Continuity and crisis in German cinema, 1928-1936

摘要

The question of continuity in modern German history is complex, and scholars have sometimes elided crucial differences between the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich in seeking the origins of the latter system. This ambitious anthology does not always avoid that pitfall in approaching the period 1928 to 1936, which the editors view as a unique epoch during which 'fantasies of rupture, disruption, and renewal' predominated in a German culture traumatized by political and economic crises. 'In this transitional state,' they argue, 'there was hope that the body politic could adopt meaningful change resulting in the restoration of civic order or a metaphorical state of health. It was this fight for health - or what the various actors saw as health - that would define crisis in late Weimar and early Nazi Germany.'