Hitler's Heroines: Stardom & Womanhood in Nazi Cinema
Antje Ascheid
Temple University Press
2003
"Hitler's Heroines is the first in-depth study of the complex role of female stars in Nazi cinema. Ascheid's detailed analysis of three of the most celebrated stars—Kristina Söderbaum, Zarah Leander, and Lilian Harvey—shows the crucial role female stars played within Joseph Goebbels's entertainment industry. Ascheid highlights womanhood as a central area of contestation within German fascism and her work is informed by a wealth of recent critical studies on the history and cinema of the Third Reich."
—Gerd Gemünden, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College
German film-goers flocked to see musicals and melodramas during the Nazi era. Although the Nazis seemed to require that every aspect of ordinary life advance the fascist project, even the most popular films depicted characters and desires that deviated from the politically correct ideal. Probing into the contradictory images of womanhood that surfaced in these films, Antje Ascheid shows how Nazi heroines negotiated the gender conflicts that confronted contemporary women.
The careers of Kristina Soderbaum, Lilian Harvey, and Zarah Leander speak to the Nazis' need to address and contain the "woman question," to redirect female subjectivity and desires to self sacrifice for the common good (i.e., national socialism). Hollywood's new women and glamorous dames were out; the German wife and mother were in. The roles and star personas assigned to these actresses, though intended to entertain the public in a politically conformist way, point to the difficulty of yoking popular culture to ideology.
The introduction & chapter 1: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/chapters ... 04_ch1.pdf
Google Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=rF6uu ... es&f=false
Sadly, I only have this sample on PDF. -- Haven
; I've found this.........................
.