Weimar Germany

This book introduces the lay reader to the problem of how to read Hitler's notoriously turgid prose by taking key short extracts and undertaking a close reading of them.  It seeks to offer a reading of the text that moves discussion of its contents beyond the 'Intentionalist-structuralist' debate that governed previous interpretations of the book.  At its core is an examination of how, despite the difficulties associated with interpreting Hitler's writing, we can detect the presence of a genocidal mentality and an implicitly genocidal ideology.  Chapters discuss: 1. Why Read Hitler?  2. The Politics of Genre  3. Language and Politics  4. History  5. War, Revolution and National Rebirth  6. The Jews  7. Eugenics  8. Modernity  9. Expansion  10. Leadership, Propaganda, Mobilisation.

The preface to the 2014 edition of the book, which discussed the text against the background of the expiry of the copyright of Mein Kampf at the end of 2015, is attached here with the permission of Granta Books.

Published in 2004, this essay focuses on the communist-activist artist Alice Lex-Nerlinger who, working during the closing years of the Weimar Republic, created works ranging from subtle photomontages that were reproduced in Werner Gräff's Es kommt der neue Fotograf! to didactic stencils intended to be mass-reproduced on photo paper. With her images she fought for such causes as workers’ rights, anti militarism, and the elimination of the Weimar constitution’s notorious paragraph 218, the anti abortion clause. Working during the late 1920s and early 1930s along with other members of the activist artists group Die Abstrakten, Lex-Nerlinger sought to use art as a weapon but would ultimately be silenced by National Socialism.

Neste artigo, publicado na revista Die Arbeit em 1930, Franz Neumann defende que o conteúdo dos direitos fundamentais estabelecidos pela Constituição de Weimar não é liberal, mas social. Haveria, portanto, compatibilidade entre direitos fundamentais e democracia, na medida em que (i) os princípios de liberdade e propriedade não podem ser interpretados como direitos pré-estatais invioláveis, mas como direitos limitados, mutáveis e garantidos apenas pela lei; (ii) a igualdade perante a lei é entendida como material e limitadora tanto das decisões do executivo quanto das do legislativo; e (iii) a segunda parte da Constituição estabeleceu direitos e princípios em favor do trabalhador, o que garantiria a primazia da dimensão social.

Before the Bauhaus reevaluates the political, architectural, and artistic cultures of pre-World War I Germany. Every bit as contradictory and conflict-ridden as the German Second Reich itself, the world of architects, craftsmen, and applied-arts “artists” was in no way immune to the expansionist, imperialist, and capitalist struggles that transformed Germany in the quarter-century leading up to the First World War. In this study, John V. Maciuika brings together architectural and design history, political history, social history, and cultural geography. He substantially revises our understanding of the roots of the Bauhaus and, by extension, the historical roots of twentieth-century German architecture and design. At the same time, his book also sheds new light on hotly contested debates pertaining to the history of pre-World War I Germany, namely, questions involving the “modernity” or “anti-modernity” of the German Second Empire, the character and effectiveness of the government administration, and the role played by the nation’s most important architects – as members of the rising bourgeois class – in challenging the traditional aristocracy at the top of the new German economic and social order.

164 physician who delivered Alraune faces a similar fate; Alraune's childhood playmates hurt and humiliate themselves as they obey her orders; as she attains adulthood, having attended the finest and most expensive boarding schools, her servants, friends and lovers face misery, torment and often untimely death; and, finally, the esteemed professor Ten-Brinken himself, after confessing his obsessive attraction to her, is doomed to a mortifying death. When Frank Braun returns to the family estate after long years of adventurous journeys, he foolishly follows in his predecessors' footsteps and falls in love with Alraune. This time, however, Alraune sheds her indifference to the suffering of others, and -after Braun admits to taking part in the experiment that brought her to lifeshe even endeavors to maintain a 'normal' romantic relationship with him. Nevertheless, Ewers leaves no doubt that Alraune does not belong to this world; her attempt at 'becoming normal' results in another violent death, this time her own.

