Customer Reviews

Film Posters of the Third Reich

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This book was given to me as a birthday present and I have to say what a delight it was! Since reading the reference work Film in the Third Reich by David Hull in the early 70s I have been fascinated at how little is really available in the way of balanced material on this subject. One would be led to believe that all films made in Germany from 1933 to 1945 were simply rubbish and should be disregarded altogether. This assertion could not be farther from the truth. Even though the politics behind the scenes had changed drastically from the Weimar Republic to the National Socialists there was still a great degree of conscience and skill that went into film as an art form and not merely as a means of generating income. Having collected and studied hundreds of these films for my doctoral dissertation and knowing how difficult they are to locate outside of Germany I was pleasantly surprised to see a publication not only treating the films with some degree of respect but also providing an education as to the promotional aspect of these films. One might refer to it as the "propaganda of propaganda". It is fairly common knowledge among scholars that Germans were not forced to watch movies, so what exactly did attract the average person to the cinema to see a film such as The Eternal Jew ? What kind of iconography could attract someone to see a documentary film such as Victory in the West when so many young men were being killed on the battlefield? These posters represent the films which, as the authors have described it "led a nation to it's destruction". I have no doubt the book will be of interest to a fairly wide audience, possibly film students, militaria collectors, certainly film poster enthusiasts, and finally to those with a general interest in WWII or graphic design. In conclusion I would definitely recommend it to those who would invest a few dollars in a limited edition that will certainly become a collectors item. The poster images are simply fantastic.

This book by mister Gillespie and Nelson is definitely the standard on this very unknown subject. It is still taboo to talk about anything that
touch the nazi regime even today in 2008. This is why I salute the guts shown by these two gentlemen who were not afraid to dig into this lost era regarding the german cinema.If you are interested in the history of cinema or in anything concerning the last World War, this book is a must!