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

by Wieland, Karin

  One year after the United States entered the war, Dietrich acted in a propaganda film. The impetus was the mobilization of the American economy for rearmament. A voiceover speaks with a triumphant undertone about the weapons from the arsenal of democracy that will engulf the totalitarian tyranny. The movie features two men and one woman. Dietrich plays Josie, a coal miner’s daughter of Polish ancestry who wants to escape her father’s world, which centers on filth, sweat, hunger, and strikes. Pittsburgh is interspersed with documentary shots of the German invasion of Poland. Josie finds her soulmate in a miner named Pittsburgh Markham, who eventually strikes it rich and casts her aside. Josie commits herself to Pittsburgh’s friend Cash Evans, who has loved her for a long time. Pittsburgh loses everything, and it takes his working in Cash’s steel mill to make him a good American again. The patriotic mission of the war brings the three friends together. Josie turns to her quarreling friends and exclaims, “This is no time to think about personal feelings and personal grievances. There is a greater, far more important emotion. The only emotion that should guide each and every one of us today: devotion to our country!” In Pittsburgh, Dietrich is the good, patriotic comrade-in-arms along with the men. The film was intended to demonstrate to Americans the need for civilian commitment for a just war. American moviegoers and critics did not seem to care for Dietrich in the role of upstanding patriot. Pittsburgh was not well received.

  By contrast, Dietrich’s dedication to the soldiers was greatly admired. She visited wounded men in military hospitals, handed out photographs of herself, and paid for lampshades to protect the eyes of the wounded. She made radio broadcasts of texts that the Office of War had put together for her. The American military officers were pleased with the results: “The impact of your appearances on the air has already shown tremendous results and bond sales are mounting steadily day by day. I wish I could tell you how gratifying it is to work with people whose keen interest and honest patriotism makes it possible to do the kind of job that you did.”18 Her former lover, Remarque, found these activities sickening. He despised the Nazis, but he preferred bellyaching and drinking to taking political action.

  Gabin, who knew that he would have to remain in the United States if the Germans won the war, reacted the opposite way. He reported to the representative of the Free French Forces in New York and enlisted to fight on the side of de Gaulle for the duration of the war. In January 1944, he was ordered to embark from Norfolk, Virginia, where there was a key marine base. He had been appointed tank commander in the 2nd Free French Armored Division. Dietrich accompanied her lover to Norfolk. Like thousands of other couples, they spent their final evening together having dinner and going to the movies. His ship sailed at 2 a.m. Gabin went off to fight for his beloved France and left Dietrich behind. His homesickness for France won out over his love for Dietrich. She had no idea if they would ever see each other again.

  But Dietrich took control of her destiny. She reported to the American army and waited for her induction order from the United Service Organizations (USO), a civilian group that provided live entertainment for the U.S. troops. Once Gabin had left America, she could go as well. Before following her lover off to war, she costarred in Kismet to earn some money. Kismet was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie, and her director was William Dieterle. She had costarred in his first film, Man by the Roadside, in 1923, and had had her legs lacquered in gold for the role of Jamilla, queen of the harem. Now she would be closing the studio door. Without a word of farewell, she was leaving thirteen years of her life behind her. It almost seems as though she was glad to escape the dream factory.

  On June 29, she received a telegram in her New York hotel from Abe Lastfogel: DEAR MARLENE YOUR TELEGRAM WAS REALLY A TONIC THAT MAKES UP FOR ALL OF DISAPPOINTMENTS WE RECEIVE HERE IN OUR WORK FROM DAY TO DAY.19 Lastfogel was the director of the USO. He expressed his delight at her generous offer to entertain the troops and hoped that Danny—the comedian Danny Thomas—would have time to serve as master of ceremonies for Dietrich. Day after day she headed to One Park Avenue, where Lastfogel evaluated shows and entertainers for domestic and foreign performances. Censorship was ubiquitous. Artists had to be politically trustworthy and the shows entertaining, but they had to stay on the level of good, clean fun. Dietrich had to swear that only the material that had been approved by the censors would be performed, and any deviation from the script would be reported.

  The time for expecting to be treated like a film star was over. Both personally and professionally, she was serving the United States of America. From now on, different rules from those in Hollywood applied. In the smoke-filled waiting room at One Park Avenue in New York, she would think of her mother on Kaiserallee in Berlin, who had insisted on maintaining wartime rules. As a child, she had regarded these rules as protective, a precious constant in a world that had come apart at the seams. She felt much the same way now that she was past the age of forty: “What a pleasant feeling it is to wait for orders.”20

  Dietrich had stored away her personal possessions in two places: on Landsberger Strasse in Berlin, where she kept whatever was left of her family life with Rudi and Maria, and in Los Angeles at a Bekins storage facility, where she had rented three units to preserve her memorabilia as a Hollywood movie star. Nothing was keeping her in the United States, and she was ready to leave. Of course she was thinking of the future, fully aware that she was venturing into unknown territory. It was one thing to perform in revues when you were in your mid-twenties, but quite another to stand onstage in front of thousands of men in your early forties. Danny Thomas taught her the tricks of the trade that a solo artist needs to survive.

