Strange Bedfellows: The Politics of Sound in Ludwig Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht (1932) CHRISTIAN ROGOWSKI A MHERST C OLLEGE In the Reichstag elections of 31 July 1932 the National Socialists for the first time became the most powerful party in Weimar Germany. The Nazis, whose explicit aim was to destroy the Weimar Republic, had made it into the very center of German parliamentary democracy. Yet, for the time being, they had failed to achieve an absolute majority, nor were they in a position to co-opt suitable coalition partners. The resulting governmental stalemate and political chaos perpetuated the climate of intimidation and the brutal street violence that had tainted the election campaign. 1 In the words of historian James M. Diehl, «The presidential elections in March and the Reichstag elections in July turned the nation’s streets into battlefields» (287). Deeply concerned, inveterate diarist Victor Klemperer asked himself in his journals on 7 August 1932 about the implications of the near-triumph of Nazism for Jewish-born Germans like himself: «Hitler ante portas - oder wer sonst? Und was wird aus mir, dem jüdischen Professor? » (758). On 1 August 1932, the day after the elections that prompted such anxieties, filming began in Ufa’s Babelsberg studios of Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht, a lighthearted musical comedy that is largely the product of German-Jewish talent: it was directed by Ludwig Berger (born Ludwig Bamberger) and produced by Erich Pommer. Based on a script by Robert Liebmann (and Hungarian Hans/ János Székely), it features music by Werner Richard Heymann with lyrics by Robert Gilbert (born David Robert Winterfeld) and includes cameo performances by Russian-born singer Leo Monosson (on-screen) and the Comedian Harmonists (off-screen), half of whose six members were Jewish. The film casually registers the presence of people of Jewish descent in the Weimar Republic without seeming to dwell on it: at one point, for instance, a seven-branch menorah briefly appears in the background as one of the characters, Herr Generaldirektor Krüger, played by Jewish comedian Julius Falkenstein, answers the phone in his study. What, one may ask, does a humorous boy-meets-girl story, as charming as it is harmless, have to do with anxieties over the survival of the Weimar Republic, and - one might add - with the status of its Jewish population? 332 Christian Rogowski The premise of Berger’s musical comedy directly addresses the contemporary economic crisis: unbeknownst to each other, the two young people who will end up as lovers - Grete (Käthe von Nagy), a manicurist who works regular daytime hours, and Hans (Willy Fritsch), a waiter who works the late shift as a temp waiter at a nightclub - share the same bed, which they rent on a rotating basis from an elderly widow, because neither can afford more adequate accommodations. Many sound film comedies of the late Weimar period acknowledge the economic struggle of making ends meet and fear of losing one’s job on account of the Great Depression (von Thüna; Prokasky). Yet Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht also subtly hints at more general, sociopolitical issues that concerned audiences at the time regarding the survival of democratic ideals in the Weimar Republic through a subtext that, as I will show, is largely established through a sophisticated and critically reflected use of sound. In what follows, I argue that Berger’s use of sound lends this musical comedy a political significance that coalesces on three levels: first, political issues emerge as a subtext in the film’s ironically refracted, self-referential sound track; second, the juxtaposition of the main storyline with that of a film-within-the-film has inherent sociopolitical implications; and third, the blurring of the distinction between diegetic and non-diegetic music carries its own political message. It has to be remembered, though, that sound, in Berger’s film, becomes political precisely by not appearing to be political. 