Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives

by Wieland, Karin

  The daily pressures eased up when her parents were expecting guests. The big living room cabinets were opened up, and out came the spotless white porcelain dinnerware, the tightly woven linen tablecloths, green glassware, filigreed champagne glasses, and squat port wine goblets. The festive sight of the beautifully set table lifted Dietrich’s spirits. Shortly before the guests arrived, she would lie in her bed with her heart pounding, picturing the guests entering the house through the hall with the chandelier, telephone, and potted palm, and her mother playing a quiet Chopin waltz, “her fingernails touching on the keys with a delicate little click.” The piano music “belonged to a house full of flowers, my mother’s perfume, her evening gown, her beautiful hairdo, the smell of my father’s cigarette coming through the open door of the library where he strode back and forth on the thick rug and listened to my mother playing the piano. Everything was ready for the guests.”29

  The wife was the representative of beauty; a family’s social success could be gauged by her appearance and her involvement in the arts. The husband was proud of his cultivated wife, and everyone envied him. That was the ideal for a family at the end of the nineteenth century, and Dietrich continued to cling to this ideal well into her old age. The family in which she grew up largely ignored the sweeping changes in twentieth-century society. Dietrich was raised for a world that was coming apart. This world was embodied by the only true lady in the family: her grandmother. Elisabeth Felsing, who was born in Dresden in 1855, was the third wife of Albert Felsing, a merchant. After he died in 1901, she carried on the business for several years before handing it over to her son Willibald. Her granddaughter considered her the most beautiful woman in the world.

  Elisabeth Felsing brought glamour and sparkle into Dietrich’s life. Her grandmother gave her cake, chocolate, and other delicacies and regaled her with stories about her childhood. She and her husband had enjoyed going to the Kaiserhof, one of the first luxury hotels in Berlin, where scarred officers, Jewish bankers, Russian ladies, and rich American women had their rendezvous. She read the Paris fashion magazines and delighted in objects that her daughter Josefine considered useless. “She awakened in me the longing for beautiful things, for paintings, for Fabergé boxes, horses, carriages, for the warm, soft roseate pearls set off against the white skin of her neck and the rubies that sparkled on her hands,” her granddaughter recalled.30 She impressed upon Dietrich that a lady never loses her poise; she simply disregards anything that is not to her liking. A lady is witty and alluring in a playful, lighthearted manner.

  Dietrich also learned from her grandmother that the father and grandfather of the current Kaiser were buried in the same year. On an ice-cold day in March, Wilhelm I died at the age of ninety, and with his death, the connection to the eighteenth century was severed. Wilhelm I had met Talleyrand and entered Paris after the victory over Napoleon. His wife still had memories of Goethe and had witnessed the barricades in 1848. Her son, the new Kaiser Friedrich, had been crown prince for thirty years. When he ascended the throne, he was already at the brink of death. The days of his reign were days of his slow dying. Kaiser Friedrich left behind a son, the future Wilhelm II. Elisabeth Felsing had viewed Wilhelm II’s accession to the throne with suspicion. The young Kaiser was too brash for her liking, and she had nothing but contempt for his bigoted wife and her sanctimonious smiles. This imperial couple lacked any sense of style.

  Felsing impressed upon her granddaughter that times had changed, and it was now important for a girl to study hard in school. Unfortunately, Dietrich found school gloomy and oppressive.

  Early in the winter mornings, I would squeeze my eyes tightly and tiny tears transformed the pale street lamps into long, thin, glittering beams of light. I played this game every morning, and my tears would flow easily. I didn’t actually have to cry at all; the wind and the cold accomplished the same trick just as well. I knew all the closed shutters of the stores, all the jutting stones that I could jump over—on one leg, with my legs together or crossed—or slide on if it had snowed during the night. My feelings were just as familiar: the certainty of having lost my precious freedom, fear of the teachers and their punishments, fear of loneliness.31

  Many of the teachers were reserve officers who liked to think of their classrooms as army barracks. Dietrich was appalled by the constraints and bleakness of the school.

