GENRE FILMS APPEALED to mass audiences in the Third Reich and also to the propaganda ministry because they operated successfully on many different levels. These popular motion pictures featuring favorite stars as predictable characters in formulaic narratives were comforting in their familiarity and corresponded in large part to consumerist fantasies of an apolitical realm beyond the here and now. Genre films endorsed the pleasure of repetition and recognition, catering to the desire for stability and epistemological certainty through such mundane experiences as recalling familiar stories, characters, conflicts, and resolutions.

With its divided consciousness, constantly assuring the German people that things remained the same and just as vehemently arguing that a revolution had taken place, National Socialism could not effectively negotiate a logical synthesis of these opposing ideas and did not try to do so. Instead it allowed the competing notions to coexist in a tense fashion, mediated by such institutions as the cinema. With its dreamlike quality and ability to conjure up alternative realities, the cinema could theoretically bridge the gaps in ideology in a non-rational, visceral manner. In a world of changing circumstances and evolving social practices, when the Nazi regime was trying to reshape German society and embark upon imperial conquest, the familiarity of genre cinema was especially reassuring because it could be taken as evidence that the more things change the more they remain the same.

Propaganda Minister Goebbels was equally smitten by genre cinema because it was eminently profitable, reinforced the government’s claim that a nonpartisan social arena continued to exist, and could promote a value system compatible with ordinary beliefs while still being conducive to the regime’s political agenda. Focusing on heroes who possess traditionally positive personality traits such as loyalty, self-sacrifice, and obedience together with devotion to a higher ideal, hierarchical allegiance, and camaraderie, entertainment films delivered attractive role models. Equally attractive were aberrant characters who flaunt their difference and exist on the margins but typically motivate social cohesion and are justifiably reintegrated into the community or eliminated from it entirely. Such typed characters placed within a recognizable set of events were marketed in the hope that similar stories with similar outcomes could convey steadfast ideas and elicit predictable responses.