'The Devil’s Architect', 'The Devil’s General' and 'The Young Evil God of Death' in film and television: Representations of Albert Speer, Erwin Rommel and Reinhard Heydrich in America, UK and Germany

Abstract

Inspired by the representation of Speer’s confession to Hitler in Downfall from 2004 and the meaning associated with this film in Germany and abroad, my research examines the fictional depictions of Speer, Rommel and Heydrich in different cultures and time periods. These representations are particularly significant in that, with the loss of living memory, such depictions will be of increasing historical significance in shaping how the past is represented. A positive aspect of this process is that the Third Reich and these leading Nazis will not be forgotten by future generations. This thesis charts points of convergence between the fields of reception studies and cultural memory that generate a line of inquiry which questions how the changing representations of Speer, Heydrich and Rommel in film and television have shaped the meaning associated with these historical figures in America, Germany and United Kingdom. Assuming that historical film never visualises past reality but engages with a history that is already mediated, I propose that these depictions tell us more about the contemporary time period and cultures than about the historical Nazis themselves. In particular my thesis considers that media texts focusing on leading Nazis have been released continuously long after the end of the Second World War, prompting two central research question: Why do Speer, Rommel and Heydrich still occupy our screens and what do these representations mean for the cultures they are produced in? In order to answer these questions, the thesis analyses reviews from America, Germany and United Kingdom as well as the production contexts to understand the meaning of the fictional representations of Speer, Rommel and Heydrich. My research will deal with the questions of how the historical characters Albert Speer, Erwin Rommel and Reinhard Heydrich are constructed through film texts and through the films’ reception contexts, rather than analysing the ‘cultural obsession’ with Nazis in our contemporary society. The introduction outlines my methodological approach and provides an overview of the academic literature, which influenced my research. My main case studies for the representations of Speer are Inside the Third Reich (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1982, USA), Downfall (Hirschbiegel, 2004, Germany) and Speer and Hitler: The Devil’s Architect (Heinrich Breloer, 2005, Germany). In order to examine the fictional depiction of Rommel, I have chosen The Desert Fox (Henry Hathaway, 1951, USA) and Rommel (Niki Stein, 2012, Germany) as my main case studies. The films Die Wannseekonferenz (Heinz Schirk, 1984, Germany), Conspiracy (Frank Pierson, 2002, UK) and The Man with the Iron Heart (Cédric Jimenez, France & US, 2017) are my case studies to discuss the representation of Heydrich in film and television.

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ORCID for Michael Williams: orcid.org/0000-0001-5386-5567

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