ABSTRACT
Front Theatre was promoted by director Arthur Maria Rebenalt with the full adventurous life of our front theatre troops shall receive a truthful portrayal in our film. Those who play front theatre actors in Front Theatre feel impelled to authenticate the fiction by playing theatre for their soldier-extras. Front Theatre uses a radio Ringsendung, a series of linked external broadcasts from different places in Europe, for is climax, unfolding the panorama of a continent under the German flag, as does the film as a whole with its plot segments set in different countries. Front Theatre does not reveal the media construction of reality as openly as Request Concert or The Great Love, but it contains scenes that underscore the filmic staging of war. This chapter discusses relationship between the fantasy world of musical films and the reality of war. It was relevant not just for these films, but for film production in Nazi Germany in general.
