Abstract
New methods of spreading the message of solidarity were continuously being embraced by the Arbeiterhilfe. If the traditional method was to respond spontaneously with solidarity to sudden conflicts and crises, the solidarity work illuminated in this chapter was instead deliberately commissioned, created and produced by the Arbeiterhilfe. It is argued here that through film, cinema and theatre, the Arbeiterhilfe created new forums for celebrating international solidarity, reaching hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Germans. The diverse cultural activities that are analysed in this chapter include the Arbeiterhilfe’s involvement in the production and distribution of proletarian films in Germany on the one hand, and on the other hand the Arbeiterhilfe’s major involvement in Weimar Germany’s agitprop theatre scene.
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Notes
Willi Münzenberg, Erobert den Film! Winke aus der Praxis für die Praxis proletarischer Filmpropaganda (Berlin: Neuer Deutscher Verlag, 1925).
Nicholas Reeves, The Power of Film Propaganda. Myth or Reality? (London: Cassell, 1999), 3–4.
see Günther Agde, “Mit dem Blick nach Westen,” in Die rote Traumfabrik. Meschrabpom-Film und Prometheus 1921–1936, eds. Günther Agde and Alexander Schwarz (Berlin: Bertz + Fischer Verlag, 2012), 141.
Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic, Second ed. (London: Routledge, 2005), 96–97.
Richard Taylor, The Politics of the Soviet Cinema 1917–1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 157.
Max Barthel, ‘Polikushka’, Sichel und Hammer 5, 1923.
Ian Christie, “Down to Earth. Aelita Relocated,” in Inside the Film Factory. New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema, eds. Richard Taylor and Ian Christie (London: Routledge, 1991), 80–102.
On the significance of Protazanov for the Mezhrabpom-Russ see: Denise J. Youngblood, Movies for the Masses. Popular Cinema and Soviet Society in the 1920s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 105–121.
Cited in: Mark Wolozki, “Meschrabpom-Rus/Meschrabpomfilm. Einiges zu Filmen aus diesem Studio,” in Proletarischer Internationalismus und Film. Gemeinsame Ausstellung des Staatlichen Filmarchivs der DDR, des Staatlichen Filmarchivs der UdSSR (Gosfilmofond) mit dem Gorki-Studio, Moskau und dem Zentralen Haus der DSF, Berlin 16. Dezember 1976 – 13. Februar 1977 (1976).
See further in Richard Taylor, The Battleship Potemkin. The Film Companion (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2000).
On Levi, see Hermann Weber and Andreas Herbst, Deutsche Kommunisten. Biographisches Handbuch 1918 bis 1945, 2. überarbeitete und stark erweiterte Auflage ed. (Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag, 2008), 543–544.
Richard Stourac and Kathleen McCreery, Theatre as a Weapon. Workers’ Theatre in the Soviet Union, Germany and Britain, 1917–1934 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 91–92.
John Willett, The Theatre of Erwin Piscator. Half a Century of Politics in the Theatre (London: Methuen, 1986), 43.
John Willett, The Theatre of the Weimar Republic (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988), 129–135;
C. D. Innes, Erwin Piscator’s Political Theatre. The Development of Modern German Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 2–22.
Ludwig Hoffmann and Daniel Hoffmann-Ostwald, Deutsches Arbeitertheater 1918–1933, Second ed., vol. I (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1972), 245;
Jürgen Rühle, Theater und Revolution. Von Gorki bis Brecht (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1963), 150.
Wilhelm Pieck, ‘Blaue Bluse’, RF 12.10.1927.
Werner Hirsch, “Das Gastspiel der ‘Blauen Blusen’ in Chemnitz”, Der Kämpfer, 12.10.1927,
Helmut Damerius, Über zehn Meere zum Mittelpunkt der Welt. Erinnerungen an die “Kolonne Links” (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1977), 24–25.
Willi Münzenberg: ‘Platz dem Arbeitertheater’, WaA 117, 22.5.1931, BArch, R 1501/20584, 309.
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© 2015 Kasper Braskén
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Braskén, K. (2015). Solidarity on the Screen and Stage. In: The International Workers’ Relief, Communism, and Transnational Solidarity. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137546869_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137546869_8
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