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Advances in Politics and Economics 
ISSN 2576-1382 (Print) ISSN 2576-1390 (Online) 

Vol. 4, No. 3, 2021 
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49 
 

Original Paper 

The Sixties in Berlin and in Hollywood: City with a Wall in Its 

Center—The Attempt to Erase the German Past 

HADI SHAKEEB KASSEM1* (Note 1) 
1 Bolyai Cluj-Napoca University, Cluj- napoca, Romania 

* HADI SHAKEEB KASSEM, Bolyai Cluj-Napoca University, Cluj- napoca, Romania 

 

Received: July 2, 2021      Accepted: August 17, 2021      Online Published: September 2, 2021 

doi:10.22158/ape.v4n3p49       URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/ape.v4n3p49 

 

Abstract 

Berlin was the location in which most of the intelligence operations in Europe have taken place in the 

first twenty years of the conquest and the Cold War. In November 27, 1958, Khrushchev issued a formal 

letter to the Allies, demanding that the western Allies evacuate Berlin and enable the establishment of 

an independent political unit, a free city. He threatened that if the West would not comply with this, the 

soviets would hand over to the East Germany’s government the control over the roads to Berlin. In the 

coming months Moscow conducted a war of nerves as the last date of the end of the ultimatum, May 27, 

1959, came close. Finally the Soviets retreated as a result of the determination of the West. This event 

reconfirmed the claims of the West that “the US, Britain and France have legal rights to stay in 

Berlin.” According to Halle: “These rights derive from the fact that Germany surrendered as a result of 

our common struggle against Nazi Germany.” (Note 2) The Russians have done many attempts to 

change Berlin’s status. In 1961 Berlin Wall was constructed, almost without response on the part of the 

West, and by so doing, the Soviets perpetuated the status quo that had been since 1948. In July 25, 

1961 Kennedy addressed the Americans on television, saying that “West Berlin is not as it had ever 

been, the location of the biggest test of the courage and the will power of the West.” (Note 3) On June 

26, 1963, Kennedy went out to Berlin, which was divided by the wall, torn between east and west, in 

order to announce his message. In his speech outside the city council of West Berlin, Kennedy won the 

hearts of the Berliners as well as those of the world when he said: “Ich bin ein Berliner”, I’m a 

Berliner.  

The sixties were years of heating of the conflict with the Soviet Block. In 1961 the Berlin Wall was 

constructed. Then Kennedy came into power, there was the movement for human rights and the 

political tension between whites and blacks in America. The conflict increase as the Korean War started, 

and afterwards when America intervened in Vietnam. There was also the crisis in the Bay of Pigs in 



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Cuba, which almost pushed the whole world into a nuclear war and catastrophe. During the 28 years 

of the Berlin Wall, 13.8.61-9.11.89, this was notorious as an example of a political border that marked 

the seclusion and freezing more than freedom of movement, communication and change. At the same 

time there was the most obvious sign of the division of Germany after WWII and the division of Europe 

to East and West by the Iron Curtain. The wall was the background of stories by writers from east and 

west. The writers of espionage thrillers were fascinated by the global conflict between east and west 

and the Cold War with Berlin as the setting of the divided city. Berlin presented a permanent conflict 

that was perceived as endless, or as Mews defined it: “Berlin is perfect, a romantic past, tragic present, 

secluded in the heart of East Germany.” (Note 4) The city presented the writers with a situation that 

demanded a reassessment of the genres and the ideological and aesthetic perceptions of this type of 

writing. This was the reason that the genre of espionage books blossomed in the sixties, mainly those 

with the wall. The wall was not just a symbol of a political failure, as East Germany could not stop the 

flow of people escaping from it. The city was ugly, dirty, and full of wires and lit by a yellow light, like a 

concentration camp. A West German policeman says: “If the Allies were not here, there would not have 

been a wall. He expressed the acknowledgment that the Western powers had also an interest in the wall 

as a tool for preventing the unification of Germany. But his colleague answers: If they were not here, 

the wall would not have been, but the same applies for Berlin. (Note 5) Berlin was the world capital of 

the Cold War. The wall threatened and created risks and was known as one of the big justifications for 

the mentality of the Cold War. The construction of the wall in August 1961 strengthened Berlin’s status 

as the frontline of the Cold War and as a political microcosmos, which reflected topographical as well 

as the ideological global struggle between east and west. It made Berlin a focus of interest, and this 

focus in turn caused an incentive for the espionage literature with the rise of neorealism with the 

anti-hero, as it also ended the era of romanticism. (Note 6) The works of le Carré and Deighton are the 

best examples of this change in literature. Both of them use the wall as the arena of events and a 

symbol in their works. Only at the end of the fifties, upon the final withdrawal of McCarthyism and the 

relative weakening of the Cold War, there started have to appear films with new images about the 

position and nature of the Germans and the representations of Nazism in the new history.  

The films of the Cold War presented the communists as enemies or saboteurs. Together with this view 

about the Soviets, developed the rehabilitation of the German image. Each part of the German society 

was rehabilitated and become a victim instead of an assistant of the Nazis. The critic Dwight 

MacDonald was impressed by the way in which the German population” has changed from a fearful 

assistant of one totalitarian regime to the hero opponent of another totalitarian regime”. (Note 7) This 

approach has to be examined, and how it influenced the development of the German representation, 

since many films I have investigated demonstrate a different approach of the German representation.  

 

 

 



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Keywords 

Berlin Wall, Iron Curtain, genre of espionage books, representations of Germans, Nazis, Other 

Germans, rehabilitation of the German image, Hollywood, PCA(Production Code Administration 

(established by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) in 1934), US 

foreign policy, Isolationism, Intervention, Cold War 

 

1. Introduction  

The films testify of the different approaches and the existing trends in the administration and in 

Hollywood regarding Germany and the Germans, and the approach that would serve the American 

foreign policy and the US’s global interests. Films like One, Two, Three, Judgment in Nuremberg, Town 

without Pity, The Longest Day, The Great Escape, Dr. Strangelove, The Spy Who Came in from the 

Cold, Funeral in Berlin, Torn Curtain, and others brought a more realistic German representations, 

which emphasized the complexity of the German representation in Hollywood. The new developments 

of the weakening of McCarthy persecutions and the PCA generated a convenient cultural atmosphere 

for accepting exceptional script writers. The most outstanding and pioneers in their theoretical 

complexity were One, Two, Three by Billy Wilder and especially Judgment at Nuremberg by Stanley 

Kramer. One could say that these two films constituted the turning point of the German representation 

in Hollywood’s movie industry.  

In 1961, a short time before the wall was constructed, Billy Wilder returned to Berlin and to the issue 

of Germans after Hitler’s time. He shot there the comedy One, Two, Three. The film deals with Berlin 

and Berliners, the conquering forces, the wonders of the economic prosperity in West Germany and the 

failing socialism in East Germany, and also Brandenburg Gate, which was still open at the time. 

Through the obedient laborers who beat their heels and behave like soldiers in a Coca Cola factory, 

Wilder leads the German spectator back to his military past that seems so distant.  

The film One, Two, Three is a satiric comedy. McNamara (James Cagney), a manager in Coca Cola, is 

sent to Berlin in order to distribute this drink to the new ally of the US, West Germany. But as a good 

capitalist, he aspires for a better position. He wants to be the manager of Europe and have an office in 

London, and for this end he would do anything. After many attempts, including an attempt to distribute 

the drink in the Communist block, the idea is rejected due to his boss; fear and hatred toward 

Communism and the Russians, the boss representing the America paranoia. Wilder chose comedy 

because only through a comic strategy one could create stereotypical images, which go through an 

extreme non-realistic process. Through exaggeration and caricature of the images one can show 

stereotypic characteristics and reach absurd situations of the ex-Nazi who stamps with his feet and 

stands to attention when he identifies an authoritative figure around. There are also three Russian 

friends who consult with each other, trying to reach an agreement, and the head of the department is a 

spy. The director chose to start the plot from the end, that is, he starts the story from the day in which 

East Berlin closes its gates to the West. This is also the day when the hero comes back home to 



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America, but a moment before that he reconstructs his last months in the city. Although these are his 

personal experiences, there is also a harsh criticism of the political and social reality of the conquering 

forces.  

