When the course of the Second World War irrevocably turns against Germany and inevitable retribution begins knocking at the door, a period of mass escapism takes hold in the Third Reich. Instead of confronting the catastrophe, the Nazi leaders and Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda machine turn cinema into the main refuge from reality.
Record Attendance to the Sound of Air-Raid Sirens
In 1943 and 1944, when the war had already brought heavy losses on the Eastern Front and German cities were subjected to round-the-clock bombing, the country’s film industry experienced a paradoxical boom. More than one billion tickets were sold annually. For ordinary Germans, the cinema remained the only place where, for two hours, they could forget about food ration cards, destruction and the fear of death.
Goebbels’ Strategy: More Laughter, Less Reality
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels quickly realized that serious political and war films were no longer motivating audiences, but merely reminded people of their hopeless situation. On his orders, the state studios (UFA) abruptly changed course. Lavish color musicals, light comedies and romantic melodramas began appearing on screen.
One of the most striking examples is the big-budget fantasy film „Münchhausen“ from 1943. Created to mark the 25th anniversary of the UFA studio, it offered viewers a colorful, fairytale world completely detached from the gray and bloody reality of the front.
Self-Deception at the Top and the Obsession with „Snow White“
The escape from the truth was most pronounced among the Nazi elite itself. Adolf Hitler was a passionate film enthusiast who spent hundreds of hours in his private cinema at the Berghof mountain residence. While Germans were strictly forbidden from watching “degenerate” American productions, the Führer himself adored Hollywood films.
Among his favorite films were „King Kong“, „Gone with the Wind“ and, in particular, Walt Disney’s animated masterpiece „Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs“. Hitler managed to obtain a copy of the film through Swiss intermediaries despite the American embargo. He was so impressed by the fairytale plot and the technology of animation that he watched the film repeatedly, and his own sketches and drawings of the dwarfs were even discovered in the archives.
After the catastrophe at Stalingrad in 1943, Hitler stopped watching entertainment films as a gesture of solidarity with the soldiers, but succumbed to another kind of cinematic illusion. He isolated himself in the mountains and spent hours in front of the screen watching old newsreels of the triumphant parades of 1939 and 1940, refusing to accept the real military reports.
The Absurdity of „Kolberg“
The culmination of this flight from reality came in the final months of the war with the historical epic „Kolberg“ (released in late January 1945). At a time when the Third Reich no longer had enough soldiers or resources to defend its borders, Goebbels pulled thousands of active-duty servicemen from the front to take part as extras in the film’s mass scenes.
The film tells the story of a city’s heroic resistance against Napoleon’s army and was intended to inspire faith in an impossible victory. Instead, it went down in history as the most expensive and absurd monument to Nazi self-deception—an attempt to rewrite reality on film while one’s country was literally collapsing beneath one’s feet.
No film, however, could change the outcome of the war or cancel the bill for what had been done. The Third Reich’s screening ended in the bunker beneath Berlin, where illusions finally gave way to historical retribution.