  Before she left, Dietrich was given a uniform and a military rank of captain.21 She tried on her tailor-made USO uniform at Saks Fifth Avenue; she put on boots and applied red fingernail polish. Instead of the usual innumerable wardrobe trunks and hat boxes, she was traveling light this time, since she was allowed to take no more than fifty-five pounds. She complied with this order without a word of complaint, but made sure to include sequined evening gowns, crisply pressed uniforms, and her musical saw. On April 5, she and the musicians, comedians, and other performers in her show flew to Algiers by way of Greenland, the Azores, and Casablanca. Before departing from New York, the two women and three men in uniform in this troupe were photographed gazing cheerfully into the camera. Dietrich did not stand out from the rest; she was simply part of the team.

  Typically the artists did not learn where they were headed until they were already on board, but Dietrich must have known her destination in advance, because Gabin was waiting for her in North Africa. In March he had sent her several telegrams to say that he would be there, and then, to his delight, she arrived. Several extant photographs convey a sense of their time in Algiers. One shows Gabin—quite elegant in his dark blue naval uniform with gold buttons—with his arm proudly around Dietrich; he seems to be telling the camera that no one has a lover like his. She is also in uniform, her forage cap perched jauntily on her blond curls. Both seem happy and relaxed, and it is hard to bear in mind they are not on vacation, but in a war. The other photographs confirm this insouciant impression. In one, they are strolling arm in arm under palm trees; in the downtown area of Algiers, she is sitting on a small wall wearing men’s shoes and slacks and has rolled up her shirt sleeves. She is wearing no jewelry apart from a few gold bangles.

  Dietrich had come only because of Gabin, but once she was there, she was there for everyone. She gave her first concert for GIs at the opera house in Algiers, looking like a vision in her tight sequined dress. They could not believe that this beautiful woman had turned her back on Hollywood and luxury to be with them. From the very first moment, Dietrich made them feel that they were her greatest audience ever. She kicked up her famous legs, played her musical saw, indulged in self-irony, and sang. “The Boys in the Backroom,” “You Do Something to Me,” “Taking a Chance on Love,” “Annie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” and “You Go to My Head” would become
her standard repertoire. They are sad yet witty songs, easy to sing or hum along to.

  In spite of the story the pictures tell, things were not going well for Gabin and Dietrich. The letters he wrote to her over the coming weeks and months tell of his despairing wait for news. He launched into descriptions not of the war, but of his great love for Dietrich. His declarations of love were composed on sheets of translucent, yellowed stationery without letterhead. In the upper margin he made careful note of the date and time, then recorded his thoughts about his love and doubts in dark ink. He complained bitterly that she was withholding something from him. He found it harder and harder to believe that she loved him. Feeling that he was not being taken seriously, he turned to Sieber for help, but the latter was unable to intercede on his behalf. Gabin’s letters to Dietrich went to her USO address in New York and were forwarded to her, so he had no idea where she was at any given time or whether his messages were getting through to her at all. When he met American soldiers, he would ask how she was faring. It was a mystery to him why she would put him in a spot like this. Like all her other lovers, he could not accept the fact that she no longer loved him. On May 17, his fortieth birthday, he was feeling melancholy; this was the third birthday he had had since he was together with her, but the first that he spent alone.

  Dietrich flew from Algiers to Italy. On the night of July 9, 1943, the Allies had landed in Sicily, and Mussolini was overthrown in Rome on July 25. In Northern Italy the Germans established a puppet state, the Republic of Salò, under Mussolini’s leadership. Dietrich and her troupe followed the Allied advance, and she emerged from her airplane in Bari wearing sunglasses and a warm jacket. There are pictures of her performance in the theater there. Everything looks improvised and almost shabby. Standing in front of a ragged curtain on the simple stage in her evening gown, she must have summoned up colossal energy to cope with these conditions. There were no props or lighting controls; everything had to come from within her. After the performance, she was invited to the officers’ club. A laughing Dietrich, clad in a simple dress, was gliding across the dance floor with a high-ranking military officer. Although she was under a good deal of stress, she must have welcomed the admiration and love she found here. She often performed on a stage that had been specially constructed for her, or outdoors beside an army truck. Sometimes as many as twenty thousand GIs came to see her perform. When she was onstage, she saw masses of soldiers sitting on their helmets and waiting for her to speak to them. These men—all in uniform—only had eyes for the woman with the bare shoulders and the high-heeled shoes. Sometimes the soldiers were able to scrounge up some roses to decorate Dietrich’s tent. When she moved on, she would make sure to take the flowers with her.