The film presents a satire on the Cold War under a cover of a romantic comedy. Wilder did not have 

any empathy toward the regime in East Germany or communism, nor did he praise the American 

culture of the masses. He wanted to show that greed and corruption characterize both regimes. But 

more severe, according to Wilder, are the suspiciousness, the fears and misunderstandings between both 

parties. No party has a monopoly over stupidity and ignorance, and a political mentality that is based 

on lack of knowledge and paranoid blindness implies dangers for the stability and safety in the world. 

The borderlines between good and bad and between stupid and smart people are not national, but 

human. Hence, the image of the German, both Western and Eastern, is more grotesque due to his will to 

integrate in either communist or capitalist societies. The people do not believe in the ideologies, but 

rather adopt the rules of the game of the rulers. 

In the film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Kramer describes a legal drama about the trial of the 

judges, one of the least familiar trials of the Nazi regime. Kramer presents the tragedy of Germany, in 

which normative people, like the respected judge Ernst Janing, played by Burt Lancaster, makes legal 

the crimes of the regime. The US sends to Nuremberg judge Dan Howard, played by Spencer Tracy, to 

judge the judges of the third Reich. The defendants are Emil Han, Frederic Hofstetter, and Werner 

Lempi and Janing, who was the Minister of Justice. They are accused of murder, brutality, tortures and 

an inclusive responsibility for everything that have been done in the labor and extermination camps of 

the Nazi regime, as they were signed on the orders of arresting and imprisonment. There are emotional 

outbursts of the defense and the prosecution throughout the trial. When Judge Dan Howard is not in 

court, he tries to understand the dynamics in Hitler’s Germany through locations in Nuremberg, talks 

with his house keepers, Mr. and Mrs. Hulberstadt and others. The testimonies in court are shocking and 

all the defendants get a life sentence.  

Who is responsible for all the atrocities that have been occurred in the concentration camps, Hitler? 

Goebbels? The judges of the Third Reich? The jailers? The German citizens who lived a few kilometers 

from the camps? Or all of them. And maybe the responsibility lies on the world countries as well for 

not intervening in time to prevent the murdering of millions of people? 

The main hero of the film is the Minister of Justice of Nazi Germany, Ernst Janing, an intellectual, 

played by Burt Lancaster, and the peak of the film is his admission of guilt of his service of the Nazi 

regime. The German defense attorney, played by Maximilian Schell, tries to acquit the German judge in 

order to save Germany’s reputation, and for this end he is willing to abuse again the victims of the Nazi 

regime, who stand on the witness stand. The fact that the film dealt with the trial enabled a 

confrontation of the moral, political and legal perceptions of the defendants, the defeated Germans with 

those of the winning American judges.  

The relationships of east and west overshadowed the court and influenced the military commanders, 



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who did not avoid trying to influence the judge’s decision in favor of the defendants, so that they would 

win the sympathy of the German people, the people who was meant to be the buffer against the east. 

Judge Howard is torn between making justice and the considerations and pressures of the political 

system. The same dilemma was in Hollywood in those years, whether to purge Germany of guilt out of 

political needs, or regard Germany and the Germans as guilty in spite of the change that came about in 

the Cold War.  

This film is mainly a bill of indictment and condemnation against the indifference of the Western 

countries, which did not stop the Nazi danger at the beginning and their forgiving attitude to Nazis and 

Germany after the war, more than against Nazism itself. Janing wants to get Howards’s appreciation 

and wants to explain by saying that he had not known where the situation was going to and when it 

went wrong. Howard answers him: “Everything went wrong at the first time you sentenced to death an 

innocent person.” Janing remained speechless with an expression of pain and horror, horror of his own 

deeds, horror of the years to come in his cell in jail, where he would be alone with his guilt and pangs 

of conscience. When the trial was over, Janing wanted to get a small private acquittal from the man 

who convicted him, but he did not get it. This is the last scene of the film and this is the impression we 

are left with: Germany and the Germans are guilty and there is no atonement. 

Kramer challenged the rules against the movie industry and the HUAC. The judge addresses his 

fellow countrymen and says: “In the life of every nation, when an enemy grasps its throat and strangles 

it, there will be people who would say that the only way to stay alive is by imitating the enemy’s deeds/ 

But if we deny truth, justice, and human dignity—what will be left for us to live for?” The film is a bill 

of indictment against Nazism, but also against the western countries and their forgiving attitude toward 

the Nazis and Germany after the war, and especially the US.  

Niza Ariel says that “In his film, Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), the American director Stanley 

Kramer managed to crack the common movie pattern of the representation of Germans and Nazis. The 

film integrated in the liberal wave of western movie at the end of the fifties and the beginning of the 

sixties, at the time of the weakening of the Cold War and the end of McCarthy’s era in the US.” (Note 

8)  

The film was screened in 1961 with the Berlin crisis in the background. Throughout the film political 

pressures were put on the American judge saying that one should not blame all the Germans as they 

might neglect the West and support the Soviets. Avi Man, the scriptwriter, and Kramer blame the 

German nation, and especially its social elites, as well as the Americans who sacrifice values in return 

for political gain. (Note 9) This film is to a large extent a release of the chains which had been put on 

Hollywood in the time of McCarthy, and it expresses the decrease of the Witch Hunt in Hollywood.  

The film The Longest Day (1962) describes both the German and the Allies perspectives of the day of 

invasion, D-Day, to Normandy in 6.6.1944. The critics praised this film and regarded it as one of the 

big epic films of WWII. It reproduces in its intensity and scope the greatest amphibic invasion in 

history, and it was a big success. It cost almost 10 million dollars until the premiere in October 1st, 1962, 



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and it was a great attraction. There were so many stars, dynamic stunts, integrating many scenes of the 

real invasion, and made it a great box office success. It gained 17.5 million dollars, almost two times of 

its cost. Throughout the production Zanuck declared time and again his belief that the film was not just 

a historical description. He thought that it was important to pass the message through the film about the 

state the world was and the treat on our way of life. It was intended to be a reminder to the people that 

the Allies fought together and defeated the evil because they were together. 

The Longest Day is considered to be one of the most loved, preferred and famous films. It is based on 

the book by Cornelius Ryan that has an unprecedented distribution, and was sold in the first year in 

800,000 copies. (Note 10) Ryan wrote about the invasion to Normandy for the Daily Telegraph of 

London. Ten years after the war he interviewed more than 1,000 soldiers who participated in the 

invasion, and later on wrote the book. (Note 11) It would have been interesting to examine the German 

point of view and interview German soldiers at that time during and after the war. The makers of the 

film had problem translating all the testimonies into a visual medium. Hollywood described the 

massive invasion of 175,000 soldiers of the Allies from the US, Canada, Britain and other countries. 

There were more than 13,000 aircrafts and 6,500 ships of different types. (Note 12) 

The film reinforces a patriotic issue, the victory of democracy over dictatorship. The American, 

English and Canadian soldiers were strong and willing to initiate, they trusted their commanders and 

their goal, whereas the German soldiers are presented as confused, fearful and without any initiative. 

When the film was done, 1962, it was almost 20 years after the end of the war; West Germany was 

re-armed and joined NATO in order to block a possible invasion from the USSR. The wider goal of the 

film was to present reconciliation towards the Germans, like the thesis that was raised at the beginning 

of this research, i.e., the change in the American foreign policy by a more positive representation of 

Germans in Hollywood’s films. For instance, General Erwin Rommel is shown in a sympathizing way 

due to his attempt to murder Hitler in July 1944. 

The genre of war films, which flourished in Hollywood in the sixties, did not focus on the moral 

significance of the crimes of Nazi Germany and focused on heroism in the battlefield. This emphasis on 

heroism made vague the significance of war. The description of American soldiers arriving to a 

concentration camp is fulfilling one’s obligation. This issue comes up also in relation to The Great 

Escape and the Battle of the Bulge, which will be discussed later on.  

In the Great Escape, 1963, the image of the German in the first part of the film is innocent and 

ridiculous, it is easy to convince the Germans with simple explanations and the German is embarrassed 

and tends to believe what he is told. For example, the American soldier tells him: “The baseball flew so 

I went to fetch it,” and they believe him. The prisoners’ attitude to their capturers is degrading, making 

fun of them. For instance, in the scene of the attempt escape, Steven McQueen who plays Hits, he tries 

to check the dead area from the guards’ angle. After he is caught, he retrieves a cutter for cutting iron 

from his pocket and volunteers to “admit” that he had tried to escape. His behavior is cynical and 

sarcastic. The picture changes in the second half of the film, when it goes out of the camp and presents 



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another German, more sophisticated, more violent, and monstrous, who does not hesitate to act 

aggressively and pull the trigger. After the aircraft of the pilot Handley falls down, and manages to 

escape, the soldiers shoot with no real reason and kill Blithe the blind.  

