Traumulus

Traumulus (1905) by Arno Holz and Oskar Jerschke is considered one of the most successful plays put on stage at German speaking theatres in the first half of the twentieth century. As with many other plays and even novels of that time, it is about school children committing suicide and – on a deeper level – criticizes the teaching staff, the school system and society in general. This criticism of Imperial Germany was taken up by the Nazi rulers, who used it to achieve their all-encompassing goal: the building of a new Reich. The entire establishment of the film industry, including the film producer and director Carl Froelich as well as the actor Emil Jannings, participated in the production of the film of the same title in 1936. In the same year, the film was appraised as of high political and artistic value. Froelich was soon after awarded the National Film Prize and Jannings declared National Actor. The audience not only consisted of adults, but also of adolescents from 14 years onwards because the film was shown during the Jugendfilmstunden (Youth Film Hours) organized by the Hitler Youth on the grounds that it was of educational value. Nonetheless, the euphoric reception of the film was not only based on its Stoff but also on its filming techniques and its aesthetics. Apart from the final sequence, the film is – though not openly – used for propaganda purposes and is thus political. The media network emerged with the intensive news coverage from the film set in autumn 1935. It lasted until 1942, as it was until then that the film was shown and the play staged.