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In the shadow of the annexed Cinemas. Cinema and Propaganda in Alsace and Moselle -1940-1945)

After the lost Battle of France in June 1940, Alsace and Moselle are annexed by force by the Nazi regime. Alsace is attached to the neighbouring administrative district of Baden to form the Gau Baden-Elsass, and Moselle to the Saar-Palatinate administrative district to form the Gau Westmark. In these territories, the Nazi authorities pursue policies of immediate Germanisation and Nazification, regarding the people of Alsace and Moselle as Volksdeutsche, full members of the German people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft) whose education needed to be perfected and whose mindset needed to be unified. The cultural life isn’t immune to the regime’s grip, and cinema constitutes one of the efficient instruments to diffuse political and cultural values of NSDAP and to impose its worldview (Weltanschauung).

The German cinema under Nazism is today well-known for its propaganda films like Jud Süß (1940), an antisemitic film directed by Veit Harlan, or like Triumph of the Will (1935), the documentary of Leni Riefenstahl.However, propaganda films represent only a minority of the German cinematographic production: less than a hundred on 1,200 features films produced between 1933 and 1945. Therefore, to be interested in the cinema during the Annexation involves shifting the focus. It isn’t only to be interested in the diffused films and the ones that produced and created them, but also in cinema operators and the audience. It is at that point that we can consider that these films bring all sorts of emotions to people, and the outing at the movie theater can be precious moments and rare spaces of freedom under a totalitarian regime. This exhibition explains two indivisible realities: cinema as an ideological instrument of the Nazi regime and cinema as a social experience, a space of emotions, pleasure, and leisure, a space-time for entertainment but under control.

After a global presentation of the beginning of German cinema and of the cinema under Nazism, the exhibition deals with the German cinema in the cinematographic program in Alsace-Moselle during the interwar period and during the Annexation. What was the cinema-going experience like there? How was it controlled by Nazi authorities? Which cinemas were reopening? Who were the operators? Which films were being shown? Which ones were banned? Did the authorities implement a cinema policy specific to each territory? Was this policy different from that applied in the rest of the Reich or in occupied France? This exhibition invites you to explore a space focused on the audience of the cinema with witness statements and personal artifacts. Evidence of devotion revealing the existence of a unique love of cinema under a totalitarian regime and during war.

Alsace and Moselle are a special case in more ways than one. Their border situation has favoured for a long time, the circulation of cultural practices and the sharing of common sensibilities on both sides of the border. It is that that reflects the taste of local audiences and what explains in part the success of German cinema during the war. But borders are also spaces of tensions and contestations, like in Luxembourg or in the East Cantons of Belgium, which were also annexed, where the Nazi authorities take specification into consideration in this cinematographic leisure, adapting their cultural policies.

And, at the end of the exhibition, we invite you to discover a recreated screening like it is presented in a movie theater in Strasbourg in spring 1943.

Cinema forms part of the audience’s personal memories – memories that rarely leave any trace outside the private sphere. Yet it is from these sources that the task of historically reconstructing the lived experience becomes possible. By focusing on a pastime largely overlooked in works devoted to the annexation, this exhibition offers a fresh perspective on this period. The documentary film « When the Stars Stopped Shining», which brings the section on personal accounts to a close, seeks to explore this memory. The exhibition focuses primarily on the commercial exploitation of films. Thousands of cinema programs from seven towns and cities (Colmar, Metz, Mulhouse, Munster, Saint-Avold, Strasbourg, and Thionville) were analysed to compile previously unpublished statistics on programming practices. However, other distribution networks existed during the annexation, notably screenings for schoolchildren, those organised by Nazi paramilitary organisations, and screenings aimed at youth movements such as the Hitlerjugend.

‘In the Shadow of the Annexed Cinemas’ was based on research by Anthony Rescigno (senior lecturer in film studies at Paris Cité University) and Sébastien Soster (teacher of history and geography) on cinema during the Nazi annexation of Moselle and Alsace, with the support of the Alsace-Moselle Memorial. It provides an opportunity to bring together a collection of sources and documents from the municipal and departmental archives of the three territories, which had never been compiled in this way. Many aspects of this vast field of study remain to be explored. The data gathered for this exhibition will provide valuable resources for further research as part of an international research initiative dedicated to the study of Nazi cinema, its circulation, and its reception.

Now it is your turn to step inside a cinema from the period of the annexation. The lights in the auditorium dim, the projector lights up, and the journey begins.