The reality outside the camp shows the outside world in a most ugly and cruel way, including different 

political movements, like the French underground, and this reality penetrated eventually into the camp. 

We see the more aristocratic part of the German army as it is dismissed and punished by the monstrous 

part that have taken over. That is to say Nazism versus being German. The difference between the 

professional soldiers and the ideological Nazis is emphasized by the fact that even the camp 

commander fall in the hands of the Nazis although he is part of the German army. The Nazis execute 

without hesitation by a machine gun 50 prisoners. The game has gone out of control. The rules have 

been violated, or have never been valid for these soldiers. 

There are two main characters in the film: the German camp commander and the SS officer that 

represent two approaches to the nature of Germans. The camp commander, General von Luger, played 

by Hans Mesmer, represents the one who knows the rules of the game and is willing to abide by them. 

He is a pilot and an officer, and knows the rights of the prisoners, and the rules and the moral codes. He 

is the highest authority versus the heroes, the prisoners. His figure is shaped cautiously. On the one 

hand he keeps a tough expression, his body is very erect (like all the German soldiers), his speech is in 

staccato and confident, he has a high forehead, which testifies of wisdom and determination and his 

behavior is very formal. On the other hand, he believes that conflicts of interests can be settled through 

peaceful ways. 

The film The Great Escape (1963), presents the German soldiers and generals during WWII in as way 

that let us understand the German military mechanism. The film emphasized that the German army, in 

spite of its impeccable order, accuracy and determination is divided internally. The film is divided into 

two parts, not a one-dimensional evil and threatening enemy, but rather a mechanism that is split 

between the “good” and the “bad”.  

The first part is told from a light point of view, and does not present the enemy as a monster or beastly 

senseless people. The German is presented as tough, but sensitive at the same time, but sometimes 

ridiculous, and even with a sense of humor. In one of the opening scenes, when the German officer 

catches the two soldiers who disguise themselves as Russian peasants, he calls them by their names, 

makes jokes with them and brings them back to their place. He is pleasant and smiling. The choice of 

the genre of entertaining adventure films enabled the director to pass the hidden message that one can 

see the German as a potential partner in spite of the war. Furthermore, the potential German partner is 

presented as unsophisticated and not really threatening. It testifies about the debate of the German 

representation. It shows how difficult it was to convince the American public of the change of attitude 

toward Germany and justifying their attitude towards Germany, as it was the national interest to do it at 

that time. This is why the presentation is dual. 

There is a clear division between the German soldiers, the pilots and the air force people and the SS 



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and the Gestapo. This fact is most significant in analyzing the image of the German as it is reflected in 

this film.  

 

2. The Cold War and the Mechanization of the German Image 

The brilliant film of the genius director Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop 

Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) describes in a fearful way the intolerable easiness in which a 

nuclear war can happen. The film combines an accurate realism (description of the battle scenes and the 

inside of the aircraft B-52) with a grotesque satire. The army wanted to censor the scene, but Kubrick 

had constructed the aircraft according to a photograph in Time magazine.  

The plot is about an American general who goes crazy and orders to attack the USSR. All the squadron 

of the strategic bombers is launched to its targets deep in Russia. But the Russians invented a 

doomsday mechanism that is operated automatically in case of a nuclear attack and destroys the whole 

world. The crisis gets worse when the president manages to cancel the attack but one aircraft does not 

receive the cancellation and continues to its target and to the end of the world.  

Dr. Strangelove, who is actually Dr. Macordic Liebe (in German: strange love) is a German scientist 

who is employed in the Pentagon. His figure is based on a number of ex-Nazi experts, who had been 

recruited to the American defense system, like the engineer of the American space program, Werner 

von Brown, who was in charge of the V2 rocket program that intimidated London in the forties. He is a 

disabled person on a wheel chair and limited in his right hand. He suffers from non-volitional 

movements, like the Nazi Heil salute and addressing the president as Mr. Fuhrer, and he seems crazy in 

his movements and speech. 

The destruction of the world reminds Dr. Strangelove of the time he served Adolf Hitler, and his 

threats represent some kind of Nazi craziness which derives enjoyment out of the idea of the end of the 

world. This respected doctor on a wheelchair with an iron arm gets excited to say words like: 

exterminate, slaughter, sex, and his artificial arm pops up with a distinctive Heil Hitler salute. The 

danger he represents is also in his influence on aggressive American generals. The film criticizes 

America of adopting the Nazi militarism that might damage America and peace in the world.  

The film was a direct reaction to the Bay of Pigs crisis in Cuba, when the world was on the verge of a 

nuclear catastrophe. The critics praised Dr. Strangelove together with severe claims. Most of the critics 

regarded it as a brilliant, merciless treatment of the nuclear crisis.  

Dr. Strangelove is the dominant figure in the war room. He suggests a survival of few, ten women per 

man. The consultants love the idea. In the deep piers life and love would be more mechanical. Dr. 

Strangelove would certainly bring about more denial of human traits. This is a hint for Germans and 

Americans who become more similar to one another. Dr. Strangelove is very ironical. “Peace is our 

profession,” he says. The criticism in this film could not be expressed when McCarthyism was in its 

prime.  

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) is a more significant expression of the change in 



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Hollywood. This is an espionage film based on a successful novel by John le Carré. It brings a 

pessimistic, cynical point of view, which disregard all the ideologies of the cold War. The story 

transmits the clear message that in the Cold War there are no enemies and friends, bad and good, but 

only bad and worse. The director Martin Ritt, who had been one of the people in Hollywood’s Black 

List at the beginning of the fifties, and was accused of sympathizing with the communists and he could 

not work in the US at the time, tries to get even with Hollywood, as well as with the American policy 

during the Cold War and its human price.  

There are two German figures which illuminate the view of the film and its hero: Limas, the hero, is a 

British spy who is a plaything in the hands of intelligence factors on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and 

two German figures in the film, Fiddler and Mont. These two Germans represent two archetypes within 

the ideological chaos: Fiddler, the German Jew, who is a human exception in the alienated atmosphere. 

Mont is an ex-Nazi, restrained, arrogant, who is eventually found out to be one of the worse characters. 

The film presents the German as nationless, who still carries the rooted stereotypes of WWII. They all 

wear masks and you can never know the real face of a person and whose side he is. The images of 

Fiddler and Mont are situated on the two ends of the archetypal German image.  

Fiddler, a German Jew, played by Oskar Werner is a typical casting of a Jew: short, dark, gentle with 

good eyes, wearing a casquette and having an energetic body language. Fiddler is the most human 

figure in the film after the hero. He is supposed to be a pawn in the hands of the British agency, and try 

to catch Mont the Horrible. But in the course of the film we learn that Mont is on the British side, 

whereas Fiddler, the communist, fights for his ideals.  

Mont’s figure is played by Peter Van Eyck, and he has a smaller volume than Fiddler. He does not 

exceed the German-Nazi stereotype. Van Eyck played Nazis in many Hollywood films, and was 

identified with such characters. He has Arian nice face, tough cruel look, and a small mean smile from 

time to time. Mont is the ultimate Nazi – cold, keeps being clean at work, even in the trial against him 

he does not say a word, as if it has nothing to do with him, and his spokesman has to do the job.  

The film shows history in the present. The man who murdered Jews in the Holocaust remained a 

monster, but now he works for Britain. The German Jew is a positive figure with moral principles. Ritt 

criticizes the West and its way of fighting the East, a way with no moral principles and not less cruel 

than the way of the enemies. The film leaves the spectator with deep distress and paranoia since in the 

world of espionage a person looses his human quality. (Note 13) There is also a significant expression 

of getting loose of the horror of McCarthyism. 

The Battle of the Bulge (1965) presented complicated and ambivalent German figures.  

Colonel Hessler is the commander of the forces in the field and he leads a brigade of tanks. His 

priorities are the army, the uniform, his name and his honor. He is interested that the war would go on 

and on. When General Kulas, his commander, sends him a girl to be with before the battle, after he has 

not been with a woman for a long time, he sends her away. Hessler has a strong will to fight, although 

he knows from 1941 that Germany would not be able to defeat the Americans. Hessler (Robert Shaw) 



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is very high. He cries “Victory!” as his Tiger tanks attack and defeat the American forces in the 

Ardennes forest in Belgium in December 1944.  