2 After outlining the particular aesthetic parameters within which Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht operates, I focus on one episode in particular, the two protagonists’ trip to Potsdam, to highlight how the three aspects listed above are intricately and inseparably intertwined in this realistic fairytale. Spanning twelve minutes out of a total of about ninety minutes, this protracted episode puts Berger’s ostensibly apolitical and escapist film in the service of an enlightened liberal pragmatism at a time when increasing socioeconomic and political tensions threatened to unhinge the Weimar Republic. The Potsdam episode, it will become evident, is not only a vehicle for comedic effects but acts as a reminder of the importance of enlightened political values. The transition to sound from silent film in Weimar Cinema spawned a veritable wave of films that highlighted the tension between sound and image, an «autothematische Welle im frühen Tonfilm» (Schweinitz 373). Storylines were often set in the world of film production, for instance in the crime thriller, Der Schuß im Tonfilmatelier (dir. Alfred Zeisler, 1930), or the farcical comedy, r Das Kabinett des Dr. Larifari (dir. Robert Wohlmuth, 1930). Frequently, fantasies i of socioeconomic advancement and erotic wish fulfillment were couched in aspirations to movie stardom, in films such as Die Gräfin von Monte Christo (dir. Karl Hartl, 1932) or Die verliebte Firma (dir. Max Ophüls, 1932). In- The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 333 deed, by 1932, critics complained that self-referentiality in film had become somewhat commonplace. 3 Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht offers an interesting twist in that it shifts the focus to the exhibition and reception of films, away from their production. After the opening credits, the screen goes dark and we hear an impatient voice, shouting «Anfangen! » from off-screen, followed by a view of the inside of a projection booth. Here, projectionist Helmut (Friedrich Gnaß) turns a knob to start a boisterous march tune at high volume. The camera meanders to find Helmut’s colleague, outlined as a silhouette behind the movie screen, holding a loudspeaker in one hand, the other cupped near his mouth, shouting in dismay: «Leiser, Helmut! Du machst mir ja den Lautsprecher kaputt! » Unfazed, Helmut turns the volume down a few notches before calmly unwrapping and digging into his sandwich. Structurally, the opening sequence of Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht involves us, i.e., the film’s audience, in an elaborate guessing game as to the exact status of the images we see and the sounds we hear. Thematically, the opening sequence highlights the question of getting the sound just right. Contemporary critics already registered their approval that Berger’s comedy differed refreshingly from conventional cliché-ridden filmic fare. Rudolf Arnheim, writing for the left-liberal Die Weltbühne, tongue firmly in cheek, noted that Erich Pommer’s production unit represented a kind of «kulturbolschewistische Renommierzelle der Ufa.» 4 In Arnheim’s assessment, Berger’s film mercifully respects the intelligence of its audience and subtly advances a liberal agenda, by taking a refreshing twist on the comedic motif of mistaken identities. As a result, the film achieves a skillful balance between meeting commercial expectations and maintaining a critical edge: Hier werden, wenn schon kaum der Wahrheit so doch den großstädtischen Spöttern Zugeständnisse gemacht. Deshalb zeigt der Film Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht nicht den plumpen Aufstieg des Armen zum Reichtum, sondern sehr geschickt dient hier der Reichtum zwei Halbproletariern - dem Reichtum genügend benachbart, um einander irrtümlich für Lebeleute halten zu können - als eine Art Maskenverleih. Sie sind und werden nicht reich, aber sie sehen eine Weile so aus, und darauf kommts dem Kinobesitzer ja an. (Arnheim 848) Arnheim suggests that, by highlighting the gap between the bleak reality of the lives of its characters and the fantasies of socioeconomic success offered by the commercial film industry, Berger’s film offers a rare and welcome critique of the film industry’s commodification of viewers’ dreams and aspirations. Indeed, in the context of self-referential early sound film, Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht occupies a special position: as Sabine Hake has noted, the film may very well be «one of the first to thematize the new technology from the perspective of reception» (Hake 60). Its romantic storyline involves two people 334 Christian Rogowski whose dreams, aspirations, and ideas about life are heavily impacted by their moviegoing and their exposure to other new media, such as the radio and the gramophone, to the point where the line between media-generated fantasies and the characters’ real experiences blurs. Berger’s creative use of sound helps highlight the convergence of the real and the fantastic in what, quite paradoxically, becomes a realistic cinematic fairytale. Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht premiered on 18 November 1932 at Hamburg’s Ufa-Palast, the largest cinema in continental Europe. It opened in Berlin at the Gloria-Palast on 29 November, garnering generally positive reviews in both cities: «Es gibt wieder einmal einen Film, den man gesehen haben muß,» one reviewer proclaimed. 