B Reise auf die wenig städtische Insel Capri im Jahr wurde paradoxerweise zum Ausgangspunkt seiner Städteessayistik. Capri war in der ersten Hälfte des . Jahrhunderts ein Refugium für europäische Künstler und Schriftsteller, wie u.a. Rilke, Gide, D.H. Lawrence, Huxley, die die Zeit-und Weltlosigkeit der Insel rühmten. Auch Benjamin, der eigentlich seine Habilitation abschliessen wollte, hatte mehr Ablenkung durch interessante Mitreisende, als ihm lieb war. Während seines von April bis Oktober dauernden Aufenthaltes sah er nicht nur Mussolini aus der Nähe, sondern lernte auch Marinetti und andere futuristische Künstler kennen. Im September machten Ernst und Linda Bloch auf dem Weg nach Nordafrika längere Station in Capri und Positano. Bloch und Benjamin, die sich schon aus dem Schweizer Exil während des ersten Weltkriegs kannten, erneuerten und vertieften ihre Bekanntschaft, sie verbrachten viel Zeit in Gesprächen, an denen auch Benjamins Freundin Asja Lacis beteiligt war. Auch Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor W. Adorno, Alfred Kantorowicz und Alfred Sohn-Rethel hielten sich damals in Capri oder Positano auf und waren mit Bloch und Benjamin in Kontakt. Alfred Sohn-Rethel sprach Italienisch und kannte die Insel wie den Golf von Neapel bereits sehr gut, denn mehrere Familiemitglieder, darunter der Maler Karli Sohn-Rethel, lebten zumindest zeitweilig dort. Im Haus von Sohn-Rethels Onkel kam auch das Ehepaar Bloch unter. In seinen Erinnerungen gibt Sohn-Rethel an, besonders Benjamin bei der Orientierung behil ich gewesen zu sein.

The genocidal war waged by the Nazis has long influenced our understanding of German nationalism. Scholars have argued that the Third Reich was a direct result of German nationalism, which had been antisemitic, racist, militaristic, and anti-democratic from its beginnings. However, as this chapter will highlight, there was never a singular form of German nationalism, especially during the Weimar period. It is certainly true that conservatives and right-wing extremists used this virulent version of German nationalism to attack the Weimar Republic, its supporters, and the post-war international order. Yet German nationalism was not simply the domain of the political right. The supporters of the republic crafted their own form of German nationalism to help them popularize the new political system. Challenging the arguments of their opponents, these republicans insisted that there were no inherent contradictions between democracy and Germany, internationalism and nationalism, and Jews and Germans. They created a version of German nationalism that was democratic, peaceful, and more inclusive. Multiple and opposing German nationalisms therefore existed in the Weimar era.

The essay will argue that Metropolis is not only a film about a futuristic city in which class struggle occurs, but an allegory to the problems that modernity had brought in interwar Weimar Germany, with leitmotifs relevant to this day. Modernity is suggested to be interpreted by Lang and his wife Harbou as a lack of communication, or dialogue between humans and their own values, which will be explored and explained in the introduction and the context. The thesis of the lack of dialogue is then arbitrarily separated in three, namely the impending issues brought by the dehumanisation generated by the machine which disconnects humans from their very humanity, by the desacralisation of the robot which dissolves all human morals and spirituality, as well as the dictatorship, which profits from both dehumanisation and desacralisation by gaining profit and solidifying power, reinforcing at the same the issues voluntarily. Specific scenes will be analysed to back those three elements, while expressionist strategies will be examined in tandem with these scenes as they are useful both artistically and diegetically. The piece is more evidently recommended for those who are interested in the film Metropolis, as well as for those researching into the context of interwar Germany, which is examined and exemplified by the film at hand.

La Repubblica di Weimar fu un periodo ricco di contraddizioni tra la Grande Guerra e l’avvento del Terzo Reich. Il sistema di democrazia parlamentare che riuscì a realizzare fu altresì sorprendente, non solo perché nacque pochi mesi dopo la fine di un conflitto mondiale da cui la Germania era uscita sconfitta ma, in particolar modo, per la portata di trasformazioni politiche e sociali che la caratterizzarono. La ricca storiografia sull’argomento testimonia l’importanza degli eventi che caratterizzarono il 1933, anno spartiacque della storia d’Europa e del mondo. Ciò a cui mira questo saggio è “ricostruire” l’idea che lo Stato Maggiore italiano aveva sulla Germania, alla vigilia dell’ascesa di Adolf Hitler. Attraverso le carte del SIM è possibile cogliere gli aspetti positivi della Repubblica di Weimar, ma anche quegli elementi di forte criticità derivanti dalle clausole penalizzanti del Trattato di pace che costituiranno la base ideologica e sociale della successiva ascesa del nazionalsocialismo. Lo studio si avvale dei cospicui documenti del “Servizio Informazioni Militare” del Regio Esercito che in data 2 gennaio 1933 vengono integrati in una relazione sullo stato complessivo delle forze armate tedesche. I sette fascicoli analizzati nel volume ci aiutano a comprendere l’ordinamento della Reichwehr, le forme di reclutamento e le scuole militari, la dottrina tattica e l’addestramento, le forze di polizia e le associazioni varie esistenti nel 1933, una fonte del tutto nuova nell’interpretazione di una Repubblica di Weimar ormai al tramonto.