“Well, have we won the war?” asks enthusiastically the colonel’s assistant (Hans Christian Blach).  

“No, we haven’t,” answers the colonel. “Well, have we been defeated?” concludes the assistant. “No. 

we haven’t been defeated,” answers the colonel. The assistant admits that he, an uneducated person, 

cannot understand it. “It means victory, because the war will go on,” explains the colonel, “and the 

world won’t get rid of us.” “But what will be with my sons?” asks the assistant. “They’ll wear uniform 

and fight for their German country.” “They will die for their country,” he responds. “If necessary, 

they’ll die,” agrees the colonel. In this way one can define the essence of life of a German soldier. 

“You’re crazy and a criminal!” cries the assistant. Hessler is a professional soldier. His ideology is to 

fight until death, but he is not a regular Nazi. The dichotomy between the assistant and Hessler exists 

also between Hessler and his Nazi commander, General SS Kohler (Werner Peters). When Hessler 

understands the assignment he has got, he goes for it just because as a soldier obedience overcomes his 

ideological position. This is a complicated image with positive aspects, while the main criticism about 

him is his blind obedience, also when his identification with the Nazi ideology is not full.  

The ordinary Germans, whom we are supposed to accept as potential allies are represented by Konrad, 

colonel Hessler’s personal driver. All Konrad wants is to go back to his home and to his sons he longs 

to see. Konrad understands that the Germans have lost the war, and when he sees that his commander, 

Hessler, is willing to go on fighting, he requests to go to another position. At the end of the film we see 

Konrad throws his weapon and his military equipment and goes home smiling by foot to Germany. 

That is, Germany’s future is by choosing life, not nurturing warfare. Germany has to throw militarism 

away, and if it does so, one can even like it, as insinuates Konrad’s kind smile. 

The relationships among the Germans are strictly military, but there is a comradeship, which can be 

seen in their warm relations of Hessler and his personal aide Konrad. The German soldiers seem like 

tools who are shifted from one place to another. This is an attempt to show how the Nazi leadership 

exposed the guys who have been left, after most of the men were killed or wounded, as cannon fodder. 

There is no dialogue of any kind between the soldiers and their superiors. The connection between 

Colonel Hessler and General Kulas, his commander, is also cold and military. 

The Nazis seem clean all the time, their uniform are well kept and they aspire for absolute accuracy in 

times. When the Germans catch a grop of prisoners they execute them in the field. The event is based 

on the execution of 150 Americans. There is a definite difference between the SS and professional 

soldiers who would not have do so, and Hessler expresses his protest before his commanders about this 

barbaric conduct.  

The film The Quiller Memorandum (1966) emphasizes that there still are German people and 

organizations in Germany who believe in the way of life of Hitler’s Germany. These organizations and 

groups want to spread their belief in society by being active in various positions, and so influence the 

way of thinking of people until Germany would return to be what it used to be. They are scattered all 



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over the country and the British secret service is aware of their activity except in Berlin. The film tells 

the story of a neo-Nazi organization. The members in Berlin are intelligent and cruel people the British 

do not know about, and they, these Berliners, kill the two British agents, Metzler and Johns. The agent 

Quiller gets the assignment to find out where is the base of the organization in Berlin. In the course of 

his search he meets Inga, a teacher, and falls in love with her. Quiller is caught, interrogated and 

released by the neo-Nazi organization just to be a target for surveillance. Later on Quiller is caught 

again and arrives at the house of the organization with Inga’s help. The Western agents follow Quiller 

and manage to catch all the organization’s members in the house. At the end it is found out that Inga is 

also a member in the organization. 

The film deals with an attempt to revive the Nazi period. October (Max von Sidov) is the head of the 

organization in Berlin. The leader is wise, charismatic and cruel. The people around him obey his 

orders quickly and efficiently. He uses cruel investigation methods: injections and psychological work. 

“We want to know the location of your headquarters in Berlin, your coding system and how much you 

know about us, as well as what kind of information your predecessor forwarded to the headquarters. 

What is your exact aim in Berlin? You don’t have any other choice but to give us the information.” 

Finally, October’s patience runs out, and he orders to give Quiller more injections and even kill him 

after he would lose consciousness.  

 Quiller is sent to Berlin to substitute the agent who had been killed. In an encounter in the giant 

stadium of West Berlin (110,000 seats, where Nazi Germany hosted the Olympic games in 1936) with 

Paul (Alec Guinness), the contact person in Berlin on behalf of the British intelligence, he warns 

Quiller of the neo-Nazis: 

“A lot of new blood, youngsters, who seriously believe, is very dangerous. One should not under 

estimate them, it is all quite complicated. It is hard to identify them; nobody wears a brown shirt, very 

difficult to identify them. They look exactly like any other German, dealing with various things, but 

they are cautious and very wise. Now they look like everybody else. 

It is curious, don’t you think so? It is all politics. 

I tell you what is our task. Our task is to get into the heart and find the extremists among them. The 

Nazi-Germans you will be able to identify if you can get close and look at them. Their basis must be 

found, urgently.” (Note 14) 

The Quiller Memorandum differs from other espionage films in two aspects: the first is that it is not an 

inter-bloc war, but a war between the regime, which is not defined beyond the fact that its interests are 

influenced by the Western interference, and the neo-Nazi elements in Berlin, who try to take Germany 

over. They even have a new Fuhrer. The second is that the film is made with completely new methods. 

The two parties are exposed to the enemy. This is a psychological warfare, and there is the question 

whether every German is a Nazi. 

The film was issued to the screens in November 1966 and received varied criticisms. In England it 

received good criticism. The London times defined it “most refreshing, a thriller in the best classic 



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tradition.” (Note 15) In the US it got negative criticism. Crowther called it in the New York Times “a 

distorted and banal espionage film.” (Note 16) Pauline Kael wrote in the New Republican that “there is 

nothing reasonable,” whereas Reed called it “an exercise in abstract thinking.” (Note 17) Newsweek’s 

critic was almost the only one who recommended it as a good espionage film. This criticism stemmed, 

probably, from the film’s criticism of the secret services during the Cold War. The interests of the 

intelligence organizations are above all, even if it involves human lives. Colonel Stock of the KGB 

mocks the British secret service in order to kill Kroizman, who stands in his way. The British secret 

service recruited an ex-Nazi, and after he finished his task, he was executed. 

The film shows an encounter of a number of ideologies and political views: communism, fascism, 

dictatorship and democracy. The film stimulates thought about the Nazi underground forces that 

operate in Berlin, and the fact that the Nazis are knowingly exploited by the secret services of the big 

powers. 

The film Where Eagles Dare (1969) is a war action movie, in which two men go out to save another 

man from other Nazi men. The two heroes are Richard Burton and young Clint Eastwood. This film 

was a box office great success, made according the novel by Alistair MacLean, the author of action 

books (Navarone Canons).  

The film was very expensive but very profitable. Where Eagles Dare focuses on a daring action of 

rescue and a more daring escape. Disguised as Nazi officers, the commando people, Major John Smith 

and Lieutenant Morris Shefer (Clint Eastwood) and other six courageous soldiers parachute beyond the 

enemy lines. Their assignment is to save an American General who has been taken prisoner in an 

Alpine mansion allegedly unpentratble. They receive help and encouragement from the covered agents 

Mary and Heidi. A British officer who had planned the operation is also in the background. Somehow 

somebody in the Allied forces would be discovered as a traitor. There is a shift in the plot manage to 

arrive to the American General, and then there is another shift. The amazing peak made the Where 

Eagles Dare as one of the most admired films of Clint Eastwood. The script was written directly for the 

screen by the espionage writer, Alistair MacLean. In this thriller the soldiers of the Allies penetrate into 

the mansion on a mountain in the Bavarian Alps in order to save an imprisoned general who knows the 

plans of the D-Day. The film shows parachutes, shootings and explosions, splendid landscape and 

frozen hands trying to survive on the rocks. There is also the escape operations, in which the heroes 

evade gun fire in the corridors of the mansion, drive a bus in the mountains passes, and take off in an 

aircraft as they believe that everything is alright. But it is not. In short, Where Eagles Dare is an 

admired film from beginning to end. It has an arousing soundtrack and a lively script, it was processed 

according to the novel by Alistair MacLean. The excellent performance of Richard Burton and Clint 

Eastwood certainly contributed to its success. There is an excellent performance of Mishai Hordern as 

the British deputy Admiral Roland, and Dern Nesbit as the Nazi major von Harfen, support the 

performance of Burton and Eastwood. But the real stars are the rhythm and the action, a dangerous ride 

in a cable car, catching people from the windows, and mingling with the enemy, as new danger appears 



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around every corner. The surprises run as they find out that not everyone is what he is supposed to be. 