5 Critics were near unanimous in their praise for the smart and sophisticated manner in which the film played with comedic conventions and brought refreshing perspectives to a genre that had gone stale, how the clever premise (the shared bed) helped make «ein famoses, zugkräftiges, glänzendes Lustspiel» (Aros). Even critics who could not warm up to the film’s charm, like Heinrich Braune, writing for the Social Democratic Hamburger Echo, had to concede that the film was «äußerst geschickt komponiert,» noting in particular how the film-within-the-film device distinguished Berger’s film from standard comedic fare: Nachdem man lange genug phantasievolle Wunschträume auf ernst inszeniert hat, man denke an Erik Charells Der Kongreß tanzt, nimmt man jetzt auf den Widerstand Rücksicht, der sich gegen derartige Unwirklichkeiten immer mehr verfestigte. Man versucht nun, die nicht so romantische Wirklichkeit mit solchen, der Wirklichkeit entrückenden Wunschträumen zu verbinden. (112) From the outset, Berger’s film depicts a world saturated with sounds beyond an individual’s control. To a large extent, it is economic hardship that shapes the main characters’ desires, aspirations, and perceptions: neither protagonist is able to afford her or his own private space but is forced into a makeshift arrangement with the landlady, widow Seidelbast (Amanda Lindner). When Grete and Hans meet, they misjudge one another based on visual appearance: he sees her get into a limousine - she is being picked up for a private manicure assignment - and assumes that she is the daughter of a wealthy businessman; she mistakes the fact that he is out and about early in the morning in a tailcoat - he is returning from his shift at the nightclub - for a sign that he is a rich playboy. The main characters are thus involved in a game of misrecognition based on misreading visual clues. We viewers are privy to information that helps us recognize these mistakes, and our position of privilege vis-à-vis the characters is the source of much of the filmic pleasure - very much in line with comedic convention. On the level of sound, however, an altogether different story emerges: the room shared by Grete and Hans is located in an inner-city tenement com- The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 335 plex, whose street front is taken up by a small movie theater. This proximity allows the filmmakers to introduce a variety of self-referential dialogues and devices. For instance, all day the noises coming from the storefront cinema travel through the courtyard and permeate the lives of the residents. The constant penetration of external noise (including music) in the characters’ spaces can be read along lines proposed by Ofer Ashkenazi with regard to early sound film, as a symptom of the erosion of the bourgeois private sphere during times of extreme economic crisis: Widow Seidelbast, who waxes nostalgically of the better days she has seen as a former «member of the Court Theater of Lippe-Detmold,» is clinging to notions of bourgeois respectability in her meticulously kept household, even as she is forced to rent out a room in her apartment, located in a lessthan-desirable neighborhood. Grete and Hans, as characters without job security, may aspire to the status of middle-class employees, but they both clearly have failed to secure their own protective space. The omnipresence of sound in the world of these three characters indicates that the Great Depression has bereft the individual of any kind of private refuge to which he or she can withdraw (Ashkenazi 251). The film’s theme of mistaken identity is intimately linked with economic and political issues. There are frequent references in the dialog to money, status, and social fears: Hans, we hear, is behind in his rent even for his modest accommodation; Grete has to defend herself against sexual harassment from the male clients in the manicure salon, for fear of losing her job. The main song, «Wenn ich sonntags in mein Kino geh,» underscores the discrepancy between the glamorous fantasy worlds depicted on screen and the mundane, often difficult circumstances of everyday life. The song acknowledges the audience’s desires but also articulates a resigned sense that the viewers’ actual reality will not allow for the wish-fulfillment the screen provides: Wenn ich sonntags in mein Kino geh und im Film die feinen Leute seh, denk ich immer wieder: Könnt ich mal, ach könnt ich mal genauso glücklich sein! Alle Tage Sekt und Kaviar, und ein Auto und ein Schloß sogar! […] Träum ich noch am Montag früh: Einmal leben so wie die - doch