During the twelve years of its existence, the Third Reich developed an extensive indoctrination system that made use of diverse – often very modern – media. One of the pillars of National Socialist propaganda was film. Similar in this respect to radio and photography, heavily saturated with regime iconography and clichés ubiquitously present in urban street spaces, it enabled access to a broad audience that frequented cinemas on a daily basis. Its reach was striking, as it deliberately employed available conventions of representation, both narrative and documentary. The creators of Nazi audiovisual messages had no qualms about more or less openly shaping and solidifying notions of the superiority of the Germanic race, narratives about the alleged cowardice of the enemies of the Third Reich, and disgraceful insinuations about a global Jewish conspiracy. Artists on both sides of the camera sought to win over enthusiasts and connoisseurs who avidly attended the Lichtspiele, yet the propagandists themselves were not averse to coercing inhabitants of territories occupied by the Third Reich into attending film screenings or – as the organisation Kraft durch Freude did – incorporating cinematic production into ideological educational programs intended for the uniformed services.
In this film- and media-studies-focused issue of the journal IMAGES, we propose a multifaceted reflection on Nazi cinema. Its expansiveness, the complexity of the propaganda and administrative machinery, the diversity of territories associated with film screenings (the so-called “Old Reich,” the new eastern districts and the General Government, showings for SS-men in KL Auschwitz, etc.), the extremely broad generic and thematic frameworks (especially in feature films), the contrasting attitudes of audiences, and its connections with other media and arts – all this calls for a reflection that situates film within the entire media system of the National Socialist state and confirms the complexity of the research issues, which is difficult to grasp intuitively.
We encourage submissions addressing the following areas:
- film and the media of the Third Reich
- film culture in occupied Europe (especially Central and Eastern Europe)
- the role of music in National Socialist film
- film star careers
- the everyday life of filmmakers under the National Socialist regime
- cultural policy of the Third Reich
- the artistic status of film in the Third Reich – between art and mass medium?
- studies of individual films (including their use within the system of media propaganda and indoctrination)
- newsreels (Wochenschau)
- film and LTI
- traces of the Shoah in Nazi film (excluding postwar representations of the Shoah)
- film and totalitarianism (in comparative perspective with the Third Reich)
We are awaiting your full texts until 15.04.2027. Further information regarding the submission, selection, and review process is available on the IMAGES journal website under the “submissions” (https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/i/about/submissions) and “review process” (https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/i/review) sections. We kindly ask you to familiarise yourself with their contents.
Editors of the volume:
prof. dr hab. Krzysztof Kozłowski
mgr Zuzanna Karpińska
mgr Wojciech Sławnikowski