  As she grew up, she became increasingly alienated from her family, and at the age of eleven she came up with a new name for herself: Marlene. Back then, no one was named Marlene; she coined it herself. She evidently wanted to get away from the biblical theme (and she surmised that the only reason she was not named Maria rather than Marie was because many maids had that name). Entries in her notebooks show how much of her school time she devoted to practicing her new signature. In changing her name, she nullified the first decision her parents had made about her. Marlene Dietrich was now embarking on the life she would be plotting out for herself.

  In the first days of World War I, during the summer of 1914, the whole country was in a state of euphoria. The prominent men who volunteered for military service included the poet Richard Dehmel; the famous Reinhardt actor Alexander Moissi; and Otto Braun, the son of Lily Braun, a socialist leader in the feminist movement. Lines of young men eager to enlist formed in front of the barracks, where there were reports of wild carousing, theft, and destruction. In restaurants and cafés, bands played music to bring out the patriotic spirit. There were endless refrains of “The Watch on the Rhine” and “Hail to Thee in the Victor’s Wreath,” and schoolchildren belted out “Hold Firm in the Roaring Storm!”

  Dietrich must have had mixed feelings about the singing soldiers. Accustomed to military etiquette at an early age, she surely found it odd to see a war being celebrated like a party. In school, the students were now being ushered off to the auditorium to hear “thunderous speeches.” Young teachers were rushing into the classroom and proudly announcing that they would be following the call of the Fatherland. In no time at all, a good half of the Prussian elementary school teachers were off at war, replaced by elderly instructors who were often in poor physical health.32 The war also became part of the curriculum: The outbreak and course of the war were studied over and over again; there were lessons in “war poetry” and “war geography,” and the study of natural history featured discussions about war technology. Instructional time was devoted to knitting wristlets for the soldiers. “We sat in the classroom, dimly lit by the daylight, and knitted to warm the soldiers digging trenches far from home. They had us knit to make us feel useful, in order to fill the gaping void caused by the war.”33 The diary entries show a girl who feels as patriotic as her parents. In her memoirs, she was intent on proving her early love of France, but her diaries give no evidence of this love. As a daughter of an officer, her sympathy went to her nation, not to its enemies.

  Detlev Peukert has identified a series of generations shaped by the war; his chronological scheme places Dietrich (along with such notables as Theodor W. Adorno, Heinrich Himmler, and others born in the first years of the twentieth century) squarely in the “superfluous generation.”34 The “superfluous generation” experienced war as youngsters, and it was a fixed coordinate in their lives. Sebastian Haffner, who was born in 1907, described how the war robbed children of their youthful innocence and manipulated their understanding of history and politics. “I, a seven-year-old boy, who a short while ago hardly knew what war meant, let alone ‘ultimatum,’ ‘mobilization,’ and ‘cavalry reserve,’ soon knew, as if I had always known, the ‘hows’ and ‘whens’ and ‘wherefores’ of the war, and I even knew the ‘why.’ I knew the war was due to France’s lust for revenge, England’s commercial envy, and Russia’s barbarism, I could speak these words quite glibly.”35 Children avidly followed the headlines of special editions and got to know the map of Europe as they marked the victories and defeats.

  All at once, the reports of victory stopped pouring in, and the days of canceling school to celebr
ate these victories came to an end. Since Kaiser Wilhelm II had left Berlin at the onset of the war, his name was rarely mentioned. But in Dietrich’s home, the Kaiser was still held in high esteem, and the very idea that the Germans might lose this war was preposterous. On October 9, 1914, her uncle Willibald earned the Iron Cross; just three months later, on December 4, her uncle Otto was shot in the back of the neck.

  Death had found its way into the family. The grief of the adults plunged Dietrich even deeper into her childhood isolation. She later recalled: “Children are condemned in advance to silence and solitude. They are not allowed to say that their own fears draw them close to those who suffer at the front every day and live in fear of ambush and mutilation.”36 The children did not understand the change of mood. The enthusiasm for the war had come to an abrupt end. Suddenly, no one wanted to spend time looking at photo albums of the glorious victories in 1870 or delight in jokes about the British.