In the meantime, the audience is in suspense as the music builds up the tension towards the surprising 

ending.  

Patton (1970)  

Geroge Patton (George S. Scott) receives the command in 1943 in North Africa on the American 

forces there and put some discipline in them. He confronts the German Fieldmarshal Rommel (Karl 

Micahel Polger). Patton withdraws with the Desert Fox, using the tactics of the Germans. He is 

promoted to a Lieutenant General and is sent to Sicily, where he enters a personal war with the British 

Fieldmarshal Montgomery (Michael Bates). His activity in Italy is extra ordinary, and he endangers his 

future because of a single hurt of his ego. When he visits a military hospital, he meets a GI soldier (Tim 

Cosidin) who suffers from nervous fatigue. He gets angry of what he considers as negligence and slaps 

the poor soldier on his face and orders him to get well quickly. This case lead to the outcome that he 

loses the command, and later on, he misses D-Day. Patton leads the Thirds American army through 

Europe. Patton remains a valuable source, but eventually he seems as a losing canon in comparison to 

the sophisticated tactics of his olds friend, Omar Bradly (Carl Malden). Patton won seven Oscars, 

including the best movie, and the best actor for Scott, a prize he refused to receive. Patton is considered 

as one of the greatest biographical epos that have ever been put on screen, and George S. Scott in the 

leading role is sometimes considered as one of the greatest appearances in the history of the movie. 

Scott and the film in general gained from an intelligent script written by Francis Copola and Edmond H. 

North, a strange and lucky couple of styles of writing, which are seemingly not similar. After almost 45 

minutes the film focuses just on a small part of Patton’s career, starting from his North African journey 

until the end of the war. There were only a few compromises with history. For instance, Patton wears 

the uniform of a four-stars general, a higher rank than he had, with the exciting speech to his forces at 

the beginning of the film. This scene was taken, almost word for word from a speech Patton gave on 

June 4th, 1944. This is just one example of the reliability that gives the film its excellent texture. Patton 

profits also from the extra ordinary technology, especially the cinematography by Fred Concamp and 

the role of the band of Gerry Goldsmidt. Generally speaking, the film won seven Oscars, including the 

best actor.  

 

3. A Thematic Discussion and Analysis of the Various Representations 

3.1 A Critical Examination of the German Representations in the Films and Their Analysis 

3.1.1 Women’s Representation as a Metaphor of Germany 

In most films the feminine representation is sophisticated and ambivalent, showing that women 

maintain a metaphoric relationship with Germany, while men who have an affair with them symbolize 

America and its conquering forces. The power relations expressed in this way present the feminine 

advantages that Germany has versus the disadvantages the decent American men have, mainly their 

innocence. German women are cunning and do not hesitate to use their sexuality in order to promote 



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themselves. They have three goals: a. survival and adjustment to the situation by exploiting the 

American soldiers, which symbolizes German opportunism and inability to trust this people. b. Love to 

an American soldier, which symbolizes the post-war American-German alliance. c. Loyalty to the Nazi 

regime and a danger of the revival of this ideology, as can be seen in the ambivalence at the end of the 

film The Quiller Memorandum from 1966.  

In the film Foreign Affairs (1948) by Billy Wilder, Marlene Dietrich plays Erika von Schlotov, a 

singer in a night club with a Nazi record. The officer John Pringle brings to Erika, with whom he has an 

affair, a mattress he purchased in the Black Market. As he drives in the destroyed streets, we hear the 

tune “Isn’t it romantic?” That reflects the irony in front of the destruction around. Berlin after the war is 

not the right place to nurture romantic illusions as Erika sings later in the night club. Erika (Note 18), 

who personifies the German people, looks for a supporter. She would turn to the one who would 

support her better. That is, she gives in to the higher bidder, and it if is the USSR, so be it. When 

Pringle investigates Erika about her past, she evades him. “Women adopt everything that is 

fashionable,” she says, and Pringle teases her” Yes, once it is a hat, another time it is a swastika, and 

now it is the colors of red, white, blue, and then maybe the hammer and the sickle?” Pringle insinuates 

allegorically to the American fear of Germany which might betray it.  

The German cunning is represented in Erika’s complicated image with her skill of survival. She is 

cynical and not romantic any more. She used to be the mistress of a senior Nazi, was in the 

environment of Hitler, suffered from the war, but her determination and seducing sexuality secured her 

survival during the conquest. This history is described in the songs: “The destructions of Berlin,” which 

refers to the ghosts of the past, “All your sufferings,” which refers to the shortage after the war, and 

“Your sweet tomorrow.” These words expressed a hope and even a prophecy of the possible recovery 

that have occurred indeed with the economic boom in Germany in the fifties. 

In the film The Devil Makes Three from 1952 the feminine representation in the figure of Willy 

expresses the theme of the German that would betray and exploit the West if the Nazis come to power 

again.  

German femininity maintains a cover of fog in the films of the sixties as well. Inga, a school teacher 

in the film The Quiller Memorandum (1966), is feminine, pretty and smart. She speaks quietly and she 

helps Quiller find the people who would help him, and so a romantic relation is generated between 

them. But eventually it is found out that she may belong to the organization too, which remains unsold 

to the end. A number of questions remain in the air at the end of the film. Although October keeps 

holding Inga as a hostage, she is released finally and the underground is caught. So does the teacher 

help these neo-Nazis and does she continue in their way. The ambivalence in the answer to this 

question is the allegory that Inga represents for Germany as a whole. That is to say that Germany’s 

loyalty and its potential to return to its dark past still exists under the surface, although it is controlled 

by American or British virility. One can say that Hollywood align itself to a certain extent to the 

dictates of the American policy toward Germany, but at the same time it cannot leave Germany’s Nazi 



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past undealt with. 

3.1.2 Representation of Nazis or People Who Believe in the Nazi Ideology 

In the time of the Cold War the Nazis are represented in two ways, one comic and the other 

threatening.  

In the film foreign Affairs (1948) by Billy wilder there is an interesting representation of Nazis and 

followers of the past regime. Captain Pringle sits in his office which deals with de-Nazification. Father 

and son come to him. The father has a small moustache (like that of Hitler) and he wants to apologize 

for his son who drew swastikas with a chalk on walls. The father suggests punishing the child severely, 

while he stamps obediently with his heels. Pringle tells him jokingly that he may put his son in a gas 

chamber. As Herr Mayer says he would obey, Pringle explains to him that they, the Americans, 

cancelled the gas chambers, and they can go home. Herr Mayer stamps with his feet, and when Pringle 

says people do not do it any more, he bows and turns around, and we see a swastika on his back. Like 

in the story of the where the child shouts that the king is naked, here too the child exposes the real spirit 

of the Germans who have not yet left Nazism.  

In the film Berlin Express (1948), the Nazi underground believes that a state of war is the ideal state 

for Germany. As far as they are concerned, every means is possible to achieve this goal. They use 

German citizens to get information and then kill them. For the same goal the underground members 

even kill each other. There is no sense of solidarity. All the scenes of the underground are conducted in 

full darkness, and the faces of the members are vague and everything is seen dark and gloomy. The 

underground is located in callers under the city of Frankfurt, a symbol that Nazism still lies in ambush 

in the dark and waits for the right time. 

In Stalag 17 the Nazis are presented as caricatures. Colonel von Scherbach tells jokes about the author 

of White Christmas and how he stole the name from the German capital. He even puts on his boots 

when he speaks on the phone with his superiors so that his stamp with his heels will be heard in Berlin. 

The film presents Nazism as an extreme absurdity. The cultural contempt is strengthened in the 

characterization of the fanatic guard (Zig Roman), Johan Sebastian Schultz (Roman played Erhardt 

concentration camp in Lubitsch’s film from 1942 To Be or Not to Be). As a matter of fact, Schultz is the 

only Nazi who shows some kind of compassion toward the prisoners, but the Americans take advantage 

of this weakness. The prisoners call him Schwinhund—a pig son of a bitch, which is very dissociable. 