  The war gave Dietrich a new mobility. No longer tied to studio work, she went from place to place with her evening gowns and uniforms in tow. The letters from her daughter, who had stayed behind in America, are surprisingly affectionate. Maria was unnerved by her mother’s long absence, and when a week went by without news, she grew alarmed and contacted her father, who had no idea of his wife’s whereabouts either. Maria tried to hearten her mother from afar, as in this excerpt from a letter she wrote her in May: “I saw your picture in Vogue in your uniform. You really look wonderful. You look like you did when you made your first pictures.”22

  However, Dietrich’s performances were no easy task. Although she had never done anything but entertain her entire life, she felt overwhelmed. She had to stand in front of thousands of soldiers who kept shouting and whistling at her. She was unaccustomed to these kinds of audiences from her studio work, and they were not always welcoming. Danny Thomas taught her how to avoid getting fazed, how to make a joke work, and how to keep the audience in line. She entertained the soldiers with a few songs, a few witty remarks, and a few skits to make them laugh and cry and offer a refreshing pause from their daily reality.

  After Bari, she continued on her way to Naples. Soldier Dietrich was helping to recapture the country from the Germans. Some houses were roofless; most were completely destroyed. There was rubble everywhere, and children played in the ruins. Wherever the Germans went, they left behind death and destruction.

  On the Italian front, a total of twenty ethnic groups and nationalities were fighting the Germans. Dietrich occupied a unique position among them because she was a German fighting against the Germans. In Capua she sat in the courtyard of a castle, her sequined dress sparkling in the sunshine, surrounded by jolly GIs. Despite the adverse conditions, she managed to look glamorous. Her hair was beautifully coiffed, her makeup was impeccable, her nails were polished, and her clothes were a perfect fit. She and Irene, her fashion designer, had decided to go with sequined dresses because they did not need to be reironed before each performance. In Caserta she stood at the microphone with the soldiers at her feet. She scribbled on the back of a photograph, “No love, no nothing. . . . Sinatra never had an audience like that.” Each of these men wanted to attract her attention. They figured that if Dietrich was there, things could not be too bad; if the situation were truly dangerous, she would not be authorized to come to them. She was well aware of their thinking. Of course she was afraid, but she could not show any signs of fear.

  Since January 1944, the Allies had been fighting for access to Rome. In May they finally achieved the crucial breakthrough. The conquest of Rome went according to plan once the Anzio beachhead was established. Dietrich was on the scene in the decisive days. She was the first Allied entertainer in Anzio. Then, on June 6, when news arrived about the success of the Allies in Normandy, Dietrich had the honor of announcing it onstage. She shed tears of joy when sharing the news about the crucial blow to Germany. The soldiers were jubilant. Everyone knew that the end of Hitler had come. Just a few days later, the Americans entered Rome with a long parade of cars. The soldiers threw around chocolate and cigarettes, and proudly shouted, “We told you we’ll do it!” The capital of Italian fascism had fallen. Dietrich later reported that the Romans could not believe their eyes when they saw her sitting in a jeep. “They must have thought Americans are wonderful. We bring them freedom, bread—even movie stars.”23

  On June 17, she landed back in New York. Every newspaper of note ran a photograph of her emerging from the aircraft in an army flight suit with little luggage and many helmets, which were gifts from her soldiers. At the press conference, she was wearing army trousers, shirt, tie, boots, and a forage cap, and her fingernails were painted red. She lit her cigarettes not with matches, but with a GI lighter. Her responses were brief and matter-of-fact. She struck the journalists as serious and utterly transformed from the Dietrich they had known. She had turned military and put her femme fatale persona behind her. The diva was now a soldier. She reported about “the boys”: “They are very much alive and alert. That is why I want to go back.”24

  Dietrich had come back to put together a new troupe. Her selection was limited, because not many artists were willing to be away from home for half a year. Charles de Gaulle visited New York on July 11, and Dietrich was invited to his reception at the Waldorf Astoria. The newspapers featured pictures of her chatting with Mayor LaGuardia. She was now a political figure fighting for a liberated Europe. Hollywood seemed far away.

  When we see her looking relaxed and self-confident in the political arena, we find it hard to believe that she was having a difficult time with her lover at this time. In late June, Gabin was overjoyed to get a telegram from her and called her the love of his life. Five days later, his happiness had flipped into outright despair. He read in the newspaper that her latest romantic affair was with an air corps brigadier general she had met while on tour. Now he understood why he had heard from her so rarely. She no longer considered him important, and he wanted nothing more to do with her.

  However, Gabin could not tear himself away altogether and soon wrote her a letter in English, begging to learn the truth. He felt betrayed and lost, and asked her to write him if she wanted to renew the promise of their love; i
f she did not, however, he would resign himself to the situation, and she would never hear from him again. Dietrich laid his fears to rest, and he made the mistake of continuing to confess that he admired her “like a fool.”25 She was increasingly peeved with his admiration and jealousy, and knew all too well how wrathful, aggressive, and possessive he could be.