| Annette Brauerhoch
Columbia University Panel VI. Germanness and Gender; "Foreign Affairs"--"Fräuleins as Agents" Abstract: The much debated relationship between American G.I.s and German "Fräuleins" in both countries after 1945 not only indicates how political the private is, but also points to the symbolic function of the "Fräuleins" as a representation of "nation" under specific historical circumstances. Most accounts of this phenomenon of the "Fräuleinswunder" have concentrated on a view from the outside, relegating the women under consideration to the status of objects of history. This paper will try to take their perspective as subjects who can be considered as forerunners in many aspects of the "Americanization" of Germany, but also as protofeminist rebels against normative gender-restrictions and Nazi-induced racial propaganda. The much denounced and despised figure of Post-war German society and culture, the "Fräuleins" seems to have touched upon tabooed subjects such as hurt national pride and impaired "German" masculinity. By engaging in her "foreign affairs" she not only actively pursued her economic and sexual interests, at a time when women were forced back into traditional gender moulds and norms of behaviour and occupation, but she also crossed national and racial boundaries. As opposed to widespread, sensationalist dissemination of the topic in all forms of print media - journalism, yellow press, pulp fiction, hardly any film, otherwise a medium prone to the sensationalist, engaged in depicting these "foreign affairs". Apart from Billy Wilders well known film of the same title, few German or American films wanted to show what could be seen everywhere. This points to the status of visual representation in modern societies: powerful and influencial, image status would not be granted to a phenomenon which was already moving the nation. Apart from official censorship there seems to have been an internal, unconscious censorship at play, which did not want to grant visibility in reproduction to a phenomenon highly visible in reality. The "Fräuleins" priviledged "Americanness" over "Germanness" at a time when questions of national characteristics and national identity were not only closely linked to physical expression and experience, but on the side of Germany also sensitive objects of denied guilt and unadmitted negotiation. Paper: Neither a historian nor a sociologist, I am a film scholar currently treading on both grounds with an uneasy feeling of illegitimacy. Certainly, there is no doubt, that film is tightly interwoven with history and society, and has a large impact on its audiences. This is one of the reasons why feminists of the second women's movement bemoan the fact that this powerful medium was overlooked and ignored by the first women's movement. And this is why film - its production and reception - came to play such a major role in the second women's movement. In my current concern I am trying to fill in a gap, make up for a neglect, and to rehabilitate an outlawed figure of German post-war history: the German "Fräulein". One part of my research consists of an examination of representations of G.Is. and "Fräuleins" in the film production of America and Germany between 1945 and 1960, to break open the strong stereotype as which her figure survives in popular memory for a more diversified examination of her cultural significance. In this paper I will concentrate on two films to demonstrate how representations of "Fräuleins" and their relationships with American soldiers offer responses to burning questions, and how the narratives and aesthetics of these films can serve as indicators of repressions and denials with respect to questions of German cultural and national identity. Besides its interest in documenting
and exploring all kinds of natural and technical phenomena, film since
its inception has been the medium of the physical, the sexual and transgressive.
Cinema constitutes institutionalized voyeurism. This is one of the reasons
why a history of censorship (formal and informal, official and unofficial,
conscious as well as unconscious) and film are closely interconnected.
By choosing two specific film examples, I want to address a group[1]
of films which were made in Germany and America between 1946 and 1960,
and examine a phenomenon which can be considered the outcome of a combined
form of censorship - formal and unconscious. All of these films have as
their topic the relationships between American Occupation soldiers in Germany
and German women. What is interesting about them is, that they refrain
from a representation of the German "Fräulein" as it was widely being
discussed in other media at the time: newspapers, magazines, novels.