Price (Peter Graves) the security officer of the barracks, the chosen leader of the escape committee is to 

be found as the real traitor, as he acts from a real commitment to Nazism. Price used the queen of the 

Chess game as a letter box and the cable of the electric bulb in order to pass messages to the Nazis.  

Price was a Nazi, whose name was probably Preissiger or Preishopper. He lived in Cleveland in the US, 

but when the war burst out, he returned to his homeland as a good Nazi. He spoke English and 

therefore has become a spy. He was the informer of barracks 4. 

The first film that confronted directly the Cold War is the satire One, Two, Three by Billy Wilder 

(1961). There is a German who tries very hard to erase his former identity as a Nazi. But there is one 



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common characteristic to all the images, both Western and Eastern Germans, and this is their inability 

to erase their Nazi character, the Nazi essence that presents loyalty and a blind devotion to the ideal, 

tough discipline and obsessive rationalism, and longing to the heroic past of Germany, which 

reverberate in each of the German figures. There are three figures of ex-Nazis and Western Germans: 

Fritz Leipin (Karl Lieffen), the driver of Mr. McNamara (James Cagney), Schlemmer (Hans Lothar), 

the main assistant of Mr. McNamara, and Fraulein Ingeburg (Liselotte Pulver), Mr. McNamara’s 

personal secretary. All three have extrovert stereotypical characteristics which make them grotesque 

caricatures. 

Each one them would do anything to erase his/her identity, from hating everyone who is not western 

and does not want to be a western, through flattery to the boss up to a point of absurd, and total denial 

of the past. There are also sub-characters, representing sub-groups, like the workers of Coca Cola, the 

West German policemen, and the West German journalist, who strengthen the impression that there is a 

general moral corruption in West Germany in all walks of life. Schlemer is the West German figure 

through which we understand the process of erasing past identity in order to integrate in the new free 

capitalist society. He would do anything to be considered Western-American even if it involves going 

through a metamorphosis in his personality. He starts by trying to run away from his past as a soldier in 

the Nazi army, and erases any memory that has to do with his past. We see in the film that there is a 

conspiracy of sequence among all Germans regarding their past and involvement in the war. For 

instance, in the first scene when we meet Schlemer, McNamara loses his patience about his stampings 

and says:  

McNamara: This is from the Gestapo time, ha? 

Schlemer: Please sir, it is not true. 

McNamara: Between us, Schlemer, what have you done in the war? 

Schlemer: I was in the underground. 

McNamara: In the underground?  

Schlemer: No, a mechanic in the underground train. 

McNamara: And did you object to the Nazis and didn’t love Adolf?  

Schlemer: Which Adolf? Where I was I didn’t know anything, they didn’t tell me. 

This example represents the subterranean flow that went on in Germany. But this distorted and 

caricaturist Nazism is presented as not threatening and not dangerous.  

In the film The Great Escape from 1963, the presentation of the Nazis in the film is greater than that 

of the ordinary Germans. The Nazi German is more sophisticated. Unlike the ordinary soldiers in the 

camp, the Nazis are more cunning, suspicious and tacticians. When two of the prisoners pretend to be 

Frenchmen, the Nazi soldier checks their passes and says “Good luck” in English, and the pretender 

answers in an American accent, and so his identity is discovered.  

The Nazis wear black coats and drive luxury black vehicles. They are hedonists, like the mafia 

gangsters. In the scene in the café, the Nazis sit there confidently and order wine. They are amused. 



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Until that point we haven’t seen soldiers out of duty, which shows the gap between the fighters in the 

front and the soldiers in the hinterland.  

The figure of the SS officer, Mr. Cohn, played by Hans Reisser, is complicated and mysterious. He 

does not introduce himself, or welcomes the camp commander. He sits on a chair without being invited 

to do so and waits until the presentation is completed before he speaks. He does not wear uniform but a 

long leather coat. We get to know his name from von Luger addressing his secretary. Mr. Kohn, the SS 

man threatens the camp commander, von Luger and emphasizes the human aspect of von Luger. He 

does not join the threats on the prisoner Bartlet and indicates that Bartlet’s sentence is not under the SS 

men authority. Mr. Kohn emphasized the change in attitude and calls von Luger’s attitude to the 

prisoners as understanding, unlike his own attitude. Mr. Kohn belongs to the people who work in the 

“field”, as he works among civilians. Therefore his work is accurate and he remembers his “targets” 

personally. He and Bartlet have a fatal fight in the rail station, in this scene Bartlet noticed Kohn first 

due to his black coat. This black coat can be seen as a declaration of the arrogance of the SS men that 

brought them down at the end of the war. Bartlet’s quick response determined the result of the fight, 

and Mr. Kohn dies in it. Tony Barta (Note 19) argues that the movie loved to hate the Nazis, mocking 

them in a variety of images. The Nazi figures are violent, wearing black, and show a despising attitude 

toward human lives. They are presented with their fast walk, stamping their heels, and their arrogant 

appearance, which makes the Nazi representation caricaturist.  

The film Dr. Strangelove by Stanly Kubrick from 1964 describes Dr. Strangelove, manager of the 

R&D of the atomic weapon in the US. He is not interested in preventing the doomsday that he helps to 

come about, on the contrary. He sits relaxed in his wheelchair and his artificial arm and is not able to 

love anything except for fatal technological instruments. The human failure that Dr. Strangelove 

represents leads to the technological doomsday. There is not good Nazi and bad Nazi, they are all bad.  

In the scene where Dr. Strangelove explains the President of the US how the doomsday machine of the 

Russians works, the president asks: can’t it be dismantled? and Strangelove answers: This is the way it 

was made, and it was made this way only to deter, to frighten, and as such it is easy to understand and 

convincing.” It explains part of the Berman/Nazi nature, everything is simple, even extermination. Dr. 

Strangelove understands the meaning of the technological catastrophe. He thinks that only those who 

will be in deep mines in the US would survive. The computers will decide who of the Americans would 

survive so that the President would not have to make this decision. Strangelove tells him that the senior 

people in the army and the administration have to be among the chosen ones. So Strangelove represents 

the self-destruction and de-humanization that Nazism represents.  

The film The Quiller Memorandum deals with a number of important issues: Who are the neo-Nazis 

nowadays? How do they achieve their goals? What are their goals? The Nazis nowadays do not wear 

brown shirts, of something like that,” explains Paul (Alec Guinness), the head of the British secret 

service in Berlin, to his agent Quiller (George Segal). Neo-Nazism lives and kicking under the surface 

and this threat seems more interesting to the West than dealing with the conflict with the Soviets, and 



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the film tries to answer these questions.  

3.1.3 Representation of Non-Nazi Germans—Professional Soldiers, Officials and Other Germans, a 

Representation of Social Classes 

In the Cold War these representations change in the course of time. At the beginning the representation 

of ordinary Germans tends to acquit them of the crimes of the former regime and make them allies of 

the West, but usually with their negative representations. During McCarthy’s period the ordinary 

Germans were shown in a positive light, trying to make them clean of past crimes. This trend went on 

later and repeated itself in war films, like the Battle of the Bulge. At the end of the fifties, and during 

the sixties, the criticism of ordinary Germans returned in films like Judgment at Nuremberg by Stanley 

Kramer from 1961. 

In the film The Young Lions from 1958, the story starts on Christmas Eve of 1938 in Bavaria, 

Germany. The attendants, including Christian, express support of all Germans in Hitler, which bothers 

Margaret, the American ski student of the blond German. They start a debate between Christian and 

Margaret about the nature of the Nazis and their meaning: 

Christian: do you think that being a Nazi is such an awful thing? 

Margaret: Christian, are you a Nazi? 

Christian: No, I’m not a political person, but I think they symbolize a promise for Germany. 

Margaret: You don’t believe in it? 

Christian: Yes, I do. 

Margaret: Why? Why? How can you justify Hitler? 

Christian: I think that Hitler will bring us better life. 

Margaret: Is your life so bad now? 

Christian: No, it is not bad, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wearing nice sweaters and 

teaching children how to ski and be nice. 

