A ‘Triumph of the Will’? Andrew Marton's Der Dämon des Himalaya and the National Socialist Need for Heroes

Abstract

The article explores the appropriation of Andrew (Endré) Marton's 1935 feature film Der Dämon des Himalaya (Demon of the Himalayas), produced during Prof Dr Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth's Internationale Himalaya Expedition 1934, for National Socialist propaganda purposes in the context of the tragic 1934 German Nanga Parbat expedition. Specifically, it demonstrates – via a detailed analysis of the film's genesis – the degree to which National Socialist sports and cultural officials would tolerate the work of an ‘un-German’ film production team in order to communicate the exemplary image of the new ‘heroic’ German mountaineer.

Notes

1. Stadtmuseum München/Filmmuseum: ‘Berge, Licht und Traum. Arnold Fanck und der deutsche Bergfilm’ (23 November 1997–5 Februray 1998). The retrospective/exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue of the same title: Jan-Christopher Horak, ed., Berge, Licht und Traum. Dr. Arnold Fanck und der deutsche Bergfilm (München, 1997).

2. Copies of Der Dämon des Himalaya are held at the Bundesarchiv/Filmarchiv in Berlin and the Cinémathèque Suisse in Lausanne.

3. ‘So kann dieser Film als einer der besten Bergfilme bezeichnet werden, die über die Leinwand gegangen sind.’ (Rheinische Landes-Zeitung Düsseldorf, 17/18 May 1935).

4. J.A. Mangan's edited volume Shaping the superman. Fascist body as political icon – Aryan fascism (London, 1999) provides an excellent collection of essays on this subject.

5. See Rainer Amstädter, Der Alpinismus. Kultur – Organisation – Politik (Wien, 1996), p. 407.

6. Sepp Dobiasch, ‘Übersee-Expeditionen’, Der Bergsteiger. Deutsche Wochenschrift für Bergsteigen, Wandern, und Skilaufen, 7 (1927), p. 2.

7. Harald Höbusch, ‘Rescuing German Alpine tradition: Nanga Parbat and its visual afterlife’, Journal of Sport History 29(1) (Spring 2002), pp. 49–76.

8. Helmuth Zebhauser, Alpinismus im Hitlerstaat. Gedanken, Erinnerungen, Dokumente (München, 1998), p. 21.

9. Quoted in: Ralf-Peter Märtin, Nanga Parbat. Wahrheit und Wahn des Alpinismus (Berlin, 2002), p. 113.

10. For details on this issue see Märtin, Nanga Parbat, pp. 118–19.

11. Quoted in: Amstädter, Der Alpinismus, p. 409.

12. The impact of the news of the expedition's failure can be measured by the immense coverage afforded it in German and Austrian newspapers. The collection of newspaper clippings held at the archive of the German Alpine Club in Munich documents regular coverage of the expedition in at least 314 German and Austrian newspapers. After initial reports of the disaster were confirmed, the tone of the coverage was one of shock and mourning. As the Völkischer Beobachter wrote on 26 July 1934: ‘The terrible suspicion, which we have been harboring over the last few days, has become sad reality. Today, after having already reported the deaths of Welzenbach and Wieland, German radio has confirmed Merkl's horrible end in the icy grip of the mountain giant Nanga Parbat.’ (Quoted in: Märtin, Nanga Parbat, p. 165.) The German 1934 Nanga Parbat expedition was the topic of several nationwide radio broadcasts during July 1934.

13. The Swiss premiere took place a few days earlier on 16 March 1935 in Zurich.

14. For details see Harald O. Dyhrenfurth, “Die höchste Frau der Welt” Synopsis für einen Spielfilm, unpublished typescript, private archive of Norman G. Dyhrenfurth.

15. On Treviranus see Lawrence Stokes, ‘Secret intelligence and anti-Nazi resistance: The mysterious exile of Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus’, The International History Review, 28 (1) (2006), pp. 42–93.

16. The ‘Night of the Long Knives’ refers to the night of 30 June 1934 during which Adolf Hitler had the leadership of the SA rounded up and killed, among them most notably Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA.

17. The company was incorporated in Chur (Switzerland) in 1923 and dissolved in 1940. It comprised (until 1930) Dr Fritz Conradin (president), Johann Leonhard Lost (vice-president), and Prof Dr Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth. Jost assumed the presidency of the company in 1930, Dyhrenfurth left it in 1938. (Typescript, private archive of Norman G. Dyhrenfurth). See also Hervé Dumont, Geschichte des Schweizer Films. Spielfilme 1896–1965 (Lausanne, 1987), pp. 161–2.

18. For details see Günter Oskar Dyhrenfurth, Dämon Himalaya. Bericht der Internationalen Karakoram-Expedition 1934 (Basel, 1935), p. 4ff. See also: Peter Mierau, Nationalsozialistische Expeditionspolitik. Deutsche Asien-Expeditionen 1933–1945 (München, 2006), p. 226.

19. For details on the completion of the film see Andrew Marton. Interviewed by Joanne D'Antonio (Metuchen, N.J. and London, 1991), p. 77 and pp. 180–81.

20. Österreichische Alpenzeitung, 1148 (1934), p. 227. Quoted in: Amstädter, Der Alpinismus, p. 411. In retrospect, the ÖAZ commentary sounds like it might have been taken straight out of an advertising campaign for Der Dämon des Himalaya.