  By about 1916, there was no longer an authority to ensure that provisions reached the populace on a reliable basis. The downturn in production and the dramatic expansion of black market sales prompted by the war reduced the food supply. “Morning, noon, and night we ate turnips. Turnip marmalade, turnip cakes, turnip soup, the roots and leafy tops of turnips were cooked in a thousand different ways. . . . Nobody complained over these meager meals, the children even less than the grown-ups. At noon and in the evening there were potatoes, and in the afternoon too, if I was hungry. Potatoes, the true joy of childhood! There they lay, white, tender, and mealy.”37 Dietrich turned pale and gaunt. When she went to visit her beloved grandmother, her mother would pinch her cheeks to give them some color and make her look healthy. Josefine made sure to keep family life going at a calm and orderly pace on the surface, but even she could not shield the children from being gripped by uncertainty. Dietrich appears to have been relieved that her mother insisted on maintaining strict rules. “These rules were so inviolable that they seemed to be familiar and friendly. Lasting, unalterable, irrefutable, more protective than threatening, they were not subject to any mood or whim.”38 These rules gave structure and consistency to her life. Dietrich would invoke these “war rules” at times of crisis throughout her life.

  Whenever the doorbell rang, her mother ran to find out if there was bad news from the front. Late in the afternoon, she took her younger daughter by the hand and strode to the town hall, where the lists of the men reported missing in action were posted. Dietrich’s mother would slow down and squeeze her daughter’s hand as she approached the lists. The girl was breathless with anxiety, her heart pounding in her chest. “She would never let go of my hand, when she stopped there, only her head moving from top to bottom as she scanned the names. I would watch her and try to guess when she would take the two steps sideward and, with her head held high, tackle the next list.”39 Her mother’s eyes were seeking the name she was loath to find: Eduard von Losch. “Two more lists, hope, don’t forsake me, ‘his’ name won’t be on them; I don’t want that to happen. . . . Now the last ones. . . . Her finger follows the black letters behind the glass pane smeared by countless fingers. The pressure of her hand lets up; she bows her head; her eyes are moist, but they are shining with a relief and joy only I can see.”40

  But one day there was news that Lieutenant von Losch had been wounded. “My mother received a laissez-passer from general headquarters so that she could get to the Russian front and ‘give strength back to her husband,’ as the telegram read. My father was seriously wounded and not transportable. By the time my mother came back, he had already succumbed to his wounds. Now a widow’s cowl and veil, which hid her face, were added to her black dress.”41 Eduard von Losch had been injured outside of Kieselin in Galicia on June 20, 1916, and died of blood poisoning on July 16. His corpse was transported to Dessau and buried at the Memorial Cemetery for Fallen Soldiers. Dietrich had lost her father for the second time, and a black band was placed over her left sleeve. Her clothing had to be black or dark blue, and white cuffs and collars were the only decoration permitted.

  The winter following the death of her father, and then of her uncle Max, was the start of the second phase of the war for Berliners. It was bitterly cold, and the city was suffering from an extreme shortage of fuel along with a dire shortage of food. Josefine moved to Dessau with her two daughters, and Dietrich sought companionship on the streets of this new city, as well as a respite from her mother’s grief.

  February 4, 1917 I had a big fight with mommy. When she said if I went out with all those schoolboys, I must be boy crazy. First of all, I don’t “hang around with boys,” and, second, having a friendship with boys I know—you don’t have to fall in love just like that—is far from being boy crazy. . . . She said, “If you get boy crazy, you will be sent to boarding school.” Whew! I find that all so stupid and made up and I think “What a boring life!” Talking to a schoolboy on the skating rink makes you “boy crazy.” No, no. That’s too much for me.42

  Josefine continued to be spurned by her deceased husband’s family. On Eduard von Losch’s obituary, the name of his mother had been listed—but not that of his widow. She was too old to marry again, and besides, there was a dearth of men in wartime. Josefine felt that she had been robbed of her happiness, and all her hopes now rested on her children. Elisabeth was the dutiful daughter, and Marlene the rebel. Their mother made them wear their hair braided with a black band as a sign of mourning. One photograph from this period, which was probably taken in Josefine’s living room, shows Dietrich sitting among her relatives. The many women are seated, and the few men are standing. All are wearing high-necked dark clothing and looking solemn. Dietrich appears deeply unhappy in this cold, severe group. She recalled later in life, “I dreamed of an armistice and peace, and I also dreamed of the warm, unkempt, fragrant sweep of hair that fell into my face and on my neck.”43 Dietrich had had quite enough of bowing to her mother’s dictates; she wanted to seduce men, and the decorum befitting the family’s station in life was a matter of indifference to her.