zu sowas kommt man nie! Grete seems to have adjusted well to the less than ideal circumstances of her life. As she brushes her teeth and gets ready to work, the tune wafts up through the courtyard into her room, and she cheerfully starts to sing along, despite the re- 336 Christian Rogowski alization that «Grau ist die Woche, die ich montags überschau/ auch die nächste Woche wieder ist genau so flau/ Man hat vom Leben fast nichts! » For her, the song’s promise of «ein kleiner Schimmer des Lichts» seems to be enough. Hans, on the other hand, reacts with considerable anger to the music as he tries to go to sleep, interjecting his cynical comments into the lines sung by the Comedian Harmonists: «Wenn ich sonntags in mein Kino geh» (Hans: «Ooch noch sonntags! ? ! »)/ «und im Film die feinen Leute seh» (Hans: «Sind ja auch schon pleite! ») […]/ «denk ich immer wieder: Könnt ich mal, ach könnt ich mal genauso glücklich sein! » (Hans: «Ach könnt ich mal den elenden Leierkasten kaputt schlagen! ») before yelling «Ruhe! » while climbing into bed. 6 Of course, such «interactions» between the characters of the main narrative and a song supposedly lodged in the film-within-the-film breaks with the logic of realism (of getting the sound just right for a given setting), since the audio track makes no adjustment in volume or in sound quality for the spatial distance or the walls separating the movie theater and widow Seidelbast’s apartment. Throughout the film, Berger plays upon the fact that most moviegoers do not consciously make a distinction between the two levels upon which sound works in film - as diegetic sound emanating from identifiable sources within the world depicted on screen and as non-diegetic sound emanating from outside the fictional world. Berger engages the film audience (as viewers and listeners) in a perceptual cat-and-mouse game: much as the film’s plot line about mistaken identities makes it clear that we can never be quite certain about what we see, the soundtrack subtly suggests that we can never be quite certain about what we hear, either. Sound in Berger’s film is carefully calibrated to straddle the divide between reality and fiction - as is evident in the constant crosscutting between the story of Grete and Hans and excerpts from the fictional film, All dies ist dein! . The movie theater is near the entrance to the tenement complex, and Hans is friends with Helmut, the projectionist, giving him access to the projection booth (despite the «Eingang verboten» sign). This narrative conceit lodges the fictional film within the main diegesis and allows the musical soundtrack freely to float back and forth between the two levels. Time and again, music from the fictional film is heard where it does not belong, i.e., outside of the storefront movie theater, which would make it, strictly speaking, non-diegetic. Yet more often than not, a source within the diegetic reality is identified for what we initially assumed to be non-diegetic music - the radio, the gramophone, and live performers such as the itinerant street musicians that appear in the tenement courtyard, or Leo Monosson, who performs on the stage of the nightclub. Dies alles ist dein! , produced by the aptly named «Bombastik-Film A.-G.,» as its credits inform us, is a vehicle for two fictional stars, «Vera Veranda» and The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 337 «Tito da Capo.» The two appear in overblown scenes, set in gigantic rooms overflowing with flowers, as a glamorous lady and her crooning beau, with armies of liveried servants and chambermaids gyrating around them, not unlike the spectacular Ausstattungsrevuen championed on Berlin’s stages by the likes of Erik Charell, Hermann Haller, and James Klein - and their on-screen equivalent, the so-called Tonfilmoperetten (cf. Jansen; Wedel). In his review for Film-Kurier, Willy Haas summed up the critical gist of this dramaturgical gesture, echoing many of Rudolf Arnheim’s sentiments: Den beiden ärmlichen, aber braven Menschen wird entgegengestellt ein Kintoppfilm mit Heldentenor, mit einer schmetternden falschen Gitta Alpar, mit unzähligen Pagen, Zofen und galonierten Dienern. […] Der Kintopp als soziales Narkotikum tritt gewissermaßen in Figura auf. […] Eine außerordentlich gute Idee. Sie zu fassen zeugt von sozialem Gewissen. Ihre Ausführung aber zeugt von geschäftlicher Begabung. 