ABSTRACT
Wim Wenders' words - said as much in sorrow as in anger in a review essay from 1977 - point to one of the reasons why the fIlms made between 1933 and 1945 weigh heavily on the idea of a national cinema: the movies are tainted goods.2 Yet, from the vantage point of post-unification Germany since the 1990s, another reason Nazi cinema has remained a source of controversy is a fact whose implications are not always fully appreciated. In their day, these fIlms were very popular indeed, with top productions reaching between 18 and 28 million spectators (up to 40 per cent of the adult population). For instance, more than 26 million Germans saw Wunschkonzert/ Radio Requests in 1940, and 27 million went to hear Zarah Leander sing in Die GrqfJe Liebe (Great Love) (1942).3 By then, of course, choice had shrunk to German fIlms, and war-time conditions favoured cinema-going as the main entertainment venue.