This essay analyzes the causes for the downfall of the Weimar Republic focusing on the years from 1929 to 1933. There are many theories that try to explain the fall of the Weimar Republic, but the two main causes that this paper discusses are whether it failed because of the flaws in its Constitution, or whether the Weimar Republic collapsed because of external circumstances and individual political choices. This essay is structured in a way, where there is firstly a brief introduction, then the two theories are presented individually and finally in the conclusion they are compared. In the end, It is concluded that even though some constitutional mistakes had a great impact in the collapse of the Weimar Republic, the main cause of its decay are external events and the political decisions made during the final years.

ABSTRACT

“Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen: The Dolchstoßlegende and the Appropriation of Germany’s
Traumatic Past”

Scott P. Hogan and Professor Kai Evers (Mentor), European Languages and Studies

This paper looks at Germany during the years of the Weimar Republic and the rise of
Nazism between both World Wars. My thesis delves into how the Middle High German myth,
Das Nibelungenlied, was utilized after Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Propaganda of
the time used the myth’s hero, Siegfried, as a call to nationalism and to inspire the fallen nation.
Further, both the military and right-wing politicians used the infamous murder of Siegfried (by a
stab-in-the-back) to equate it with the “stab-in-the-back” suffered by the nation at the hands of
elements within the country, such as the Jews, pacifists, and Socialists, who were blamed for
Germany’s loss of the war. Thus, the Dolchstoßlegende (the stab-in-the-back myth) came into
being in 1919 and was used extensively by the Germany military and right-wing politicians to
explain how Germany lost the war. By looking at the myth itself and how Fritz Lang’s 1924 film
version, Die Nibelungen, depicted the story, this research will show how the many facets of the
Nibelungen were used to justify revenge taken upon those groups scapegoated for the loss of the First World War and for instilling loyalty and a fighting spirit (Kampfgeist) in the Germany Volk.

Weimar was not a democracy without democrats; it was, though, a democracy without a deeply held democratic conviction amongst a majority of its population. Weak performance by embattled democratic political elites combined with an effective framing of debates in nationalistic terms by right-wing politics and media to ensure that nationalism replaced Republicanism as the dominant concept commanding popular attachment. While kept in check by democratic conviction at the very highest level under Ebert, Hindenburg permitted and even actively encouraged the corrosion of Weimar’s democratic spirit.

„Manifestation of the Idea of European Unity – Living Magna Charta of Peace“: The Political Dimension of the PRESSA Cologne 1928 and its Reception in the Contemporary German and International Press“

The PRESSA was the most ambitious and comprehensive exhibition ever held to present modern journalism. The exhibition highlighted numerous facets of contemporary journalism, including its historical roots and its cultural, technical, economic and international interdependencies to a professional audience and the general public. In addition, the exhibition also had a political dimension. Its organisers wanted to demonstrate, with the first major international fair held on German soil after the end of the First World War, that the Reich was a great power and willing and capable of contributing actively to international peace and cooperation. The political dimension of the PRESSA found its expression in the speeches held during the opening and closing ceremonies and in the official publications of the exhibition.
As a result of these high expectations the PRESSA became an international media event. The German and foreign press reported extensively the opening and closing ceremonies, and the concept and contents of the exhibition. Furthermore, the press paid particular attention to the political dimension of the PRESSA, and to the crucial role of the Cologne exhibition – and the press generally – in furthering international peace and cooperation. The intensity and euphoria with which this idea was taken up in the press leads to the conclusion that the exhibition with its emphasis on the peace mission of the press had raised an issue that concerned politicians, the public, and the press worldwide.
This essay reconstructs the political dimension of the PRESSA and its reception in the German and international press. The first part analyses the political motivations of the organisers. The second part examines the coverage of the PRESSA in selected German and international newspapers, with particular emphasis on the treatment of the political dimension of the exhibition. The final part is devoted to the question of whether or not the coverage of the PRESSA and its peace mission was too optimistic, in particular in view of the political developments in Germany and Europe after the rise to power of Nazism in 1933.

