Even before the invention of the airplane, the invention of the airship in the late 19th century, named after its inventor "Zeppelin", aroused great patriotic enthusiasm in Germany and left a deep impression on popular culture. Throughout the first third of the 20th century, airships outperformed airplanes, but their advantage gradually waned, with an international arms race. At the international level, the "Zeppelin" gave Germany a sense of control over the skies. In the German internal politics, the Bavarian-born invention gave the southern part of the people a temporary sense of superiority over Prussian rule in Berlin.
Enthusiasm for airships gradually waned during World War I, in the face of the many casualties inflicted on them. They continued to operate successfully on international passenger lines after the war. For this purpose, funds were raised through well-publicized public funding, whose success increased German patriotism. "Graf Zeppelin" was an airship that operated commercially between 1928-1937. It became the world's first transatlantic flight service. The pioneering world tour, carried out by the ship in 1929, was documented in numerous cinematic news diaries, received an unprecedented public response, and in the end its participants won a victory parade in New York. The "Hindenburg" disaster of 1937, about which the news video became one of the best known in history, caused the airships to finally give way in favor of the airplane.
Airplanes aroused admiration, enveloping those who flew them in an immediate aura of daring, vitality and youth. The flight was more than a forward movement in the air. The airplane was more than a means to an end. The flight experience was seen as the ultimate empowerment of life. Aviation has become the form of the new era, on which it has made its mark. The pilot was a new kind of person. The German pilot was not just a new German man. The model deserved to have a formative impact on the entire world. There is no machine that requires so much concentration and willpower as the airplane, and the pilot knows what it means to control. In this way the spiritual connection between aviation and fascism is created. The cultivation of the new man was one side of the fascist regime, and the elimination of the others was the other side.
Oscar Meister was one of the pioneers of cinema in Germany, and the one who established the studio system that UFA. In September 1914 Meister was appointed to survey the fronts of the war. He turned the occasional news videos he had created until then from time to time into a weekly news diary. During the war, his studios worked around the clock. In addition, he also invented a sophisticated aerial camera, which contributed greatly to the war effort. This camera first used film rolls instead of glass panels. The plane became the epitome of the sense of sight.
At the end of 1917, in an attempt to raise civil morale, significant propaganda film collections began to appear in Germany as well. One of them was the 10-minute production called "Pilots on the Western Front." In the first part, the video showed a photo of enemy lines, an attack on observation balloons, and the dropping of small bombs. The second part focused on the air heroes. The main theme was Richthofen, the "Red Baron". The video ends in an air battle that ends with a British plane being shot down. The message was clear: quality propaganda for the elite corps, the young and promising eagles of the Second Reich.
After 1918, the German film industry quickly re-established itself as a serious enterprise, and within five years its output was lower than that of the United States alone. The aviation films, however, reflected little of Weimar's democratic spirit. Most of them were propaganda works. Under a spectacular mantle they attacked the enemies of the nation, praising national achievements.
Germany shaped the fighter pilot myth, originally intended for propaganda purposes, as early as World War I, using the figure of the "Red Baron" Richthofen. Ernest Udet was his deputy, survived the war, and later became the heir to the myth. This is through bold airshows that have given him worldwide publicity. The publicity brought him to the film industry, where he played his character in the "Mountain Films" series, which were a substitute for war films. They were a face of masculinity and purity, according to which the conquest of the mountains was a symbol of the personal power in a world that had lost direction. They provided a description of human control over the forces of nature.
The addition of aiplanes, especially when Ernest Udet flew them, made them much more meaningful, linking war, the conquest of nature, and aviation, in a symbolic relationship. His appearances in films were a constant reminder to the audience of the romantic heroism of the war pilot, and a means of using the character, who through "will", controls nature and technology. They praised the aircraft as a tool by which human willpower was expressed, and as a model of technological achievement.
These films created continuity between the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime. The pilot and the mountain films in Weimar restored to German society the sense of mobility it had lost. In contrast to the political rift, German cinema in the period between the world wars was characterized by continuity, in which mountain and aviation films were a central axis. Through them there was a continuity and clear development of patriotic themes, from productions during the Weimar period to those created after 1933.
The book "A Nation of Pilots: German Aviation and the Popular Imagination" describes the transition of German public attention from airships to airp;anes and pilots. The various chapters in this book focus on the various components of the Nazi regime of air consciousness: zeppelin, ideological coordination, gliding sport, schools indoctrination, media, civil defense, and more. The book ends in the mid-1930s and does not go on to describe the impact of aviation at the height of the regime.
In the Nazi regime, it was not the airplane itself that mattered, but the overall discourse about aviation. The aviation expressions in the regime were not only direct. They were also indirect. Hitler created a dramatic dynamic image of himself through the personal use of the passeneger airplanes. He and Mussolini had a passion for speed, and powerful planes and cars were refuge to their actions. Moreover, the airplane provided a powerful symbol of military force. It described the German character. Accordingly, It worked to make the Third Reich air-conscious, and thus one capable of fully dealing with the challenges of the 20th century. Airplanes, with their huge and complex infra structure: airfields, industry, civil front, transportation and so on, became the wide base of the new society of the total state.
When Goering declared "We must be a nation of pilots",He declared the Nazi commitment not only to training the reserves of military pilots, but also to assimilate and cultivate the moral values of aviation, which were self-sacrifice and service to the nation community. Through a special ministry, the Nazis reorganized the aviation clubs, took full control of all activities on the subject, and began planning the establishment of the Luftwaffe - the new air force. At the same time, the entire media and the film industry were nationalized.
Herman Goering was the patron of Udet and his former commander in the "Flying Circus" squadron. He managed the Nazi economy and was also responsible for the issue of the Jews. Udet became a senior general under him, responsible for the design of fighter airplanes and the doctrine of air strikes.
Hermann Goering was the second most important person in Nazi Germany, the figure most identified with aviation and in many ways the true leader, with the title of the most popular person in Germany. He was the man who signed the Nuremberg Laws and the "Final Solution" order, made the Gestapo the main tool of power in the dictatorship, was first and foremost to use forced labor in the economy he ruled, commanded in World War II, looted European art treasures, and more. The German public loved him for his colorfulness, popularity and despite his weaknesses, in contrast to Hitler who had a distant image.
