Despite the potential of cinema to provide insights into the cultural and social history of National Socialism, historians have largely ignored this rich source of contemporary history. This is where the research project "Screening National Socialism: Ideology and Everyday Life in German Cinema 1933-1945" (SCREENS) comes in. It is funded by the Leibniz Association as part of the "Leibniz Cooperative Excellence" programme. The project began its work in spring 2025 under the direction of the IfZ (project leader: Johannes Hürter) and in partnership with the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe in Leipzig (GWZO). The project is an international and interdisciplinary cooperation with numerous other partners from the fields of history, film studies, and linguistics. Of central importance to the project is the privileged cooperation that the IfZ has agreed with the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (FWMS) (see: Research project on Nazi "reservation films" launched). The FWMS supports the SCREENS project with its extensive collection of Nazi films and documents. Other important institutional partners include the Federal Archive, the Deutsches Filminstitut Filmmuseum (DFF, “German Film Institute & Film Museum”), the Deutsche Kinamethek (“German Cinematheque”) and the Leibniz-Institut für deutsche Sprache (IDS, “Leibniz Institute for the German Language”). With its diverse collaborators and research interests, the project aims to create an integrative film history of National Socialism in which feature films are analysed as seismographs of the politics, society and culture of the Nazi dictatorship and thus made accessible for contemporary history research.

Three dissertations on childhood and family concepts in Nazi cinema, on the portrayal of "feelings" and privacy in the melodrama genre and on religion and faith in Nazi feature films will be written at the IfZ's Munich research department. In addition, the IfZ is working on a study of the so-called "reservation films" (retained films). Another dissertation project on cinema in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is being carried out at the GZWO. In addition to these larger projects, further research contributions are planned at the IfZ by Bernhard Gotto, Ingo Loose and Yuliya von Saal.

Old and new faith. Religion in Nazi feature films. (Researcher: Maylin Amann) This doctoral project turns to the question of the values and norms that were conveyed and reflected in Nazi cinema on the topic of faith in National Socialism. Numerous feature films of the Nazi era made use of religious themes and sacred motifs with very different, partly political-ideological, partly Christian-moral interpretations. In their contradictions and intersections, they can be deciphered as exemplary for the relationship between faith and National Socialism.

NS feature films on the index. The Murnau Foundation's retained films and the films banned during the Nazi dictatorship. (Author: Johannes Hürter) In contrast to the other sub-projects, this project will focus on propaganda films. The research sample consists of the 44 feature films which, according to the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation, may only be shown under academic supervision and offer a representative cross-section of the politically charged feature films of the Nazi dictatorship. In addition to the most notorious Nazi feature film "Jud Süß" (1941) and a handful of other well-known films, the list includes films that have been largely ignored until now. What are they about, who was involved in their production and how were they received, both before and after 1945? How should the films on the retained list be dealt with in future? In contrast to this "poison cabinet" of Nazi film, the films that were banned by the Nazi censors between 1933 and 1945 will also be examined. There, the question is what Nazi film policy found disturbing about these films and what this conveys about National Socialism.

Sub-project at the GWZO:

Germanisation with the help of cinema? Feature films in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia 1939-1945. (Researcher: Pascal Klassert) The doctoral project will use methods and questions from history and film studies to provide an overview of the films shown in the occupied Czech territories and examine their themes and protagonists. Furthermore, the film policy, the film industry and film consumption in the Protectorate as well as the reception in all parts of the fragmented occupation society will be examined.