Centered on Richard Dyer's model of pastiche, this essay posits that the German television series Babylon Berlin engages in a unique and timely practice of cultural reproduction shaped by a specific combination of historical subject matter and the present media-historical moment. Through digital effects, narrational layering, and multivalent location choices, Babylon Berlin pastiches Weimar cinema, and self-consciously invites comparisons between the so-called golden age of German cinema and the present. It activates cinephilic recall, establishes an intermedial dialogue between analog and digital forms, and affectively engenders a historically oriented conversation about the fragility of modern democracy in the Brexit/Trump era. The cultural work of pastiche it performs warrants the series' inclusion in the conversation around the European remake.

*Please note that the title of this article (and corresponding citation) has been amended, where 'German Artists Association' is correctly translated as 'German Art Society'. All other translations in this article were correct from the time of first publication.

It is well documented that Otto Dix’s career was forced to a halt when the Nazis took control of artistic activity in Germany in early 1933. It is little discussed, however, that the activities of a völkisch artists’ group in Dresden, the extreme-nationalist Deutsche Kunstgesellschaft Dresden (German Art Society Dresden, DKD), were instrumental in targeting his work as ‘degenerate’ from as early as 1927, leading to several of his major works being shown in the infamous degenerate art exhibitions organised by the Nazis from mid-1933. This short article traces some of the DKD’s actions against Otto Dix from 1927-33.

The Jazz Republic examines jazz music and the jazz artists who shaped
Germany's exposure to this African American art form from 1919 through
1933. Jonathan O. Wipplinger explores the history of jazz in Germany as
well as the roles that music, race (especially Blackness), and America
played in German culture and follows the debate over jazz through the
fourteen years of Germany's first democracy. He explores visiting jazz
musicians including the African American Sam Wooding and the white
American Paul Whiteman and how their performances were received
by German critics and artists. The Jazz Republic also engages with the
meaning of jazz in debates over changing gender norms and jazz's
status between paradigms of high and low culture. By looking at German
translations of Langston Hughes's poetry, as well as Theodor W. Adorno's
controversial rejection of jazz in light of racial persecution, Wipplinger
examines how jazz came to be part of German cultural production more
broadly in both the US and Germany, in the early 1930s.

Using a wide array of sources from newspapers, modernist and popular
journals, as well as items from the music press, this work intervenes
in the debate over the German encounter with jazz by arguing that the
music was no mere "symbol" of Weimar's modernism and modernity.
Rather than reflecting intra-German and/or European debates, it suggests
that jazz and its practitioners, African American, white American, Afro-European, German and otherwise, shaped Weimar culture in a central
way.

