Given the large number of aviation films, it is surprising that the connection between "cinema, aviation, nationalism and myth" has been so little explored. The connections between them exist from the first films made in the early twentieth century. Hollywood has made more movies in this genre than in any other country. Similar processes have taken place around the world. They created an icon of the "Knighty Fighter Pilot", a stereotype that influences popular culture to this day. Early genre films described aviation as a golden age of progress and the pilot as a romantic and chivalrous character.
During World War I, some fighter pilots, who were the most successful, were soon promoted and became media icons of heroism, warriors who swept the national spirit in war. This phenomenon was particularly prominent in Germany, in the form of the pilots of the "Flying Circus" and their commander Richthofen. They have become a national symbol, with a presence in cinema and print and in all circles of society.
The memory of the First World War was constructed through the myth of their war experience. They created legitimacy to change the picture of true deadly reality. The main image engraved in the collective memory of this war, to this day, was largely created through motion pictures about them.
The cinema between the two wars took advantage of the fears of an aerial bombardment in the next great war. At the same time, cinema during this period used the pilot and the aircraft for nationalist propaganda, which showed achievements in the subject as the spearhead of the national technological initiative. Across the world, record-breaking flights have made pilots celebrities. Across the world and in Nazi Germany in particular, the aviation industry has become a major economic, military and social component, which has found wide and varied expression in cinema as well.
Aviation propaganda films were more important in countries where national pride was hit as a result of the war, and they were defeated or furious. Technological progress was seen as proof of recovery and superiority. In Germany, the heroic status of the air crew, the rapid expansion of gliding and flight ventures, the growth of commercial aviation and the success of the national company Lufthansa, all testified to the popularity and public support on the subject.
Aviation and cinema were integrated into the popular culture that influenced the Weimar Republic. Films such as "The Money" (1928) and "Woman on the Moon" (1929) combine in their plots the atmosphere of prosperity created by the new aviation records and the pursuit of money, which was typical of the period before the Great Depression.
During the 1920s, the rapid development of airplanes began to gradually offer more practical insights than other kinds of aircraft.
Flight and pilot were significant metaphors for the mythical modernity of Italian fascism and German Nazism. The biographies of Gabriel D'Anoncio and Herman Goering established the connection between the war experience and the hyper-masculine culture of the 1920s and 1930s. They had supreme feelings of racism, similar to those of right-wing groups at the time.
The linguistic symbols and metaphors associated with aviation discourse, its perception and interpretation, are many and the sources that can be relied on in this context are numerous. They include important cultural events, artwork, books, magazines, propaganda products and more. It was not the aviation itself, but the connections, not the pilot per se, but the concepts involved, that were the focus of attention. The manifestations of aviation in the regime were not only direct. They were also indirect. They served as a means of revolutionary liberation from the burden of the past.
The social agenda, which has been the focus of attention in fascist regimes, is clarified through the narrative of aviation heroes and through the vision of the new man that fascism has tried to make a reality through an anthropological revolution. The protagonists were models and prototypes that citizens were required to use in order to shape their lives. The norms and values that the media published, as embodied in those heroes, permeated the social reality. The world was understood according to their register.
The whole of Nazi Germany served as a backdrop for the regime of air consciousness. During the 1930s, well-timed aerial displays attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators each. Many streets were named after aviation heroes from the First World War, such as Richthofen, Bolke and Emelman. Many radio programs included content on the subject. Schools had compulsory education on the subject and aviation served as an educational lever in many fields.
Hermann Goering, Hitler's deputy who was formerly the successor to Richthofen and became Germany's most popular politician, declared: "We must be a pilots nation''. He declared his commitment not only to training of many military pilots, but also to assimilate and nurture the moral values of aviation, which were self-sacrifice and service to the national community. Through a special ministry, the Nazis took full control of all activities on the subject and began the establishment of the Luftwaffe.
In Nazi Germany, fictional superheroes, such as in the American Comics books, were not popular. Its cinematic superheroes historical and military figures like Frederick the Great, Bismarck and Richthofen, together with figures from German pagan mythology, like the protagonists of Wagner's operas.
The fighter pilot as a superhero in Nazi cinema was part of the social system created by the regime. He was not endowed with superpowers, but was able to perform with his comrades national missions that included self-sacrifice. His character was defined by the Nazi philosopher Ernest Junger as a popular warrior forged at the front and returned to citizenship, in order to instill in it the purifying values of war.
In Nazi Germany, three fighter pilots who turned to the film industry stood out:
Ernest Udet from "The Flying Circus", who became a stunt pilot and in some filmsin the early 1930s, where he played the character of the daring pilot who rescues survivors trapped in the snow. He became the protégé of Herman Goering and a senior general in the new aviation industry.
Karl Ritter, a fighter pilot and flight instructor of Udet's generation, who belonged to the inner circle of Nazi fanatics. He became the senior and most prolific filmmaker in Nazi Germany, specializing in the creation of aviation and propaganda films.
Hans Bertram was a famous adventurer who wrote a bestseller about survival. He was also a fighter pilot and filmmaker, who made aviation films, especially at the beginning of World War II.
Beginning in the early 1940s, Following the Luftwaffe's chain of failures, Germany focused on developing a new generation of revolutionary aerial weapons, such as the jet airplane and the ballistic missile. At the same time UFA, the nationalized Nazi film industry led by Goebbels, began the production of wide-screen epic and colorful films, which were in line with technological developments in this industry.
This is how the colored movie "Baron Munchausen" was created. It was the only one whose protagonist is similar to the protagonists of the comics books. Munchausen in this movie is a serious and photogenic superhero. His imaginative flying experience is central to the plot: he flies on a cannon ball, reaches the moon in a hot air balloon, passes through time dimentions and more.
The film was a huge production and had great success. It was released in March 1943, as part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of the UFA. It was, by coincidence, about a month after the German defeat at Stalingrad. As part of the conspiracy of silence that surrounded German society, in which many issues were not discussed in public, it also became an allusion to the existence of "wonder weapons".
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