Their dialogue expresses the attitude of the Americans in this time of reconciliation to toward the 

Germans. This is some kind of pardon for the German people as Christian’s explanation sounds 

reasonable, and he is an admired movie star who calls for sympathy to his image, which makes this 

representation more problematic. The two representations of Germans, Christian versus the Nazi 

Hardenburg, emphasize the Nazi representation: 

Hardenburg: “The German army is unbeaten because it obeys orders, every order, even if it is 

disgusting. There is no room for sentiments, moralists and individualists. If you don’t understand it, 

your future is not in the army. If you resist, maybe you will not have any future.” Later on Christian 

arrives to his surprise to a concentration camp and meets a war criminal who complains of his hard 

work: It is not easy to run a concentration camp. I had to manage all the gas chambers, the shooting 

ranges, the physicians and their experiments. I had to exterminate 1500 people a day. Jews, Poles, 

Russians, Frenchmen, political prisoners, and I had only 260 people at my disposal. And all the same, I 

did my job, and then there were memoranda from Berlin, saying that “In Auschwitz they exterminate 



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20 thousand people a day.” Here it comes from Berlin again, the fourth time today. I was left with 10 

people. How can I exterminate all the people who were left in the camp? The equipment doesn’t work, 

I don’t care what they did in Buchenwald, I alone here! Berlin wants me to exterminate everyone who 

was left in the camp before the Americans arrive. There are 6000 men, women, and children. This man 

who asked me to do it strolls in the streets. The Americans and the Russians will come to him, and he 

would tell them: “I have never heard of concentration camps,” “there was never a policy of 

exterminating 12 million people.” “This is an invention of the SS, but no one in the government has 

heard about it.” And I’ll be here, trying to explain to the Americans. They might not understand what 

they’ll see here. Maybe a German officer obeys orders. The courage to stand in front of the enemy and 

honor and say: “I fulfilled my duty to my homeland.” (Note 20)  

The speech of the camp commander is a paraphrase of Himmler’s Posen speech. This is another 

component of the problematic representation, since the speech creates an impossible division between 

Christian and the crimes of the regime. There is a feeling that the film makes a demagogic use of these 

crimes. Killing Christian, who is full of guilt feelings, becomes a kind of atonement for the Germans. 

One may feel this was what one had to do, that is, yes, there were crimes, but most of the Germans 

were not involved in them. We are left with the message that the Germans were the victims of the Nazis 

because, among other things they were ignorant and did not know about these crimes. Today it seems 

an absurdity. It is known today and was known then that the majority of the Germans were aware of the 

crimes of the regime, and certainly the Wehrmacht soldiers that part of them participated actively in 

these crimes.  

In the last scene in Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961, judge Howard (Spencer Tracy) criticizes the 

Minister of Justice of Nazi Germany, Ernst Janing (Burt Lancaster). The scene begins as Howard enters 

Janing’s cell. Janing tries to start a conversation, but Howard remains loyal to the goal of the visit, 

which was requested by Janing through his advocate, Rolf. Janing expresses his appreciation to the 

judge of the way in which he conducted the trial, and asks him to keep for him the records of all the 

trials he conducted as a judge. A moment before the visit ends, Janing tries to address Howard in an 

intimate tone. He asks him to believe him that he did not know of the “things” that happened (the 

atrocities and the extermination). This was not what we wanted, he says. Howard answers him, and this 

is also the bottom line of the film: “It came to this the moment you sentenced death to an innocent 

person.” Then he turns to go out of the cell and does not give Janing a private moral acquittal, he had 

asked for.  

In this case the ordinary Germans are convicted, which is contrary to their representation in Hollywood. 

This case emphasizes the problematic nature of the limitations Hollywood put upon itself due to the 

needs of the administration, needs that have been answered during the fifties and the early sixties, 

which released Hollywood from the threatening grip of McCarthyism.  

The film The Longest Day (1962) describes the German and the Allies perspective on the D-Day, the 

invasion to Normandy on 6.6.1944. The German soldiers seem neat in their uniform and conduct. They 



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do not believe that the Allies will attack although they catch a coded message that the invasion is going 

to be carried out. The German generals and other high officers shift between loyalty to Hitler and 

hatred towards him, and the basic feeling of fear of him. Even when the Fuhrer’s opinion is needed, 

they do not call him because he has taken a sleeping pill and he rests at the moment.  

The Germans seem quite complacent and with self-confidence. Rommel, the general commander, 

receives the announcement about the invasion at home, as he went home to celebrate his wife’s birthday. 

The relationships amongst the Germans are cold with no emotional expressions, and their speech is 

sharp, clear cut and violent.  

In the Great Escape, 1963, the image of the German in the first part of the film is innocent and 

ridiculous, it is easy to convince the Germans with simple explanations and the German is embarrassed 

and tends to believe what he is told. For example, the American soldier tells him: “The baseball flew so 

I went to fetch it,” and they believe him. The prisoners’ attitude to their capturers is degrading, making 

fun of them. For instance, in the scene of the attempt escape, Steven McQueen who plays Hits, he tries 

to check the dead area from the guards’ angle. After he is caught, he retrieves a cutter for cutting iron 

from his pocket and volunteers to “admit” that he had tried to escape. His behavior is cynical and 

sarcastic. The picture changes in the second half of the film, when it goes out of the camp and presents 

another German, more sophisticated, more violent, and monstrous, who does not hesitate to act 

aggressively and pull the trigger. After the aircraft of the pilot Handley falls down, and manages to 

escape, the soldiers shoot with no real reason and kill Blithe the blind.  

The reality outside the camp shows the outside world in a most ugly and cruel way, including different 

political movements, like the French underground, and this reality penetrated eventually into the camp. 

We see the more aristocratic part of the German army as it is dismissed and punished by the monstrous 

part that have taken over. That is to say Nazism versus being German. The difference between the 

professional soldiers and the ideological Nazis is emphasized by the fact that even the camp 

commander fall in the hands of the Nazis although he is part of the German army. The Nazis execute 

without hesitation by a machine gun 50 prisoners. The game has gone out of control. The rules have 

been violated, or have never been valid for these soldiers. 

There are two main characters in the film: the German camp commander and the SS officer that 

represent two approaches to the nature of Germans. The camp commander, General von Luger, played 

by Hans Mesmer, represents the one who knows the rules of the game and is willing to abide by them. 

He is a pilot and an officer, and knows the rights of the prisoners, and the rules and the moral codes. He 

is the highest authority versus the heroes, the prisoners. His figure is shaped cautiously. On the one 

hand he keeps a tough expression, his body is very erect (like all the German soldiers), his speech is in 

staccato and confident, he has a high forehead, which testifies of wisdom and determination and his 

behavior is very formal. On the other hand, he believes that conflicts of interests can be settled through 

peaceful ways.  

The Battle of the Bulge (1965) presented complicated and ambivalent German figures.  



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Colonel Hessler is the commander of the forces in the field and he leads a brigade of tanks. His 

priorities are the army, the uniform, his name and his honor. He is interested that the war would go on 

and on. When General Kulas, his commander, sends him a girl to be with before the battle, after he has 

not been with a woman for a long time, he sends her away. Hessler has a strong will to fight, although 

he knows from 1941 that Germany would not be able to defeat the Americans. Hessler (Robert Shaw) 

is very high. He cries “Victory!” as his Tiger tanks attack and defeat the American forces in the 

Ardennes forest in Belgium in December 1944.  

“Well, have we won the war?” asks enthusiastically the colonel’s assistant (Hans Christian Blach).  

“No, we haven’t,” answers the colonel. “Well, have we been defeated?” concludes the assistant. “No. 

we haven’t been defeated,” answers the colonel. The assistant admits that he, an uneducated person, 

cannot understand it. “It means victory, because the war will go on,” explains the colonel, “and the 

world won’t get rid of us.” “But what will be with my sons?” asks the assistant. “They’ll wear uniform 

and fight for their German country.” “They will die for their country,” he responds. “If necessary, 

they’ll die,” agrees the colonel. In this way one can define the essence of life of a German soldier. 

“You’re crazy and a criminal!” cries the assistant. Hessler is a professional soldier. His ideology is to 

fight until death, but he is not a regular Nazi. The dichotomy between the assistant and Hessler exists 

also between Hessler and his Nazi commander, General SS Kohler (Werner Peters). When Hessler 

understands the assignment he has got, he goes for it just because as a soldier obedience overcomes his 

ideological position. This is a complicated image with positive aspects, while the main criticism about 

him is his blind obedience, also when his identification with the Nazi ideology is not full.  