Despite the fact that in the history of Croatian architecture of the interwar period Expressionism neither took firm hold nor had the significance and reception like it had in Germany, there exists a whole series of architectural designs which display a pronounced influence of this style. In Croatian architecture Expressionism appeared roughly from around 1922 until the end of the 1920s and in the work of some architects even later, in the course of the 1930s. It occurred mainly under the influence of German and partly Austrian architecture and as a reflection of the incursion of Modernism, not as a result of the chaotic post-war climate, inflation or other economic changes. Architects of Croatian Expressionism did not form a homogenous group – they neither shared the same formation or social convictions, nor belonged to the same political circles. What they had in common were aspirations for the accommodation of architecture to the new world, its new needs and technical possibilities. Two German architects had a profound influence on the emergence of Expressionism in Croatian architecture – Hans Poelzig and Peter Behrens. Hans Poelzig trained three Croatian architects who in the course of the 1920s produced designs influenced by Expressionism: Drago Ibler, Zdenko Strižić and Josip Pičman. Especially important is the oeuvre of Drago Ibler, who created a whole series of Expressionist projects, most of which remained unbuilt. Particularly significant are his designs for the Epidemiology Institute (1922), for the Central Workers’ Insurance Office (1923) and for the Trading High School (1928) in Zagreb. His most important executed work of the 1920s was the interior of the theatre section of the pavilion of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the 1925 Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris. Between 1926 and 1943 Ibler was the head of the Department of Architecture of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Some of the architects trained at the Department, like Stjepan Planić, embraced Expressionist aesthetics. Peter Behrens’s influence on the emergence of Expressionism in Croatian architecture occurred through the work of his disciples educated at the Viennese Akademie der bildenden Künste (his most important Croatian disciple was Juraj (Georg) Neidhardt), as well as through his participation in the construction of the Zagreb City slaughterhouse complex. Behrens was the representative of architect Walter Frese from Berlin, who in 1928 produced the design for the city’s slaughterhouse, constructed between 1929 and 1931. Stylistic features of the buildings of this complex display a combination of elements of Expressionist and Neue Sachlichkeit architecture. Besides Behrens’s and Poelzig’s disciples, a number of Zagreb architects of the older generation also designed under the influence of Expressionist aesthetics. Among the most important is Ignjat Fischer, designer of the interior of the City Café at the Ban Jelačić Square in the very centre of Zagreb. It was executed in the years 1929-31 and represents the most important example of Expressionist architecture in Croatia. The City Café was designed under the influence of Poelzig’s works, more precisely of his most important building, the Grosses Schauspielhaus in Berlin. Almost at the same time, in 1928-30, the same square was embellished by the hotel and department store building owned by Svetozar Milinov and designed by Dioniz Sunko, which originally included an advertising tower with elements of Backsteinexpressionismus. A number of designs related to Expressionist architecture can be associated with the so-called Foundation block planned in the centre of Zagreb in late 1920s and early 1930s (among which stand out designs by Stjepan Planić, and Josip Pičman and Josip Seissel). From that time on, the International Style started to become fully dominant in Croatian architecture.

Like Weimar Germany, contemporary Russia is home to fascist actors and widespread nationalism. But unlike interwar Germany, the party system in post-Soviet Russia is heavily manipulated and civil society remains underdeveloped. This means that fascists have not had a chance to use elections or to penetrate civil society in order to build up political support. The continuing presence of a resolutely authoritarian, yet non-fascist “national leader” (Vladimir Putin) keeps the country from becoming a liberal democracy but it also, for now, makes it less likely that the regime will become fascist.

Looking after One's Own is a political history of a German mission society during the last years of the Weimar Republic. It investigates the gradual engagement of the Neuendettelsauer Lutherans in Bavaria with National Socialism, and the tensions between this development and the restructuring of the Lutheran mission fields in New Guinea between 1929 and the early 1930s. It is an interdisciplinary, transnational history connecting events in Germany with developments in New Guinea and Australia. The author explores the impact of political desires, national ambitions and missionary aspirations. Looking after One's Own shows a sophisticated appreciation of the distinction between principle and pragmatism and the ability of individuals to hold them both in suspension in their actions.

The research that has been done on royalty in general is massive. And, the connections between royal lines once revealed can be amazing, as they will sometimes reveal connections that a) were not supposed to have existed, and even b) that actually contradict the information that was given to the general public by those very royals. This paper gives two different lines of descent of Kaiser Wilhelm II, from Arrius Calpurnius Piso. One is through Arrius Piso's son Justus Piso. And the second line of descent is via Arrius Piso's son Julius Piso. Now, even though these two lines are given here, it should be understood that in reality, these are but two of many extant genealogies extending from Arrius Piso and his family to Kaiser Wilhelm. I plan to write yet another paper giving some of the other lines as well. There are several things that I have noticed as I have researched and studied ancient history and genealogies; things that should provide any good (or with time, potentially great) researcher with valuable information. And, as in my case, perhaps answers to many very important questions, as well as a few epic discoveries. When I began to investigate fully, and with the time and attention required, ancient history and information given within those histories, with regards to particular individuals, I found that certain things appeared to be 'standard' with all of those ancient authors-and those things stood out to me, and appeared to have been missed by other researchers, as I had never seen those certain things ever being noted or mentioned in the work of other researchers. For one thing, I had noted that in the work of one ancient author after another, there were so many instances where those authors could have very easily gave answers and information in a direct and forthright manner; but deliberately chose not to. And, more often than not, avoided very skillfully, giving key information about certain individuals; mainly and particularly, the authors themselves. Also, those authors would make statements which either promised to give answers and/or further information about a particular subject, and then failed to do so. At least, in any known or public work. Now, some researchers have tried to answer this by giving excuses for some of those instances. But, in essence, those explanations or excuses are really simply guesses. And poor ones at that. My work has given some genuine answers. And the true context of the material that was being written and left to future generations by those ancient authors is key to getting at the truth and in finding valid answers to these and other questions. One of the main things to realize is that ancient history (and other material being produced by those authors), was being written within a tightly controlled environment. And that changes the context in which we must now examine that material in order to understand it correctly. It also means that because of this set of circumstances, other things were in play as well. And, one of those is the fact that the authors who were leaving us their works were in fact, all royalty. Which, in turn, means that these authors were related to each other and had the same common ancestry. It also, therefore, means that they had the same or similar vested interests. Because only royals or those of royal blood, were able to write for publication, it meant that what they

