Kleist in the Third Reich: Ucicky's The Broken Jug (1937)

Directed by Gustav Ucicky with the artistic collaboration of Emil Jannings, the 1937 film adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist's comedy The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochene Krug) was hailed by contemporary critics as a masterful entertainment, remarkably distinctive for the strength of the acting ensemble and the unusual camera work. ¹ Recent critics too have commented positively on the “faithful” transposition of this literary text into the film version. ² Moreover, this film is frequently chosen for classroom use as an “illustration” of Kleist's classic comedy and/or as a film classic in its own right. ³ My guiding hypothesis is that National Socialist ideology permeated all artistic production within the Third Reich. Furthermore, there is no such thing as an ideologically free reading of a text. This raises the question, then, whether the Ucicky/Jannings adaptation is simply a successful reshaping of a popular dramatic text into the filmic medium, or whether precisely this kind of highly artistic production demonstrates that fascist ideology — even more so a fascist film aesthetic — had much to gain in the marriage of propaganda to art.