“Donnerwetter, das ist famos”

This article focuses on the depiction, representation, and construction of female characters in the media of the 1930s. Sofie Schieker-Ebe’s youth novel Was tun, Sibylle? (What to do, Sibyl?)is used as a reference in order to relate the image of the girl it conveys to contemporary depictions of female protagonists that gained a footing in the literary and cultural research of New Objectivity with the term New Woman (cf. Becker 1993; Karrenbrock 2003; Drescher 2003) and New Girl (cf. Tost 2003). The second part of this paper will explore the film adaptation of the novel with a particular focus, not on the changes made to accommodate the transition into another medium, but rather on those that potentially reveal shifts in the presentation and evaluation of gender constructions. This exploration will not only focus on the discourse surrounding gender constructions and the revanchist depiction of women by the Nazis, it will also examine to what extent other elements of National Socialist ideology are present in film adaptations of literature. Specifically, the contribution investigates which tendencies of children’s and youth literature published during the reign of the National Socialists can be made visible and whether characteristics of a “reactionary modernism” (Nassen 1987, 10; cf. Herrmann/Nassen 1993) can be identified in this medium. To accomplish this, Harro Segeberger’s thoughts on media theory from his exploration of the National Socialist film Strategien der medialen Mobilmachung are applied; an approach that places the medialisation of ideology as opposed to the ideologisation of media at the forefront (cf. Segeberg 2004, 11).