. It was then, on the Polish front, where in the small town of Konskie she witnessed the execution of 30 civilians who were arrested and killed by German soldiers in reprisal for Polish partisan attacks on Germans. Riefenstahl was apparently the only person present who failed to realize that all of the victims were Jewish.35 Riefenstahl was so affected that she could not continue to work with her film unit, and complained personally to General von Reichenau. The complaint was passed upwards but nothing was done and she withdrew immediately ‘from cooperation with a political tendency’.

From there it became clear that her influence with Hitler waned and their relationship dissolved.36 Riefenstahl left the battlefront and returned to Germany to work on a new project: Tiefland (Lowlands) which was the last feature film she ever directed. The script had begun to take shape in 1934 and the movie was shot between 1940-1944, although she didn’t completed it until 1954. In 1940 the shooting of the film was moved from Spain to Germany and Italy. Riefenstahl needed extras who looked Spanish, so she picked people with a Roma and Sinti background who were held in so called “Zigeunerlagers”. Between 1940 and 1942, about 110 concentration camp prisoners worked, unpaid, on the set of the film. Riefenstahl notes in her memoirs ‘working with us, was the best time of their lives.’37 The majority of the film’s extras were deported to Auschwitz and did not survive.38 De-Nazification Riefenstahl left Berlin when Germany capitulated on the 8th of May, 1945. Trying

to reach her mother, she hitchhiked with a group of men, when she was taken into custody by American troops. She was taken to a holding camp from which she ‘escaped’ (there was utter chaos and hardly any security in these camps), beginning a series of escapes and arrests. She was interrogated about Konskie and about her relationship with Hitler and Goebbels. Four De-Nazification trials followed in which she was accused of Nazi collaboration, however none of the surviving gypsy prisoners were asked to testify. Riefenstahl had never been a member of the Nazi Party and claimed that she wasn’t aware of the camps. She main-

BIOGRAPHY

Most of her life Riefenstahl had tried to shrug off her reputation as Hitler’s favourite film-maker and the Third Reich’s most gifted and glamorous female propagandist tained that she was intrigued by the National Socialists but politically naive and ignorant about any war crimes. In 1949 the issue of the use of prisoners for Tiefland was finally addressed. In that year’s trial against Riefenstahl opinions were divided: some surviving Gypsies claimed that they were mistreated, while others dissented. After three years of being held by the allies, Riefenstahl was eventually

cleared from being a Nazi collaborator, although she was termed a ‘fellow traveler’. The issue surfaced again in 1982 and in 2002, when Riefenstahl celebrated her 100th birthday. In ‘82, the reporter Nina Gladitz produced a documentary about Tiefland and showed footage of Riefenstahl visiting camps and selecting prisoners for Extras. Gladitz claimed that Riefenstahl knew that they would be sent to Auschwitz after the filming was done. Riefenstahl sued her and the courts forced Gladitz to edit out her accusations. Gladitz refused to do so and thus her documentary has never again been shown.39 In total Riefenstahl won more than 50 libel cases against people accusing her of knowledge having to do with Nazi crimes. Her postwar life is characterized by controversy and law suits rather than film making. She tried many times to make films during the 1950s and 1960s but it was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism. In 2002, Riefenstahl was taken to court for the final time. A Gypsy organisation accused her of Holocaust denial. She

made the following apology, “I regret that Sinti and Roma had to suffer during the period of National Socialism. It is known today that many of them were murdered in concentration camps.” Prosecutors eventually dropped the case because her comments did not rise to a prosecutable level.40 Riefenstahl died 17 days after her 101st birthday. After the war she had said that her biggest regret was meeting Hitler: ‘It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, “Leni is a Nazi, and I’ll keep saying -But what did she do?” And indeed most of her life she had tried to shrug off her reputation as Hitler’s favourite film-maker and the Third Reich’s most gifted and glamorous female propagandist. Unfortunately or fortunately, she never truly succeeded. Endnotes 1 G.B. Infield, The Fallen Film Goddess (Crowell, New York 1976) 2D. Gunston,’ Leni Riefenstahl’, in: Film Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1 (Autumn, 1960) pp 4-19 & T.Leeflang, Leni Riefenstahl. De macht van het beeld de onmacht van het woord (Aspekt, Soesterberg 2006). 3J. Trimborn Leni Riefenstahl: A Life (Faber &

