The Journey film was a popular genre in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Apparently it was a documentary genre, documenting an authentic journey abroad to obtain scientific information. The documentary filmmaker was described as a lone wolf, often a pilot, who fought heroically to document invaluable scientific information. His expedition presented the fighting values of strength, determination and sacrifice. He fought to bring valuable treasures to the homeland. Using the camera lens as his weapon, the filmmaker captured potential areas for the new living space.
Nazi aerial propaganda began in earnest in the short film "Freedom Day", which was a complement to the film "Triumph of the Will" about the party conference in Nuremberg. Lenny Riefenstahl also made this film, which celebrated the re-armament program, which was announced in March 1935. The film, intended for military personnel who remained dissatisfied with the "civilian" film, deals with the military demonstration that took place at the end of the civilian conference and the concept of the fast war. The Air Force and Air Defense are given central screen time and the film ends with a plane formation in the swastika formation.
Propaganda was strengthened in the cinematic news diaries of the period. One news diary from 1936 revealed the types of aircraft in the corps. The most interesting sections deal with bombers. The background music is threatening and you see bombers loading bombs. A bomber structure maneuvers, and they all hit their targets on the first try. The film ends in a mass flight, then the announcer announces: "The German Air Force is strong and proud, ready to maintain German peace and protect the land of the ancestors."
The cumulative image was strong enough to arouse widespread fear in other countries, enabling Hitler to use the Luftwaffe threat as a political weapon in his foreign policy in the late 1930s. Air operations during the Spanish Civil War, and in particular the attack on Guernica, which was widely covered in film diaries, confirmed the power of the Luftwaffe and the threat it posed.
The Nazis accepted from Italian Futurism the adherence to technology and speed, but refused to accept the abstract style by which Italian artists expressed these values. The Nazis disliked abstract art, which in their opinion was "Jewish" and boycotted it. Instead they gradually formulated their own style, which was the empowerment of the neoclassical style prevalent in Europe.
The style stood out especially in architecture, in the erection of public buildings wit facade of high marble columns. Albert Sapir expands on this in his book "Inside the Third Reich". It depicts the fever of Nazi construction for public buildings in a grandiose-global-imperial style. Hitler closely supervised the redesign of Berlin in this megalomaniacal style.
But the architects and designers aspired to adapt the style requirements to the everyday reality as much as they could. As a way to integrate the classic line into the modern reality of life, where technological design demanded more modern lines, Nazi designers also developed a style with cleaner, simpler and more versatile lines, called the "passenger ships" style.
The airplane in Carl Ritter's films was part of that design concept. According to the formalist conception, photogenicity, which is the aesthetic quality conferred on photographed objects, is a consequence of how the object is presented with the film's means of expression and does not depend on the object's essence or its hidden qualities. Photogenicity evokes the emotional, aesthetic mode of cognition that allows for direct knowledge of the world. The photogenicity in the film evokes the emotional consciousness, from its appeal to the visual sense through the movement in space and time, which is taken for granted.
The airplane is a key photogenic element in the cinematic expression in Ritter's films. The most impressive photographic expression is of the aircraft at close range and in particular of the front part which includes the propeller, hood, wings and cockpit. These parts are always photographed from the low upward point of view, which worships the object. The ground crew takes care, while demonstrating expertise and avoiding the impact of the propeller. They prepare the aircraft for the flight, with the pilot arriving after everything is ready and handing out the orders for takeoff.
A clear example is the movie "Traitor" which is apparently not even defined as aviation flm. Many scenes in it are focused on airplanes. The opening scene, for example, in which the spy is given one last briefing before entering the factory, ends with a flight of three airplanes passing over, as if to warn him. Another important scene, in the middle of the film, is the one where the spy sits on a plane, photographed from the front from the ground at an upward angle, with the propeller actually above the camera, to show that the airplane is an independent force entity dictated by reality and human destiny. The climax of the film is a multi-participant aerial chase after the spy who escapes on a plane he stole. Numerous and sharp photographic passages are repeated between the close-up of the pilot figure, the sight of the plane, the large ground crew, and the distant landscape.
The ground crew is a large and complex ground-based human system, which envelops the limited air crew, and is also featured prominently in Ritter's aviation films, as part of an entire complex that forms the new Germany. This system includes the masses of professonal jobs holders in the various professions at the airfield,in aviation, technical and logistics wings. In this complex, whose economic and social possibilities are virtually endless, any person who is willing to dedicate himself to the new order is able to find his place. Several scenes in Ritter films deal with the moments of tension in which the radio contact with the plane is lost and the ground headquarters tries to locate it. The headquarters include ground crews for radio, maps, meteorology, udjutancy, medicine, firefighting and the like. They all work in perfect coordination and timing. Just as the plane is the embodiment of the new German man, the airport crew is the embodiment of the new German society.
In the third circle, after the airplane and the airfield, is the home front, which is prepared for a borderless war. In this circle are the loved ones of the pilots and in particular their loved ones who are waiting for them while they work in the hospitals, or are recruited for one position or another. Significant civic activities, such as concerts and performances, are also designed to support the front. In all of Ritter films there are sharp transitions between dramatic war scenes that take place at the front and romantic and amusing scenes that take place at the rear, in many cases between wounded airmen to the female staff at a hospital. Ritter, therefore, found a perfect format for designing his films according to aviation formalism and semiotics, using the airplane and the human apparatus that surrounds it.
Ritter developed, step by step, the myth of the airplane and the pilot, in a series of five aviation films he created between the years 1936-1943: "Traitor" (1936), "The War on the Enemy of the World" (1937), "Pour Le Merite" '(1938),' 'Shtukas' '(1941),' 'The Dora Crew' ' (1943). In most of these films he served as screenwriter, director and producer.
The real star of the movie "Traitor" is the airplane. The plot takes place in a state-of-the-art airplanes factory into which a spy penetrates. The complex technological processes of aircraft manufacturing are described in various scenes. They are accompanied by test flights and finally a dramatic aerial pursuit of a spy who escaped with a plane.
The movie "War on the Enemy of the World" established the plane as an excellent photogenic show piece in the movies. This is a documentary about the actions of the "Condor Legion", the unit of airplanes sent by the Nazis to fight in the Spanish Civil War. This film also has a feature film sequel.
In the film "Pour Le Merite", Carl Ritter portrays the fighter pilot, according to the fascist ideology of Ernest Junger. The pilot is not a mythical hero, but a popular soldier who is forged in the war and returns sober to the democratic civilian world, with the aim of establishing a new order in it. The film is based on the biographies of Herman Goering, Ernest Udet and their comarades in the "The Flying Circus". It depicts Hitler's rise to power through their eyes and includes many aerial scenes. The film became a founding cultural and political event in Nazy Germany.
"Shtukas" tells the story of a two-seater attack squadron that played a major role in the fast wars at Poland and France. The motif of the archetypal pair is prominent and central. Carl Ritter has created in "Shtukas" various scenes of a pair of fighters in the air, who collaborate back to back in many ways, thus establishing the ideal binary pair in terms of fascist ideology.
"The Dora Crew" is the story of a reconnaissance aircraft crew and is considered a sequel to "Shtukas". The plot is about four crew members, who travel to Berlin to receive their airplane and meet in their girfriends, in what becomes a romantic entanglement. Using intelligent use of the "quartet" archetype, Ritter manages to express a need for order and organization, which is equivalent to the four compas directions. A wrist watch received by one of the girls appears occasionally in close-ups. In analogy to the watch, the team mobilize between the fronts in the north, south, east and west. The film's core is the sharp transition from dramatic war scenes to amusing urban scenes.