7 Ernst Jäger likewise singled out Berger’s masterful handling of the film-withinthe-film motif as a comedic device: «Eine der witzigsten Filmsuiten, die je geschaffen wurde, nur der René Clair-Opernparodie zu vergleichen. Sie stammt von Ludwig Berger, der in diesen ironischen Partien des Films auch dem Schlagerunwesen (mitten beim Schlagerkreieren! ) ein herzhaftes Wort sagt» (Jäger). Indeed, Berger’s light touch displays many affinities with the work of French filmmaker René Clair, who had used off-screen sound in intriguing ways in his 1931 musical comedy Le Million. Like Clair, Berger employs visual irony, fluid camera movement, and a clever manipulation of diegetic and non-diegetic sound to charming effect. Critic Hermann Sinsheimer zeroed in on the sophisticated manner in which Berger’s film differed from standard comedic fare: it seemingly follows yet also parodies genre conventions, since the use of a sound film within a sound film anchors the music within the diegetic world of the story by realistically identifying the source from which the music emanates: «[D]er Tonfilm braucht Musik und Schlagergesang (warum er das immer wieder und unter allen Umständen braucht, wissen die Götter, die Verleiher und, zur Not, auch das Publikum), diese Musik und Singerei bezieht der Tonfilm diesmal vom Tonfilm im Tonfilm» (Sinsheimer). The main target of Berger’s parody is the Tonfilmoperette, the genre launched by Ufa’s producer Erich Pommer (who also produced Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht) in two distinctive variants: «Berger ironisiert zwei Prototypen der Ufa-Filmoperette: Einmal das soziale Aufstiegsmärchen, wie es 1930 Die Drei von der Tankstelle begründeten - zum anderen die prunkvolle Ausstattungsoperette, zumeist im historischen Kostüm, wie sie Der Kongreß tanzt verkörperte.» 8 The fictional Tonfilmoperette-within-the-film is first introduced in shots that show the screen inside the movie theater. Throughout, Berger’s film al- 338 Christian Rogowski ternates between images that show the fictional film audience looking at the screen and shots from that film-within-the-film that occupy the entire screen for us, the actual audience of Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht: time and again, the film-within-the-film is, as it were, allowed to take over. When the tuxedoed beau is finally united with his operetta diva in Dies alles ist dein! - she has kept ! him waiting for considerable screen time during seemingly endless, schmaltzy incantations of «Wenn du nicht kommst, dann haben die Rosen umsonst geblüht» - their meeting leads to a rapturous duet. Multiple cross-cuts juxtapose the bathos of the fictional film with the mundane worries of the characters in the main story. In his projection booth, Helmut laconically remarks, «Ich hab auch mal ne Braut gehabt. Aber gesungen haben wir nie zusammen …,» before tackling yet another sandwich. Meanwhile, Grete concocts a ruse, feigning to leave the salon for a private manicure assignment with Herr Krüger, while actually trying to meet with Hans. And Hans startles Herr Krüger with a phone call, seeking to find out why Grete is late for their rendezvous. The gulf between the pseudo-ecstatic wish fulfillment of the fictional characters and the mundane worries of Hans and Grete could not be wider. The fictional film may promise that «All this is yours! ,» but the juxtaposition ultimately exposes this fantasy as empty (cf. Müller 405).Yet Berger’s film acknowledges that the very contemplation of such a promise, however illusory, is a source of pleasure, both for Hans and Grete and for us the audience. Much of the film’s viewing pleasure, Kurt Pinthus noted in his review, is predicated on the knowing bond that the film establishes between the screen and the viewer: «Das Publikum versteht den Spaß und lacht und applaudiert. […] aber eigentlich ist der Hauptfilm gerade ein solcher, über den sich die Parodie lustig macht. Dieser Film spottet seiner selbst […] und weiß doch sehr wohl: wie und warum» (Pinthus). Even the primary narrative’s supposed diegetic reality is held in ironic suspension, as its fairytale elements highlighted by the characters’ archetypal names undercut the real-life storyline: here, a «Hans» indeed meets a «Grete.» Ultimately, nothing in Berger’s film is stable on an epistemological level, as an ironic playfulness permeates the film in its entirety. One of the most interesting deployments of the potentially destabilizing (and pleasurable) use of sound occurs during the episode that takes Grete and Hans on an outing to Potsdam. The episode stands out in a variety of ways. It seems to fly in the face of the realist tone of much of the rest of the film; throughout, we hear that the two protagonists are struggling to make ends meet financially, yet here we see them splurging on a twenty-five kilometer taxi ride from central Berlin - a trip with a presumably astronomical cost. 9 In dramaturgical terms, the episode marks the one occasion during which the two protagonists literally try to escape their drab everyday lives, by leaving The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 339 the harsh economic realities of Berlin for the gentler, nostalgic environs of the eighteenth-century palace of Sans Souci. Finally, there is a profound irony undercutting the entire episode, since the outing takes place under false pretenses: each assumes that the other owns a car but has not brought it to the rendezvous. Grete innocently suggests that they take a taxi to somewhere far off, spontaneously suggesting «Potsdam! » - and Hans does not dare acknowledge that a ride to Potsdam is way beyond his means. 