The drama of the “Nibelungen” | Die Tagespost

Fritz Lang's famous two-part film “The Nibelungs”, which was released in 1924, was said to be one of Adolf Hitler's favourite films. The dictator is said to have seen “Siegfried” and “Kriemhild's Revenge” over twenty times. Lang himself said that he wanted to create something “definitely national” with the films: to erect a monument to the German spirit that has the potential to promote German culture all over the world.

It is not particularly surprising that the Nazis liked this. In his famous treatise on the cinema of the Weimar Republic, “From Caligari to Hitler”, the film theorist Siegfried Kracauer wrote: “(Lang's) entire explanation seems like an anticipation of Goebbels' propaganda.”

A pioneer of Nazi aesthetics?

And yes: later, there are clear references in Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will”. Above all, the ornamental character of mass rallies, as Kracauer describes the phenomenon in which thousands of people are perceived as a mass, is an aesthetic commonality between Lang's “Nibelungen” and Riefenstahl's “Triumph”. The monumental splendor, the timelessness inherent in the Nibelungen, is primarily to be found in the epochally orchestrated topos of fate, which degrades the action itself to a mere means.

However, to reduce Lang's films to the role of pioneers of Nazi aesthetics would be to do them and Lang himself an injustice. Instead, it is worth tracing the social, political and cinematic trends of the time that shaped Lang's reimagination of this German heroic epic. The hoped-for revolution in the young German Republic failed to materialize after the defeat of the First World War. The nefarious machinations of major industrialists and bankers, who were quickly back in power after the commanders were deposed in 1918, forfeited economic recovery and thus also social recovery. The galloping hyperinflation impoverished the middle class, which ultimately caused the common belief in democracy and cohesion in the middle of the population to dwindle. The breeding ground for a fascist system had already been laid at that time.

From “Caligari” to Hitler

In order to gain a cultural-theoretical understanding of these dynamics, the above-mentioned Kracauer attempted in 1947 with “From Caligari to Hitler” to reveal collective depth-psychological dispositions in the German population from 1918 until the Nazis seized power in 1933 by means of an analysis of German film at that time.

Kracauer, who describes film as a medium that “reflects and channels social issues in equal measure, conceals and decodes them,” also asked himself what lies behind the behavior of the German people and the reactions of the masses. In his view, the dissolution of political systems was followed by the collapse of psychological systems. The result: a resentful petty bourgeoisie. The emotional fixation of these people that accompanied this made it impossible to realistically assess the situation. The result was a collective mental paralysis in Germany that became apparent precisely in the year that Fritz Lang's “The Nibelungs” premiered: 1924.

With pathos against Weimar's unbridledness

Kracauer is certain that the film was deeply rooted in the mentality of the German middle class at that time. And thus also films such as “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920) or “Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler” (1922), which are today considered to be formative for the medium of film and in which lawlessness is just as much the order of the day as impending anarchy.

Both were produced at a time when the cinemas were heavily influenced by licentiousness (censorship was abolished in 1918 and pornographic trash films flooded the cinemas) and the idea that history was meaningless (in various historical films, directors such as Ernst Lubitsch not only let the insatiable rulers of classical music die, but also the young lovers who personified humanistic values). Accordingly, the main characters in both films represent ruthless tyrants, faceless authorities of a seething underworld. Both films also offer the prospect of a social alternative that can be located between chaos and tyranny and which Lang wanted to counter with a monolith in his version of the Nibelungen. A utopia rooted in German culture in cinematic form that was intended to strengthen cohesion in the shattered nation.

The script was written by a Nazi sympathizer

The screenplay for “The Nibelungs” was written by Lang's then wife Thea von Harbou. It was based on elements from old sources, but geared to current events. She chose fate as the overarching motif that could be found in all dramatic turns: it was very important to her to show the inexorability of cause and effect. Lang implements this vision with virtuosity. She claimed cultural participation in the Nibelungen material that had previously been reserved for Richard Wagner.

But instead of relying on operatic bombast, he had his composer Gottfried Huppertz weave subtle leitmotifs into the story of Siegfried and his wife Kriemhild. In doing so, Lang immerses himself visually in a timeless-looking setting by composing each scene as if it were a painting. This arranged timelessness gives the motif of fate set by his wife a formal counterpart. Landscapes and buildings are paramount in Lang's production, while the characters driven by fate are merely temporal additions. And when they are in the foreground, they often have an ornamental character, as Kracauer says. As a mass, they also have somewhat symmetrical shapes and it seems as if they can be maneuvered from A to B as one.

Fritz Lang emigrated to the USA in 1933

Was it that Goebbels was so impressed by a Lang film? We can only speculate on that. One thing is certain: Lang himself emigrated from Germany shortly after being offered the position of director of German film by the Nazi propaganda chief in a personal meeting in 1933. First to France, then to the USA in 1934. Von Harbou, however, stayed – the couple divorced in 1933. She, who also wrote the screenplays for the film classics “M” and “Metropolis” and who was very interested in nationalism, had already distanced herself politically from her husband during the marriage. Although she was not later involved in any purely propaganda films by the Nazis, she became chair of the Association of German Sound Film Authors shortly after the seizure of power. In 1940 she joined the NSDAP and was later awarded the War Merit Cross.

Kracauer's conclusion about Lang's Nibelungen is sobering. The ornamental, he says, has triumphed over the human: Man degenerates into a purpose, and this is particularly vivid when King Gunther's men form the jetty for Kriemhild's ship as living pillars. It is a tragic twist of fate that this interpretation of history holds up as it unfolded from 1933 onwards. Lang's intention of giving the Germans a cultural asset with the filmed Nibelungen that would strengthen national cohesion and put a stop to tyranny, however, comes down to a well-intentioned side note that has aged extremely poorly.