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War, Memory, and Politics: The Fate of the Film All Quiet on the Western Front

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Modris Eksteins
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Extract

Within months of its publication in January 1929 Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) was the world's best-selling book. It provoked a feverish controversy between those who claimed that it was an accurate representation of the war experience of 1914–18, portraying the utter futility of war, and those who denounced it as propaganda and an irreverent commercial exploitation of the Great War. Ironically, despite the intended focus of this heated debate, both the novel and the response which it elicited were more an emotional expression of postwar disillusionment and distress than a contribution to the understanding of the actual war experience.

Type
Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 60 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1980

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References

1. Read, Herbert, The Contrary Experience (London, 1963), p. 55.Google Scholar

2. I have tried to show this in my discussion of the novel, “All Quiet on the Western Front and the Fate of a War,’ Journal of Contemnporary History 15 (04 1980): 345–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. See the New York Times, 08 6 and 11 and 10 13, 1929.Google Scholar

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5. See the discussion of the American reviews in Literary Digest 105 (05 15, 1930): 19–20Google Scholar; also, Arnoux's, A. critical review in Nouvelles Littéraires, 12 6, 1930.Google Scholar

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10. Minutes of the Vorstand meeting, June 17, 1930, ibid.

11. Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, no. 559, 11 30, 1930; Deutsche Zeitung, no. 158, 07 9, 1930; Der Jungdeutsche, no. 262, 11 8, 1930.

12. UFA files, R109I/586.

13. Vorwärts cited the Contents in no. 577, Dec. 9, 1930.

14. See the material in the Reichskanzlei files, R43I/2497–2500; especially folder 2499, pp. 196–214, which contains the pamphlet by Schwarz, president of the Deutschen Kunst-Vereinigung, “Denkschrift über die wahre Situation in der ‘deutschen’ Filmindustrie und über Forderungen zur Hilfe und Rettung” (1929). See also Monaco, Paul, Cinema and Society: France and Germany during the Twenties (New York, 1976).Google Scholar

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16. See the debates on Potemkin in Reichskanzlei file R43I/2500; and the comments of the Manchester Guardian, Dec 11, 1930.

17. In 1921 180,000 meters (c. 90 films of average length); 1922–23, 250,000 m. (c. 125 films); 1924, 260,000 m. (c. 130 films). See the circular letter of the minister of the interior to other cabinet members, May 30, 1930, Reichskanzlei files, 8431/2500, pp. 67–72.

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19. In his circular letter of May 30, R43I/2500, p. 71.

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23. See, for example, the minutes of the discussions in the economics ministry, Jan. 19 and 23, 1920, Reichskanzlei files, R43I/2497, pp. 241–43.

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25. Letter of July 19, 1930, Reichskanzlei files, R43I/2500, p. 79. See also his letter to the Reich Chancellery, July 24, 1930, ibid., p. 78.

26. Letter of July 25, 1930, Reichskanzlei files, R43I/2500, pp. 80–86.

27. Letter of Aug. 21, 1930, ibid., pp. 101–2.

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39. Letters of Dec. 9, 1930, Reichskanzlei files, R43I/2500, pp. 128–29, 133.

40. No. 575, Dec. 10, 1930; and then the Statement by police president Grzesinski, quoted in the next issue, no. 576, on the same day.

41. For Grzesinski's later, rather hazy and confused, view of the events, see his unpublished “Erinnerungen,” Ms., Kl. Erw. 144, pp. 250–52, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.

42. Sitzungsberichte, 444: 538.

43. Headline in Rote Fahne, no. 288, Dec. 10, 1930; see also the next issue, no. 289, Dec. 11.

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47. The 25-page protocol of the Hearing is in Kl. Erw. 457, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.

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49. During a scene where a young officer's wife asserts that Frederick is not a woman hater, someone in the audience shouted: “Oh yeah? He was a homosexual!” BZ am Mittag, no. 345, Dec. 20, 1930.

50. Cited by Vorwärts, no. 583, Dec. 13, 1930.

51. See the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung, no. 580, Dec. 12, 1930.

52. Reported in the Kölner Lokal-Anzeiger, no. 92, Feb. 21, 1931.

53. See, for example, the correspondence on the subject in the Nachlass Kaiser, 220, Bundesarchiv Koblenz.

54. Zentralblatt, Jan. 15, 1931; ms. in Nachlass Kaiser, 220.

55. See my article cited in n. 2.