In Germany these films are: - Hallo, Fräulein, Rudolf
Jugert 1949
Apart from A Foreign Affair, most of the other films have sunk into obscurity. Historical research about the effects of American military occupation on post-war German society occasionally mentions these films as proof of the cultural relevance of their topic. As manifestations in their own right they do not concern the historical sciences.[2] Film history on the other hand has not paid them any attention for different reasons.[3] The phenomenon itself - the manifold and widespread relationships between the so-called "Fräuleins" - German women of all ages and classes - and American black and white GIs, was a much debated issue with political reverberations in both countries. Both nations economic and sexual fantasies culminated in a demonization or idealization of these relationships. Bi-national politics found sexualized expressions in various conceptions of the male victor and the female victim. One finds the topic represented in serious and sensationalist journalism, in military and Government reports, in high literature and popular novels, in diaries and magazines - and in films.[4] Common to almost all of the above mentioned films is a split between intention and expression. On a narrative level, these films profess to portray the stories of "Fräuleins" and their relationships - in some cases explicitly indicated by their titles like Hallo, Fräulein! and Fräulein. On closer inspection, though, they are marked by a distinctive lack: that of the figure of the "Fräulein". To this day, so-called "Fräuleins" suffer from their stigma and prefer to stay unnamed and unrecognized.[5] In its attempt to stress women's achievements and contributions to post-war society, feminist historical research has concentrated on the positive, untainted (counter-)figure of the "Trümmerfrau". Nevertheless, some recent oral history projects have begun to tell the "Fräuleins" stories.[6] But the films, which at the given historical time claimed to do just that, have not come under consideration. For most historians, this may have to do with the precarious status of film as a "source". For film historians it may have to do with the professed "poor aesthetics", at least when it comes to the German films.[7] Given the tremendous ubiquity of the phenomenon itself and the amount of sensationalist media-interest it created, seven films seems a meager crop. I don't have the room here to talk about "Fräuleins" as subordinate figures in other films or documentaries. But some speculations about the lack of more fiction films are still in place. A large percentage of these relationships were formed between African American soldiers and white German women.[8] The Hollywood production code with its rule against representations of "miscegenation", was in it's main outlines copied by the guidelines of the German Voluntary Board of Censors (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle), established in 1948. This may be one of the reasons. American women and the American Government were highly alarmed by the wholesale fraternization of American troops in Europe, and it seems that Hollywood did not want to increase that concern. This might be another reason.[9] Germany, it seems, did not want to face the all too visible. Resentment of these relationships would have translated into negative portrayals of the American Occupation soldiers - something which explicit censorship by the Military government ruled out until 1948, and internal censorship forbade after 1948.[10] One can therefore begin one's analysis by resuming a lack: Professing to be about one of the most discussed phenomena of German post-war society[11] , all of the above mentioned films, with one exception, testify to a certain "Bilderverbot" when it comes to representing what was commonly known and labeled as the "Fräulein" - a female figure with a highly symbolic meaning: in the figure of the "Fräulein" coalesced not only notions of unrestricted, transgressive sexual behavior, but also of crushing male defeat, and the loss of national pride and honor. If the aesthetics of those post-war films which are dealing with her figure are "poor", this poverty has to be examined as a possible indication of a "poor" imagination - a "restriction" of the imagination - whether formally imposed or unconsciously produced, is one of the questions to be asked. To my mind, official factors like formal censorship do not provide sufficient explanations for a medium which has always found a way around it, to exploit the sensational, to feed on the sensual and to enjoy the frivolous. Also, there remains a discrepancy to be explained: the "richness" of written material against the "poverty" in films. The yellow press, government reports and serial novels of the time abound with stories of these "wayward women". Sensationalist journalism finds them loitering, sleeping under bushes and camp following the troops. Trivial novels see them engaged in picaresque journeys of promiscuity, crossing gender and racial boundaries. Censorship alone won't suffice in explaining this lack of representation of a phenomenon which so moved German society. If one considers films with Kracauer as reflections of their society, then this mirroring effect can definitively be stated with respect to male problems of readjustments to a postwar society.