An Uneasy Propaganda Alliance | History Today

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An Uneasy Propaganda Alliance | History Today

It was supposed to be a prestige project for Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a way to convince their people – and the world at large – that the newly signed Anti-Comintern Pact was more than empty words. To prove that both countries were indeed Brüdervölker (brother nations), a ******* and a Japanese filmmaker would together create a film showing how the two nations aligned politically and culturally. So, in 1936, a ******* crew landed in Yokohama ready to make cinema history.

The film would be called Die Tochter des Samurai (‘The Daughter of the Samurai’) and would feature a love triangle between a Japanese man, Teruo (the popular actor Kosugi Isamu), his fiancée Mitsuko (Hara Setsuko, who would go on to become Japan’s most celebrated film star), and his ******* lover Gerda (Ruth Eweler). The plot was simple: Teruo returns to Japan after being educated in Germany, his head filled with modern ideas – and Gerda. In Japan he must reconnect with his Volk (people), roots, and sense of duty, reject Gerda, and find his way back to Mitsuko. It ends with Teruo and Mitsuko married with a young child as settlers farming in Manchuria, China, while a Japanese soldier watches over them.

Germany sent the filmmaker Arnold Fanck (1889-1974) to Japan at the request of the influential producers Kawakita Nagamasa and Kawakita Kashiko. They had picked Fanck because of his mountain and sports films, which celebrated proto-fascist ideology by focussing on grandiose nature shots and heroic exploits. His Japanese counterpart was Itami Mansaku (1900-46), who, in contrast, was a satirical, left-wing filmmaker with a penchant for carefully crafted psychological portraits and subversive critiques of authority. Fanck chose Mansaku based on his work in ******* films, likely unaware of his politics. Itami rejected the offer to work with him three times before agreeing, possibly under studio pressure or tempted by the chance to work on an international film. The two men proved to be profoundly mismatched, and their arguments came to a head when Itami eventually refused to show up on set. Instead of abandoning the project, however, the filmmakers split and created two films, using the same sets, actors, and similar plotlines: The Daughter of the Samurai, shot by Fanck, and The New Earth by Itami were both released in 1937.

These films reveal the clash between Nazi Germany’s depiction of Japan and Japan’s struggle to assert its self-image. Fanck was keen to introduce what he saw as ‘traditional Japanese culture’ to his ******* audience by including a medley of Japanese activities and stereotypes, such as countless shots of Mount Fuji, cherry blossom, women in kimono, a sumō match, and ikebana flower arranging. He also almost entirely avoided city scenes, instead focussing on long, aesthetically pleasing shots of nature. Often presented without context or plot relevance, they idealised Japan as a pre-modern, almost magical place, avoiding its modern military and economic power. Itami, in contrast, depicted factory workers and farmers and shots of Yokohama and Tokyo, presenting Japan as a modern, industrialised state. He also purged any mention of Germany from his film, making Gerda American and replacing the Swastika flag that Fanck used liberally with various international flags, possibly to create additional distance from Fanck’s project, or to appeal to an international audience.

http://www.historytoday.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Daughter%20of%20the%20Samurai%20Propaganda%20History%20Today.jpegPublicity for The Daughter of the Samurai (Die Tochter des Samurai), 1937. GermanFilms.net.

Yet, despite these differences, similar themes run through both films. One of them is the Volk-ohne-Raum (people without space) trope, a central theme in Nazi propaganda that claimed that, following the Treaty of Versailles, the ******* people did not have enough space to live and grow and had to expand to the East. The ideology was closely tied to the idea of bäuerliche Tugenden (peasant virtues) and the sacredness of soil, a frequent subject of Nazi propaganda films such as Schimmelreiter (1934), Ein Volksfeind (1937), and Opfergang (1944).

While the Volk-ohne-Raum trope is generally understood as *******, Japanese thinkers also took it up. By the 1930s it was used to rationalise Japan’s expansion into Manchuria and beyond. Various characters throughout both films express the concern that, although Japanese soil is good, it is not enough to feed the Volk (minzoku). Teruo explains to Gerda that Manchuria has fertile soil, but nobody with the knowledge to cultivate it; Teruo’s father tells him that there is not enough space in Japan and that the Japanese soil cannot feed the people.

Though Itami pushed back against Fanck’s orientalising depictions of cherry blossoms and Geisha, he advocated for Japanese imperialism in China. Throughout The New Earth, Manchuria appears devoid of people, with its fields, building sites, modern cities, and streets completely deserted – entirely suitable for Japanese resettlement.

In the version of Fanck’s film that circulated in Germany, all references to Manchuria were cut following a complaint by the ******** ambassador in Berlin. The scenes depicting Manchuria remained, but the film no longer mentioned a specific locale as, by 1937, Nazi Germany had not decided whether Japan or China would be the more desirable ally.

The Axis nations showed almost absolute faith in the power of film, exemplified by the many propaganda films they produced. For a joint Japanese-******* propaganda film to work, however, it must be made first. By showing their inability to cooperate, Fanck and Itami unwittingly mirrored the alliance between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and demonstrated the impossibility of creating a transnational fascist culture. Despite many claims to the contrary from both sides, Japan and Germany’s political partnership was little more than hollow lip service. Each side added secret amendments to their treaties and forged clandestine alliances, such as Japan’s secret security protocol in the 1936 Comintern Pact and Germany’s Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviets in 1939. However, although the two nations were unwilling to collaborate meaningfully, even on something as relatively straightforward as a joint film, they were happy to use the same doctrine and means to carve up the world between them. Ultimately, the ideologies underpinning The Daughter of the Samurai and The New Earth – an aggressive push for expansion, racial superiority, and unrestrained militarism – ensured both nations’ destruction.

 

Christin Bohnke has a PhD in cultural history from the University of Toronto with a focus on *******-Japanese imperialism.

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