Faber, 2007) p.5 4S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl (Knopf, 2007) p.15 5J. Trimborn Leni Riefenstahl: A Life p.9 6 S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl p.9 7J. Trimborn Leni Riefenstahl: A Life p.10 8 Ibid p.11 9J. Trimborn Leni Riefenstahl: A Life p.10 10 S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl p.16 11 J. Trimborn Leni Riefenstahl: A Life p.12 12 Ibid p.14 13 Ibid p.20 14 Ibid p.25 15S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl p.3 16S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl p.31 17A notoriously difficult word to translate but is best understood here as “the people” or “folk”. 18S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl p.73 19 Ibid p.78 20 E. Sorge, With Plane, Boat, and Camera in Greenland (Appleton Century, 1936) p.203 21A. Salkeld A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl (Random House, 1997) p.100 22A. Salkeld A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl p.108 23S. Bach Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl p.108 24 E.”Putzi” Hanfstängl, Hitler - The Missing Years (London 1956) 25C. James Reich Star http://www.nytimes. com/2007/03/25/books/review/James.t.html?ref =leniriefenstahl (01/06/11) 26A. Salkeld A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl

BIOGRAPHY

(Random House, 1997) p.102 27 S. Tegel Nazis and the Cinema (Continuum, 2007) p.94 28 D. Gunston,’ Leni Riefenstahl’, in: Film Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1 (Autumn, 1960)p. 14 29 P.Rotha and R. Griffith, The Film Till Now. (London 1949) p. 5. 30 D. Gunston,’ Leni Riefenstahl’, in: Film Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1 (Autumn, 1960)p. 15 31 Ibid 32T. Downing, Olympia (British Film Institute London 1992) 26-27 33 Ibid 27-31 34 D. Gunston,’ Leni Riefenstahl’, in: Film Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1 (Autumn, 1960) 16 35 C. James Reich Star http://www.nytimes. com/2007/03/25/books/review/James.t.html?ref =leniriefenstahl (01/06/11) 36 T.Leeflang, Leni Riefenstahl. De macht van het beeld de onmacht van het woord (Aspekt, Soesterberg 2006) p. 134 37 Ibid p. 140 38 S. Tegel Nazis and the Cinema p.81 39T.Leeflang, Leni Riefenstahl. De macht van het beeld de onmacht van het woord (Aspekt, Soesterberg 2006) p. 149-151 40S. Bach ‘Leni: the Life & Work of Leni Riefenstahl (Abacus 2006)

Oscar Broughton has a degree in Intellectual History from the University of Sussex and is currently living in Berlin. He has a wide range of interests which include the Weimar Republic, Democratic Theory, Libertarian Socialism (G. Landauer, R. Luxemburg and G.D.H. Cole) and the history of modernism in Art.

GET PUBLISHED CONTACT & SUBMISSIONS

We wish to emphasize that the United Academics Journal of Social Sciences publishes work of post-graduate and postdoctoral researchers. To encourage the cross-fertilization of disciplines we have chosen a plurality of fields and facilitate a productive interaction between the widest possible range of post-graduate authors and the public. The Social Sciences are the disciplines that explore aspects of human society. This term includes anthropology, archeology, geography, history, law, linguistics, psychology, political science and sociology. To maintain a high academic standard, articles submitted should be based on research undertaken during post-graduate or post-doctoral studies. Articles should be original in approach and subject matter.

GUIDELINES The journal is dedicated to a specific topic, but we also encourage academics to submit on any facet of Social Sciences. Articles should be sent as an email attachment to: elke.weesjes@united-academics.org.

• Provide a brief abstract of approximately 250 words. • Articles should be based on original research. • If you have any ideas for media that you would like to be part of your article, please send them in an attachment along with where you would like them to be placed. We encourage creativity and feel that the more ideas you have in this context, the better your article will look. • Articles should be between 2500 and 3500 words, book reviews should be no more than 1000 words and a WIP piece should be no more than 1500-2000 words in length. • All quotations in the text should be in single quote marks (double for quotes within quotes) and long quotes should be indented without quotation marks. • Use footnotes. In respect of references, give full details. E.g. Arend Lijphart, the politics of accommodation, pluralism and democracy in the Netherlands in the Netherlands (University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles 1975) 17-18. Subsequent references should give the author’s name, short title and page number. • Spell out numbers to twenty, centuries and percentages. • Try to avoid jargon, but where it is particularly relevant or where it is necessary, explain all jargon clearly. We reserve the right not to publish articles which do not conform to the standards established by the peer review process.