SOURCE: Schulte-Sasse, Linda. “A Nazi Herstory: The Paradox of Female ‘Genius’ in Pabst's Neuberin Film Komödianten (1941).” New German Critique 50 (spring 1990): 57-84.

In the following essay, Schulte-Sasse examines the unique place of Komödianten as a movie featuring a woman in the genre of Nazi “genius” films.

Ob Männer oder Frauen, ist ganz wurscht: Eingesetzt muß alles werden 

—Hitler, March 1945

G. W. Pabst's film biography of Caroline Neuber, Komödianten (1941), follows in most respects the paradigm of the “genius” films that pervaded Nazi cinema in the early forties. These films extol artists like Schiller, Mozart, Andreas Schlüter, or Rembrandt, scientists, inventors, and politicians as rebels combatting an ossified world. Consistent with this master narrative, Komödianten celebrates Caroline Neuber's efforts to free the German theater from the buffoon tradition of Hanswurst and to institutionalize theater as a serious medium. In this film as well the artist...