ABSTRACT
Marlene Dietrich enjoyed popularity not only in the United States during the Classical Hollywood period but also in her native Germany during the Nazi era. Everything about her seemed anathema to the Nazi ideal of womanhood and femininity. Yet, Hitler still privately viewed her films, which were banned in Germany, and Joseph Goebbels still courted her to work under his Nazi studio system. This chapter seeks to answer the question of why Nazis found Dietrich appealing. Particular consideration will be given to German soldiers, specifically militia men known as the Weimar Republic freikorpsmen and their subsequent Nazi Sturmabteilung (or SA) and Schutzstaffel (or SS), to understand how intense male homosocial relationships influenced their attitudes toward women. It will be argued that for these soldiers, women fit within two roles for the purposes of male bonding, the “white nurse” and the “red nurse”. It will also be suggested that Marlene Dietrich, with her provocative celebrity represented the “red nurse”. This “red nurse” figuration was the unknowable other for soldierly men, much more desirable than the matronly woman promoted in Nazi propaganda. Subsequently, Marlene Dietrich's “red nurse” personification would enable homosocial bonding while mitigating the presence of homosexuality.