[12] Many "Trümmerfilme" [rubble-films] of the mid- to late 40s attest to a however distorted concern with the destabilized psyche of the "Heimkehrer" and the re-establishment of male authority within the family. According to one study two thirds of German post World War II films until 1949 were dominated by the figure and plight of a gloomy, physically impaired and psychologically disturbed male protagonist. If these films find a male anti-hero in the broken figure of a handicapped war veteran, why doesn't the adventurous "Fräulein" provide them with a female counterpart of a dislocated being in society? At a time, when the external order of things lay in disarray and had to be rearranged, these disorderly women presented a problem. In departing from norms of proper female behavior by actively pursuing sexuality, and leading promiscuous lives without marriage, they established a form of female subjectivity which was threatening to an emerging concept of a developing new national identity, in which gender roles served to re-stabilize the system. "Fräuleins" subverted claims of male authority and proved to be unfaithful in many respects: to the state and country, to the German man as well as the American lover, and to a conception of restrained womanhood which was trying to re-gain currency and had in fact managed to re-establish itself by the fifties. Even though many of the German American relationships developed into long-term ones and into marriages, "Fräuleins" kept the image of being "loose" women. As such they are unworthy figures of cinematic depiction. Representational systems such as film have a general problem with establishing female subjectivity.[13] Nevertheless, they are tremendously interested in female sexuality. It is all the more surprising then, that the figure of the "Fräulein", a licentious, adventurous being, whose ways and fates best demonstrate the "Wirren der Zeit" hardly found her way into the cinema, or rather: that cinema - so prone to stories of sex and adventure - did not find her. One possible answer seems to be that "Fräuleins" established subjectivity via their sexuality.[14] Within a range from love to prostitution, the relationships they formed with American soldiers can be seen as a form of protest, a repudiation of the past. In these foreign affairs they established an unorganized and undocumented form of a counter-culture, before it took on a masculine and masculinized form in the "Halbstarkenkult" of the Fifties. Can one surmise then, that as long as the creation of a dangerous sexual woman remains fictitious (and the creation of male filmmakers), it can be enjoyed, aggrandized and glamorized as in the film noir.[15] As soon as there is a corresponding reality, the titillating pleasure turns into discomfort, and film, even in its fiction form, takes on a documentary quality. The Films
Billy Wilder's film stars Marlene Dietrich, in the role as former lover of a high Nazi official, who has changed colors, and is now consorting with a captain Pringle in the American occupation army. Fittingly, he is a denazification officer and the exchange of goods is an obvious one. Not only is Erika von Schlütow a nightclub singer, who entertains her soldier clientele with suggestive songs and gestures, but she also trades sex for protection and comforts. Wilder is openly cynical, exposing hypocrisy on both sides, peppering his film with at once an immensely authentic, documentary feel and a titillating sensuality. It becomes clear that a society in ruins allows for love in ruins as a frivolous affair without ties. But being a Hollywood product a corrective frame had to be found, in which to contain and restrict the transgressive unruly. A female congress member from the bible belt, played by a prim Jean Arthur, falls in love with Captain Pringle, the very officer whose incorrectness she has unwittingly set out to unravel. In the course of time he is converted to true "American" love proper, and she is freed to a more open expression of her sexuality in Europe. As a sidekick, the "Fräulein" - Marlene Dietrich - on her final way to prison manages to seduce more G.I.s. In Rudolf Jugert's film Hallo, Fräulein! (1949) the singer Maria Neuhaus, once an entertainer for the Wehrmacht, now in the process of forming a jazz band for post-war entertainment, has to decide between two men in love with her: the young, charming, but arrogant American Occupation Officer, Captain Keller, and the somewhat downtrodden, middle-aged, moralistic German architect Reinhart, who avoids becoming a prisoner of war, by being assigned the job of mayor by Captain Keller. Very soon after the introduction of these two men, it