21. Quoted in: Österreichische Alpenzeitung, 1148 (1934), p. 227. Quoted in: Amstädter, Der Alpinismus, p. 411. In retrospect, the ÖAZ commentary sounds like it might have been taken straight out of an advertising campaign for Der Dämon des Himalaya., p. 412.

22. Fritz Bechtold, Deutsche am Nanga Parbat. Der Angriff 1934 (München, 1935)

23. Fritz Bechtold, Deutsche am Nanga Parbat. Der Angriff 1934 (München, 1935), p. 6.

24. Fritz Bechtold, ‘Nanga Parbat 1934. Bericht über die deutsche Himalajakundfahrt’, Zeitschrift des Deutschen und Österreichischen Alpenvereins, 66 (1935), pp. 1–14.

25. Fritz Bechtold, ‘Der Kampf um den Nanga Parbat’, in Richard Finsterwalder, Walter Raechl, Peter Misch, and Fritz Bechtold, Forschung am Nanga Parbat. Deutsche Himalaya-Expedition 1934 (Hannover, 1935), pp. 127–43.

26. Bechtold, Deutsche am Nanga Parbat, p. 63.

27. For a detailed discussion regarding the relationship between National Socialist propaganda efforts and film see David Welch, Propaganda and the German cinema 1933–45 (New York and London, 2001). Welch also provides a useful overview of National Socialist propaganda efforts in: David Welch, The Third Reich. Politics and propaganda (London, 2002). For a very informative discussion of the relationship of National Socialist propaganda efforts and the phenomenon of death see Jay W. Baird, To die for Germany. Heroes in the Nazi pantheon (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1990).

28. Andrew Marton would recall in a 1991 interview with Joanne D'Antonio that Der Dämon des Himalaya was released in Germany ‘while the news story of the mountaineers who died up there [Nanga Parbat] was still hot’. Andrew Marton, p. 180.

29. For a detailed discussion of these German ‘virtues’ and their origins, especially in the context of the National Socialist theory of sport see Hajo Bernett, Nationalsozialistische Leibeserziehung. Eine Dokumentation ihrer Theorie und Organisation (Schorndorf bei Stuttgart, 1966); Gernot Friese, Anspruch und Wirklichkeit des Sports im Nationalsozialismus (Ahrensburg bei Hamburg, 1974); Winfried Joch, Politische Leibeserziehung und ihre Theorie im Nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Voraussetzungen – Begründungszusammenhang – Dokumentation (Frankfurt/M., 1976).

30. Deutsche Zeitung Berlin, 12 August 1934.

31. Berliner Volkszeitung, 21 March 1935.

32. Steglitzer Anzeiger, 21 March 1935.

33. Quoted in: Erwin Leiser, Nazi cinema (New York, 1974), p. 137.

34. The archive of the German Alpine Club in Munich has been able to restore the film documentary of the 1934 Nanga Parbat expedition. Viewing copies on DVD are available upon request.

35. Amstädter, Der Alpinismus, pp. 17–18.

36. Amstädter, Der Alpinismus, p. 390.

37. Baird, To die for Germany, p. xi.

38. Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 March 1935.

39. The entry on Der Dämon des Himalaya in the Geschichte des Schweizer Films characterizes the reception of the film in Germany as follows: ‘… wohlwollende Kritiken, Bewunderung vor allem für die Leistung, einen Spielfilm auf dieser Höhe herzustellen (Prädikat “wertvoll”). Daneben aber auch Vorbehalte zum spürbaren Bruch zwischen Dokument und an den Haaren herbeigezogener Spielhandlung.’ Dumont, Geschichte des Schweizer Films, p. 163.

40. Alpine Journal, 47 (May 1935), pp. 155–6. The letter by Albert Buckel, leader of the German Mountain Rescue, is undated. However, it was definitely written between 18 February and 26 March 1936. (Central Archive of the German Alpine Club, Documents of the German Himalaya Foundation)

41. Dyhrenfurth, Dämon Himalaya, p. 84.

42. Norman G. Dyhrenfurth (Salzburg, Austria) kindly provided me with a copy of his father's typescript of this ‘Film-Idee’.

43. Dyhrenfurth, Dämon Himalaya, pp. 84–6.

44. Dyhrenfurth, Dämon Himalaya, p. 1.

45. Dyhrenfurth, Dämon Himalaya, p. 2.

46. Dyhrenfurth, ‘Film-Idee’, p. 5.

47. Dyhrenfurth, Dämon Himalaya, p. 86.

48. Andrew Marton, p. 77.

49. Andrew Marton, p. 78.

50. Andrew Marton, p. 191.

51. Marton describes the interest of the National Socialist sports and cultural leadership in Der Dämon des Himalaya as follows: ‘Back in the thirties, the only reason the Nazis had put up with us was that, at the same time, the Germans had had another expedition in the Himalayas on which they lost eleven [sic] men. They worried about how the country must look – how could such a thing happen that Germans could be defeated? There was suddenly a tremendous interest in our film regardless of Dyhrenfurth. We had to rush it to completion just to show it in a special projection for Mr. Adolf Hitler.’ Andrew Marton, p. 179.