Die große Liebe

The History Channel is running a series titled "Hitler's Women". One episode features Zarah Leander, clips from this movie, behind the scenes information, and its historical context. The high point for me came when the Nazi film studio UFA dressed Hitler's personal guard in drag, complete with FAIRY WINGS and heavy eye makeup, to stand behind Zarah in an ornate, Flo Ziegfeld style production number. They had to do this because Zarah was very tall, and UFA couldn't find enough tall, pretty women. Blow ups of stills from this scene clearly show the rather grim faced "chorus girls" were really men.

German actor Hans Blech, who later played the German officer who first sees the invasion in The Longest Day and a German aide to nasty Nazi Col. Hessler in The Battle of The Bulge, served in the German Army in WW2.

During the filming of this movie he recalls wearing a lieutenant's uniform as he walked backstage past the half dressed guards. He couldn't resist, and shouted "Achtung!" The guards instinctively snapped to attention, as their wigs went askew and their dresses fell off. Ah, Nazis in drag. Somebody oughta make a movie. BC

An interesting view of life in wartime Germany. Zarah Leander sings some great songs. The are a few dull stretches mostly with her agent. This is the film for which Frau Leander is most remembered. It even made the OKW unhappy because it showed an Air Force officer spends the night with the singer.

Perhaps the party who wrote the review saying that the lyrics of the songs are smarter than the writer of them didn't know the history of them. The great Bruno Balz (of the team Bruno Balz-Michael Jary) wrote the lyrics from prison in Berlin. He was arrested for homosexual acts with a Hitler youth. Micheal Jary (and some say Balz' friend Zarah Leander) pleaded his case before Goebbels and Mr. Balz was released on the grounds that he was needed to write inspiring songs. He is not credited in the film. As for the film itself, there is a strong sense of camp. Just watching Leander in her furs is a thrill. And, yes, the songs live on. It is the story of an affair between a famous singer and an Airforce pilot (who must leave for the war) No one can suffer the way Zarah Leander does! And Grete Weiser as the maid brings howls of laughter as she often does. While the film isn't devoid of politics , those of us who hate the crimes of the Nazis can look to other aspects of this film and enjoy it.

In the 12 years that were the "1000-jähriges Reich" the UFA produced four types of movies. First, there were films like Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph des Willens" which had the purpose of winning more and more social strata over to the ideas of fascism ('Führerprinzip', 'Volksgemeinschaft', 'Opferbereitschaft', etc.). Recruitment by means of impressive visual iconography.

Secondly the ministry of propaganda tried to prepare the Germans for the so-called 'Endlösung' by intensifying the existing anti-Semitism to the most extreme degree with films like Veit Harlan's notorious "Jud Süß". These films are the most vile and abhorrent (but also the most clumsy and gross) concoctions in film-history.

In the last years of WWII the UFA put great effort in so-called 'Durchhaltefilme' (most infamous example: Harlan's "Kolberg"). With these Goebbels tried to force the war-weary soldiers and civilians to hold out to the end and keep on fighting to the last bullet.

However, the most popular and successful UFA-movies during the third Reich did not belong to these three categories, but were primarily made in order to entertain the audience and take it's mind off the war. The propaganda for the Nazi-cause in these films was much more subtle (yet still evident in most cases). "Die große Liebe" is a prime example for such an 'UFA-Unterhaltungsfilm', because it was seen by 28 million viewers till the end of the war (and thus still holds the record for any film in Germany as far as I know; for comparison "Titanic" had 'only' 17 million viewers, and that was considered a unique success). Nevertheless "Die große Liebe" is almost forgotten today, albeit every German still knows the two songs that Zarah Leander sings in this film: "Ich weiß, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen" and "Davon geht die Welt nicht unter". The lyrics of these songs seem to be smarter than their author, because they work both as 'Durchhaltelieder' (as intended) and as sarcastic commentaries on the last years of the 3rd Reich. As such they were used by directors like Fassbinder and Vilsmaier.

This slickly-done romance which starred Zarah Leander, "the Nazi Garbo," struck such a responsive chord with female audiences that it became one of the greatest box office successes of World War II Germany. The plot would have been a familiar one to American audiences of the same era -- a soldier on temporary leave from the war-front meets and falls in love with a music-hall singer -- and that's what makes seeing this movie now so unsettling. It suggests that audiences in war-time America and Nazi Germany had the same tastes, the same fantasies, the same aspirations, etc. Some outsider viewing this movie and a similar Hollywood product would have concluded that they were made by identical societies!