1936’s Olympic Appropriation Gone Wrong. Leni Riefenstahl, a German film director during the Nazi regime, primarily devoted her life's work to producing and directing Nazi propaganda films and documentaries. Her most notable work was a Nazi-propagated documentary named "Festival of Nations," featuring the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In this essay, I will argue that the documentary, directed by Leni Riefenstahl in close collaboration with Hitler, served as a Nazi propaganda film designed to promote Germanic racial superiority and ancestry by fabricating a connection between ancient Germans and the ancient Greek empire. Throughout his time as a politician, Hitler prioritized the concept of Germanic ancestry and its supposed roots in his appropriated …show more content…
In reality, the term Aryan means Iranian or Persian. Yet, this concept of appropriation and colonization has persisted throughout history and is evident again in this documentary, illustrating how the concept of knowledge and empire influences who and what we deem powerful. As we conclude, it is well known that stereotypical documentaries like "Festival of Nations" have caused more harm than good, regardless of the event that they are meant to represent. Film, like technology, has the ability to be both harmful and beneficial. It is not a neutral medium, as the concept of film heavily relies on the director, writer, or anyone involved, and the message they choose to embed in the film. In Riefenstahl's case, her close relationship with Hitler established a form of propagandist genre within her work, all of which served the Nazi regime with concepts like racial superiority, antisemitism, the Aryan race, and connections between the Nazi regime and Greek civilization. This effort showcased throughout the film, to establish oneself as the new pillar of modern society has led to some of the most horrific actions and events known to mankind, such as the Holocaust, segregation, and racial breeding, all of which were influenced by the Nazi regimes false narrative concept of the Aryan race theory and the
On Hitler’s Mountain is a memoir of a child named Irmgard Hunt and her experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. She herself has had many experiences of living during that dark time, she actually met Hitler, had a grandfather who hated Hitler's rule, and had no thoughts or feelings about the Nazi rule until the end of WWII. Her memoir is a reminder of what can happen when an ordinary society chooses a cult of personality over rational thought. What has happened to the German people since then, what are they doing about it today and how do they feel about their past? Several decades later, with most Nazis now dead or in hiding, and despite how much Germany has done to prevent another Nazi rule, everyone is still ashamed of their ancestors’ pasts.
Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief (2005), and Steven Spielberg, director of Schindler’s List (1993), both use their works to portray the theme of racism in Nazi-era Germany. Racism today affects millions of people daily, with 4.6 million people being racial discrimination in Australia alone. However, in Nazi-era Germany, Jewish people were discrimination because they weren’t part of the ‘master race’, causing millions to suffer and be killed. To explore this theme, the setting, characters, conflicts and symbols in both The Book Thief and Schindler’s List will be analysed and compared.
...trates how easily the Germans were manipulated and persuaded into supporting Hitler’s ideology about Germany and its manifest destiny through the use of many fictional characters.
The Web. 05 May 2014. The “History Learning Site”. Propaganda in Nazi Germany.
The controversy in Berlin Olympic Games was that the some of the Jews excluded from the Olympic team were actually world class athletes. The athletes left Germany, along with other Jewish athletes, to resume their sports careers abroad.The Nazis also disqualified Gypsies.The Olympics were intended to be an exercise in goodwill among all nations emphasizing racial equality in the area of sports competition. But the Nazis thought that only the Aryans should participate in the Olympics games to represent Germany.Then after that controversy then the committee of the Games wanted to move the Olympic Games to another country.This was because usually the U.S. got the most medals because they sent the most athletes.
Gottfried, Ted, and Stephen Alcorn. Nazi Germany: The Face of Tyranny. Brookfield, CT: Twenty-First Century, 2000. Print.
In the years between 1933 and 1945, Germany was engulfed by the rise of a powerful new regime and the eventual spoils of war. During this period, Hitler's quest for racial purification turned Germany not only at odds with itself, but with the rest of the world. Photography as an art and as a business became a regulated and potent force in the fight for Aryan domination, Nazi influence, and anti-Semitism. Whether such images were used to promote Nazi ideology, document the Holocaust, or scare Germany's citizens into accepting their own changing country, the effect of this photography provides enormous insight into the true stories and lives of the people most affected by Hitler's racism. In fact, this photography has become so widespread in our understanding and teaching of the Holocaust that often other factors involved in the Nazi's racial policy have been undervalued in our history textbooks-especially the attempt by Nazi Germany to establish the Nordic Aryans as a master race through the Lebensborn experiment, a breeding and adoption program designed to eliminate racial imperfections.
Overseas News 21. "Modern World History: Nazi Germany." British Broadcasting Corporation. 27 November 2001 < http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/modern/nazi/nazihtm.htm >.
Gesink, Indira. "Fascism, Nazism and Road to WWII." World Civilizations II. Baldwin Wallace University. Marting Hall, Berea. 3 April 2014. Class lecture.
"Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 05 May 2014.
The movie “Schindler’s list” is a compelling, real-life depiction of the events that occurred during the 1940’s. It illustrates the persecution and horrific killings of the Jewish people. It also exemplifies the hope and will of the Jewish people, which undoubtedly is a factor in the survival of their race. The most important factor however is because of the willingness of one man, Oskar Schindler, to stand out and make a difference.
An exploration of Jewish mixed blood status in Nazi Germany renders a brief history of anticipatory racial conceptions leading up to the Third Reich. The use of Mischlinge as well as other labels intended to denote mixed blood naturally evolved out of well-established racial conceptions central to Germany and the Third Reich ideology. This ideology, which existed as “an uneasy fusion of different strands of racial elitism and popularism,” defined persons as according to not only their Rasse or racial identity, but also membership of the German people or Volk (Hutton 15, 18). The idea of the Volk denoted not only shared language and heritage as well as right of citizenship, but the ordained right to inhabit German lands. Above all, this idea concerned triumphant unification of a German people perceived to be under threat of dissolution by ethnic and religious groups such as the R...
To add to their deceit towards the world, the German Olympic Team allowed part-Jewish fencer, Helen Mayer, to compete for them. “She won a silver medal in women’s individual fencing” (“Nazi” 2). After Helen accepted her medal, she gave the Nazi salute. Mayer’s act appalled fellow Jews for years (Walters 214). However, reporter William Shirer looked beyond the façade that was the Nazi Propaganda Machine and saw Germany for the country it truly was (“Nazi” 3).
Adolf Hitler (the Führer or leader of the Nazi party) “believed that a person's characteristics, attitudes, abilities, and behavior were determined by his or her so-called racial make-up.” He thought that those “inherited characteristics (did not only affect) outward appearance and physical structure”, but also determined a person’s physical, emotional/social, and mental state. Besides these ideas, the Nazi’s believed tha...
A film bursting with visual and emotional stimuli, the in-depth character transformation of Oscar Schindler in Schindler’s List is a beautiful focal point of the film. Riddled with internal conflict and ethical despair, Schindler challenges his Nazi Party laws when he is faced with continuing his ambitious business ideas or throwing it all away for the lives of those he once saw as solely cheap labor. Confronted with leading a double life and hiding his motivations from those allegiant to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Schindler undergoes numerous ethical dilemmas that ultimately shape his identity and challenge his humanity. As a descendent of a Jewish-American, Yiddish speaking World War II soldier who helped liberate concentration camps in Poland, this film allowed for an enhanced personal