  Josefine was in an unenviable spot, as the family was already up in arms about her younger daughter’s unseemly conduct. Eventually she and her children moved back to Berlin, but the uproar continued unabated. By 1914, Dietrich was confiding to her diary that she had no intention of going to high school; she was on the quest for glory and adventure. She spent her money on autograph cards, acted in plays at school, and pinned up her hair. And she discovered the movies.

  Josefine felt nothing but disdain for the cinema, which, she was convinced, appealed to people’s basest instincts. Doctors and psychologists fretted about the spread of the “movie plague.” They feared the power and influence of the images, that they would lead young girls astray. Nevertheless, the impact of film continued to grow. Shortly before World War I, respected theater actors began to accept movie roles, and movies were reviewed in the arts sections of newspapers.

  Dietrich adored the actress Henny Porten, whom screenwriter Willy Haas called the “most German of all German film stars.” Heavy breathing, dramatic gestures, and a quivering bosom were part of her standard melodramatic repertoire. To Josefine’s horror, her daughter devoted all of her time to thinking about Porten, who played morally upstanding women abandoned by disreputable men and ostracized by society. The young Dietrich’s role model was an actress who did not embody the spirit of the modern woman. Porten’s style was premodern, oriented to nineteenth-century emotive visual modes of expression. And the type of woman she gravitated to portraying—pure, honest, natural, and morally impeccable—could scarcely be called modern. Why was Dietrich so drawn to this paragon of virtue? It is tempting to surmise that Porten’s screen image suggested the mother figure she had always wanted: a woman of honor, like Josefine, yet soft and yielding. In the films shot during the war, Dietrich probably envisioned her own future, namely a destiny that in some way had to do with ill-fated love. Porten played women who faced difficult odds but remained pure and displayed greatness. The her
oines in Porten films have melodious names: Adelina von Gentz, Viktoria von Katzenstein-Dernburg, Ruth von Erlenkamp, and Stella von Eschen. Dietrich’s taste in the arts was fairly conventional, and she was oblivious to avant-garde movements. Henny Porten never let her down; she could be counted on to play conventional roles.

  In the final two years of the war, school was canceled more and more often. The children skipped class because they had to stand in line for food, or were simply too weak from malnutrition to attend. Schools became central collection spots for a wide range of items, from forage to gold to groceries. Homework was a thing of the past; there were no notebooks, and it was simply too cold to buckle down and work in unheated apartments. During the last few months of the war, everyone lived in fear of what lay ahead. Dietrich would harbor feelings of betrayal for the rest of her life.

  We had been told we’d have a peaceful childhood, school, holidays, and picnics, long vacations with a hammock, beach, pail, shovel and a starfish to take home. We had been promised plans, plans to be forged, carried out, realized, dreams to be dreamed and made to come true. A secure future—and it was up to us to take advantage of it. And now? No more plans, no secure future, and no knowledge that could be useful for the war.44

  Dietrich felt as though the war would never end. Film offered her a retreat from the present and a semblance of hope for the future. By the last winter of the war, everybody went on foot: the bustling countess, the giggling streetwalker, and the weary soldier. Dietrich noticed that there were barely any well-dressed women to be seen. The faces around her looked numb and grave, with puffy faces and red eyes. She was living in a world of grieving women, and she longed for pleasure and charming men. Then a soldier entered into this world in the form of her cousin Hans, who kissed her. “The iron cross on his chest got caught in my dress and pulled a thread that stretched between us while the soldier stared at me.”45 The whole house roared with his laughter and booming voice. The girl closed the window so she would not have to hear him. His hulking body, which had survived the war intact, frightened her. Dietrich portrayed the scenes with her cousin Hans as her first encounter with a man who saw her as a woman, and as an intrusion on her regulated life. What he left behind did not begin to resemble the Prussian officer’s daughter’s vision of a brave man: The whole apartment was full of ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, and a tub in the laundry room contained two field gray shirts soaking in milky water. Were these the accoutrements of a well-fortified German man?