The ordinary Germans, whom we are supposed to accept as potential allies are represented by Konrad, 

colonel Hessler’s personal driver. All Konrad wants is to go back to his home and to his sons he longs 

to see. Konrad understands that the Germans have lost the war, and when he sees that his commander, 

Hessler, is willing to go on fighting, he requests to go to another position. At the end of the film we see 

Konrad throws his weapon and his military equipment and goes home smiling by foot to Germany. 

That is, Germany’s future is by choosing life, not nurturing warfare. Germany has to throw militarism 

away, and if it does so, one can even like it, as insinuates Konrad’s kind smile. 

 

4. Conclusions 

In this article I have discussed the way in which the American policy was expressed in the films under 

discussion. During these years there have been changes in the American policy towards Germany, 

changes that included a shift from a tough policy that called for punishing the Germans in order to 

prevent them from developing a military force and a future threat, to a policy that called to rehabilitate 

Germany as part of coping with the Soviet threat. These changes were expressed in the films I dealt 

with from various points of view.  

For example The films Foreign Affairs, Airlift, The Devil Makes Three and Fraulein refer to the issue 

of foreign policy at the time by using an allegory: foreign affairs appear as relations between American 



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soldiers and German girls, and by expressing the political drama through a romantic melodrama or a 

comedy. The most outstanding element is presenting Germany in the image of the treacherous woman. 

Germany is not presented as extremely negative or extremely positive. De-Nazification is not expressed 

explicitly, but there are positive German figures, mainly in Desert Fox, Fraulein, and others, alongside 

a negative representation of Nazi figures. These representations provided the ground for the new 

approach which claimed that the Germans stopped being the enemy and have become Allies against the 

common enemy—the Soviets. This new position made the German worthy of living in freedom in a 

democratic country. Regarding the foreign policy, it is shown in the films in different ways: Foreign 

Affairs clarified the position of the isolationists; Airlift tended to calculated intervention, but remained 

stuck between the two approaches and did not provide a sophisticated reason for the need to intervene. 

(The Soviets in the film have a marginal presence, like in other films, Express Berlin, Foreign Affairs, 

One, Two, Three and others. They are shown as cumbersome in the political power game. The films do 

not go into the familiar demonization of the Soviets, and do not say that a future democratic regime is a 

sufficient reason for an American intervention in the world. From the perspective of our time the film 

was maybe too optimistic, and definitely more naïve than later films, which dealt with the Cold War 

from an ideological point of view. This film does not fall into line with the McCarthy period and the 

Witch Hunt of the fifties). Fraulein represents the position of the supporters of intervention and shows 

explicitly the perfect intervention in the time of the Cold War.  

In this period we see that Many films which were produced in the fifties and the sixties in Hollywood 

reflect the struggle between rehabilitating Germany of all guilt, out of political needs and the formal 

policy of the US in the cold War on the one hand, and trends which have been preserved or aroused 

again in Hollywood, which refused to purge Germany and the Germans from guilt.  

In a historical perspective, the films of this period were a severe accusation against the German elite. 

The films which have been produced in the fifties and the sixties questioned Germany’s withdrawal 

from its past, as the Nazi past comes up time and again as a bothering reminder, like the films One, Two, 

Three and Dr. Strangelove and others films.  

Hence one may say that there was an objection inside Hollywood’s studios to the drastic change in the 

German representation up to a real purification. 

The films raise the question whether all the German people is guilty, or just part of it, and whether one 

has to differentiate between the Nazi leadership and the people. As we have seen, this issue provided 

the content for many films in the fifties and the sixties, and the answer to the above question confirms 

the main argument of the present research: in spite of certain changes in the representation of Germany 

and the Germans in the Cold War, generally speaking, there was no real change from the representation 

before the Cold War time. In addition, the films confirms another claim of this research: Although in 

certain times Hollywood was recruited to serve the American policy towards Germany, it cannot be 

regarded as an extension of the administration, nor a recruited institution. As a matter of fact, in many 

aspects, Hollywood raised a voice against the American policy toward Germany, and more than once it 



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even expressed open and hidden criticism of this policy. 

When trying to examine the question of representation in the period under discussion, we were 

three trends: 

1) Representations of German women as a metaphor for Germany. 

2) Dividing the Germans into two groups: Nazis and other Germans. The first group is represented 

negatively and the second is usually represented positively. 

3) A tendency of ambivalence and complexity in the equivocal meaning of the representation, a 

tendency that increases in the late fifties and gets more extreme in the sixties. 

As a whole, we can learn about the interaction between Hollywood and the administration from the 

question of the German representation. One can say that this period, 1947-1970, was divided into three 

sub-periods: 

a. Between 1946-1952 Hollywood was relatively free to describe the situation and criticize it and 

even the American administration. 

b. Between 1953-1958, the height of the McCarthyist persecution, Hollywood was very modest and 

adjusted itself to the winds that came from the administration. In this period many films are done as if 

according to order. 

c. Between 1958-1970 the grip of McCarthyist persecution is loosened and the American interests 

in Europe stabilize and Hollywood has a more pluralistic atmosphere.  

As the debate about the question of intervention has ended, and the German problem was solved, 

Germany’s weight decreased. 

When the Korean War burst out, the political-cultural attention was directed to other parts of the world, 

and the drama of formulating the foreign policy adjusted itself to other historical and regional 

circumstances. 

Anyway, Germany was in the focus of the ideological-political interest for a period of time, and by 

describing life under the occupation, Hollywood usually expressed the prevailing opinion in the 

American public. This stand was generally similar to the stand of the administration, but when there 

was a contradiction, the relation between Hollywood and the administration was complicated and 

ambivalent. We have seen this in a number of films, as well as among a number of auteurs who 

criticized harshly the administration. Auteurs like Billy Wilder and Stanley Kubrick, and Stanley 

Kramer. In Hollywood there are different people and different opinions, and they got their expression in 

varied positions. 

 

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Notes  

Note 1. PhD in International Relations and European Studies, from Faculty of History and Philosophy, 

BabeS– Bolyai Cluj-Napoca University; w9905998@bezeqint.net.  



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Note 2. Louis J. Halle, (New York, 1967).The Cold War as History, p. 170.  

Note 3. Kennedy's speech in Berlin: www.whitehouse.gov/history/ presidents/jk35.html 

Note 4. Siegfried, Mews, (1996). “The Spies are coming in from the Cold War: The Berlin Wall in the 

Espionage Novel”, The Berlin Wall: Representations and Perspectives, eds.Ernst Schürer, Manfred 

Keune and Philip Jenkins, (Peter-Lang, New York,): 50-51. 

Note 5.   Ibidem, p. 53. 

Note 6.  Ibidem, pp. 62-63. 

Note 7. Daniel, leab J. (1988). “The Iron Curtain” (1948): Hollywood's First cold war movie”, 

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. , Vol, VIII Nr. 2. Pp.153-188.,p. 155. 

Note 8. Nitza, Ariel, (2004).” Presentation of Nazism and the Holocaust in Western movies: A 

Discussion in three film narratives”, Cinema and Memory – Dangerous Relationships? Zalman Shazar 

Center of the history of Israel, Jerusalem, pp. 316-293.296-298. 

Note 9. Shlomo, Zand (2002). The movie as history: imagine and direct the twentieth century Ofakim 

Library, The Open University, Am Oved Publication, Tel Aviv: p.209-210. 

Note 10. Stephen E. Ambrose (1996). “'The Longest Day' (U.S., 1962):' Blockbuster' History”, World 

War II, Film and History, Eds. John Whiteclay Chambers II, and David Culbert, (New York, Oxford: 

Oxford University Press,): p. 97. 

Note 11. Ibidem, p. 97. 

Note 12.  Ibidem, p. 98.  

nOTE 13.  Leonard Rubenstein, (1979). The Great Spy Films, (Secaucus, N.J.), pp. 31-68.  

Note 14. Ibidem, in the film. 

Note 15. Anez Nicholas, (1992).”The Quiller Memorandum”, Films in Review, Vol. 43, and Nr. 7/8, 

(Jul / Aug), pp.237-245.  

Note 16. Ibidem, p. 238. 

Note 17. Ibidem., Ibidem. 

Note 18. At the beginning Dietrich objected to this offer, as she was afraid that her anti-Nazi image 

might be damaged by showing the enemy as glamorous through her performance. In: Harris, p. 294.  

Notw 19. Tony Barta, (London, 1998). “Film Nazis: The Great Escape “, Screening the Past: Film and 

the Representation of History, ed. Tony Barta, pp. 127-148.  

Note 20. Ibidem, from the speech in the Film.