becomes clear that this film is not interested in exploring "deviant" sexuality in the "Fräulein", (like A Foreign Affair was) but more concerned about competing masculinities, which are unequivocally coded nationally. German sincerity, depth and single-mindedness in Reinhard are posed against American casualness, shallowness and arrogance. The "Fräulein" played by the singer Margot Hielscher serves as a strainer to syphon out the good from the bad. She plays with temptation in order to better be able to master it. Tom Keller offers her an escape from drudgery to America, Reinhard has nothing to offer but his love in a destroyed country. In the two men sex and adventure stand against love and stability. The sexuality of the "Fräulein" is carefully coded: seductive glamour-lighting combines with prim attire, her lust for life is checked by an upright, nationalistic morality. If Marlene's star appearance was saturated with sensuality and sexuality, Margot Hielschers appearance is testimony to a filmic determination to nobilize her by de-sexualizing her. In the process of having to decide which man to take the film establishes the prospective "Fräulein" as a proper German woman. In her role as Erika von
Schlütow, Marlene fits the stereotype of the "Fräulein" as it
persists to this day: she pursues a calculating form of "Notprostitution",
in order to secure a certain standard of living which the majority of the
population was not able to enjoy. She hides her former Nazi ties, and is
Marlene Dietrich is a German actress, who came to Hollywood as an already established star. In the 40s she engages in USO (United Service Organization) troop entertainment, for which in 1947 she is awarded the "Medal of Freedom for entertaining American troops and working against Nazi Germany". These national patriotic activities in support of America's war against Hitler Germany free her role for the impersonation of a Nazi lover. Marlene Dietrich as an extremely glamorous star, was known for her many love affairs. This infuses her role in a way which attributes her immoral behavior to the star rather than to the figure. The star image in turn works as a protective shield for the immorality of the figure. It was thus a clever move to cast her in the role of a down and out, coldly calculating, sexually manipulating German woman, who has no principles, but to get the better out of any American occupation soldier who might cross her path and fall prey to her charms. A complex cluster of facts in her star biography create a productive tension between the stereotype of a "Fräulein" and its correction. Thus her narrative, diegetic immorality is countered by her off-screen morality. This means, that on the one hand the glamour of Dietrich nobilizes the figure of the "Fräulein", on the other hand it "de-realizes" it. Margot Hielscher, on the other hand, in the role of Maria Neuhaus, is neither immoral nor a star. The film is quite clearly not about the "Fräulein" in her, but about positions to take vis-a-vis nationally defined forms of masculinity. Hallo, Fräulein! turns its "Fräulein" into an ideal stand-in for the audience in her programmatic reaction to the two men. By robbing her of her sexuality the "Fräulein" is reclaimed as a national figure. Through her the film teaches all women in the audience a lesson. It is interesting to note that in both films the women are cast as performers. This filmic symbolization of the "Fräulein" as a "public" figure serves a defensive strategy. It contains the high visibility of the "Fräuleins" and turns the public appearance of their transgressive sexual behavior into a "musical performance". In this way the films manage to constrain and control the Fräulein's alarming social and cultural expressions by sublimating and transforming them into agreeable on-screen spectacles.[16] By talking closer looks at
Marlene Dietrich in the role of the German "Fräulein" Erika von Schlütow,
and at Margot Hielscher in the role of the "Fräulein" Maria Neuhaus
(a very telling name) it has become obvious, that no real "Fräulein"
in the audience would have been able to identify with any one of them,
or find traces of her own life represented in theirs. The life of these
on-screen "Fräuleins" is either "de-realized" by glamour or denied
by narrative. It might be interesting to add, though, that Billy Wilder's
A Foreign Affair did not have a German release until almost 30 years later.
And even then, in 1977 it did not premiere in the cinema, but on television.[17]
This seems to indicate that structural censorship - the star image as protective
shield - would for a long time not provide enough protection for a shattered
German self-esteem, to which the "Fräulein's" in real life added to
such an extent, that seeing them "larger than life" would probably have
created a riot.[18]
1 By
group I am not referring to a pre-existing classification, but to my grouping
together of films previously not seen together under this perspective.
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