and-nazism/ 'If you aren't willing to talk about capitalism, you had better keep quiet about fascism', wrote Max Horkheimer on the eve of the Second World War. Time and again, left-wing antifascists have cited this statement by one of the Frankfurt School's founding fathers. But what can actually be said about the relationship between the capitalist economic order and Nazi rule in the light of historical research? Any attempt at historical analysis has to begin by considering the tensions and contradictions that marked capitalism during the Weimar Republic. After 1918, long-term trends towards rationalized production and consumer society coexisted with short-term shifts. The Versailles Peace Treaty had serious repercussions. Inflation, stabilization, and depression occurred within less than a decade. Moreover, economic matters were inextricably linked to culture and politics, for what constituted 'capitalism' depended not least on how it was perceived and

During the interwar period, urban modernism was connected to opposing ideals of womanhood. On the one hand, women's participation in a culture of leisure, consumption and body consciousness created images of the New Women in Berlin and Shanghai during the 1920s and early 1930s. On the other hand, women in Weimar Berlin and Republican Shanghai were both desired and feared for their role in the significant changes in these two metropoles. This article analyzes the emergence of the neue Frau and modeng xiaojie. The growth of the cities, industrialization and changes in the work force provided new opportunities for many women's lives. However, in the interwar period, anxiety-ridden discourses about sexual disorder and moral decay became significant forces and shaped attitudes toward women's roles in urban society. The article examines the critics and conflicts generated by the modern women in the two societies and the conditions leading to the demise of the modern women era in China and Germany.

Abstract
This essay examines Irmgard Keun's novelDas kunstseidene Mädchen (1932) against the backdrop of Weimar-era discourses on the emancipatory potential of vision. While the narrative's thematization of vision has been productively analyzed from the perspective of feminist and film theory, less attention has been paid to its ties to contemporary discourses concerned with retooling a vision enhanced by new technologies like film into an instrument of emancipatory self-fashioning. As the article shows, Keun's novel reflects critically on these discourses by casting its heroine's sentimental journey in terms of an education in vision that leads to acknowledging the distance between the visual as a mode of inscription and the visible as a domain of perception. In so doing the novel delivers a critical commentary on contemporary discourses that located agency in a conquest of the visible attained by manipulating the visual.

En el presente artículo se hace un análisis estético de la película Die Nibelungen (1924), de Fritz Lang, partiendo de la base de que sigue una línea estética tradicional, en la que el juicio estético y el moral están unidos, oponiéndose a muchos de los filmes contemporáneos, en los que estos juicios se conciben por separado. Se defiende, por tanto, la existencia de una correspondencia entre temática e imágenes, en la que las ideas morales se reflejan visualmente mediante la iluminación o las apariencias de los personajes, entre otros elementos. Asimismo, se la ubica dentro de la tradición cinematográfica de los Groβfilme (películas monumentales), que se contrapone a la del Künstlerische Film (cine artístico), para dar cuenta de que se trata de modos de producción distintos, que presentan diferentes esquemas narrativos y distintas tradiciones estéticas.

The present article makes an aesthetic analysis of the film Die Nibelungen (1924), by Fritz Lang, on the basis that it follows a traditional aesthetic line, where both the aesthetic and the moral judgement are connected, opposing many of the contemporary films, where these judgements are thought separately. It is advocated therefore the existence of a correspondence between the topic and the images, where the moral ideas are visually reflected through the illumination and the appearances of the characters, among other elements. In addition, the film is placed within the filmmaking tradition of the Groβfilme (monumental films), which stands in opposition to the tradition of Künstlerische Film (art films), to realise that it involves different modes of production, which have different narrative structures and different aesthetic traditions.