Die große Liebe

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!

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.

Discussions on Nazi cinema usually begin and sometimes end with "Triumph of the Will," but film in the Third Reich was hardly limited to outright propaganda. UFA and the other studios, with Goebbels enthusiastic encouragement, provided plenty of slick entertainment to take people's minds off such matters as rationing, arrests, deportations, and mounting casualty lists.

"Die Grosse Liebe" ("The Great Love") was the most popular movie of the period and ranks as the key film in Nazi popular culture. Quite simply, it has everything that a German audience could have asked for in the summer of 1942.

First and foremost, it stars Zarah Leander, an actress who combined many of the talents of Garbo and Dietrich. Unknown in America then or now, the Swedish Leander was the greatest star of the German cinema from the late 30s to well into the war years. Here she plays a popular singer named Hanna Holberg who, for all intents and purposes, is Zarah Leander.

Second, "Die Grosse Liebe"offers a stalwart German hero in Viktor Staal, whose characterization of a Luftwaffe officer comes off as strong, but nowhere near as steely (or should I say "Nazi?") as Carl Raddatz's efforts in "Stukas" or "Wunschkonzert." Staal has a soft side that Raddatz never projected, and he's certainly the better physical match for as imposing a figure as Leander.

Third, its tone manages to be earnest and serious without being melancholy. By the time the film was in production the invasion of Russia was underway and there could no longer be any illusions that the war would be short or easy. The essential spirit of the film is sacrifices yes, but no regrets. Not coincidentally, this is the lesson Leander's character must learn in the course of the story and that the audience must take to heart as well.

Finally, Leander sings two of her biggest hits which together present conflicting emotional responses to Germany's increasingly desperate situation - "Davon geht die Welt nicht Unter" and "Ich weiss, es wird einmal ein Wunder Gescheh'n." The first, freely translated as "It Isn't the End of the World," is cheery and upbeat. As Leander sings, her soldier audience literally swings and sways to the music and momentarily forgets the war. The second, a prayer as much as an anthem, could be translated as "I Know One Day a Miracle Will Happen." Here the clear message is one of hope that the war will soon be over, but the mere expression of this urge serves to acknowledge that things aren't going all that well.

As we know, the miracle never happened for Nazi Germany and after only 12 years it came to the end of its own twisted world. But to German audiences in 1942 there was still hope and "Die Grosse Liebe" was the cinematic expression of that heartfelt emotion. No wonder the film was the greatest box office success of the Third Reich.