10 The symbolic significance of this flight into a supposedly nicer world is duly noted: despite the fact that neither Hans nor Grete have specified where they wish to go in Potsdam, the taxi driver drops them off at a highly significant location, namely in front of the famous windmill of Sans Souci. 11 The setting evokes a historical anecdote that became a popular legend: between 1745 and 1747, the «miller of Sans Souci,» Johann Wilhelm Grävenitz, was involved in a dispute with King Frederick the Great over his plans to build a summer palace near his windmill at Potsdam. Legend has it that Frederick wanted to have the mill removed out of concern that it would spoil his view and that he would find its noise disturbing. When confronted with the threat that the absolute ruler could have the mill removed by force, the miller is said to have responded that the King could of course do that easily, were it not for the existence of the legal system: «Gut gesagt, allergnädigster Herr, wenn nur das Hofgericht in Berlin nicht wäre» (Hebel 662). Impressed by the miller’s faith in the rule of law, a system that pertains to all residents of a state, regardless of status, and that the King himself had set up, Frederick is said to have ceded to the miller and allowed him to stay. Widely associated with the image of Frederick the Great as a tolerant, wise and benevolent ruler, the legend of the «miller of Sans Souci» revolves around concepts of civil courage, the rule of law, and enlightened reason. Here, the notion of a constitutional Rechtsstaat had clearly won out over the authoritarian Prussian Obrigkeitsstaat. The beginning of the Potsdam episode becomes a subtle yet highly politically charged gesture: visually, the film suggests that to the characters - and to the filmmakers - Potsdam and the windmill are synonymous. Without making a direct verbal reference, the film thus takes sides with constitutionality and evokes the memory of an enlightened rule of law. The shot of the mill briefly occupies the screen, yet Hans and Grete remain preoccupied with their own concerns. Their arrival at Potsdam is marked by the sound of what seem to be bells (possibly diegetic) and the faint music of wind chimes (possibly non-diegetic), underscoring the magical atmosphere. Looking down a path lined with trees, Grete marvels at the magnificent park outside the palace of Sans Souci and asks Hans whether he knows what these French words mean. With a lump in his throat, as he hands over his last bank bill to pay the 340 Christian Rogowski driver, Hans sighs: yes, he does know that it means «ohne Sorge,» the irony being that his own financial situation is now anything but «worry-free.» The ruse continues to the very end of the episode, when Hans resorts to pretending that he has lost his wallet to explain the fact that he can’t pay the return taxi fare and the couple has to take the suburban train back to the center of Berlin. 12 Filmically, the Potsdam episode marks a seeming shift to a different genre. The camera shows the inscription Sans Souci on the top of the palace façade and proceeds to tilt down, as we hear a voiceover that for a moment suggests that we are now watching a documentary. A male voice, bland and mechanical in delivery, recites historical dates and architectural information that seem to come from a drab Ufa Kulturfilm, if it weren’t for the heavy Berlin accent and the suggestion of bored routine. Cut to reveal the figure of a bearded elderly man (played by seasoned comedian Eugen Rex). It is the tour guide, inside the palace, who continues his recitation to a group of visitors as the image and sound track begin to drift apart: instead of being shown the supposedly noteworthy aspects of the palace’s interior, our initial focus is directed to the visitors’ feet as they scurry to don the felt slippers they have to wear to protect the precious parquet floors. Again there is a delay, until the camera moves upward to show us what the tour guide has been talking about. Yet that gaze is quickly withdrawn, as the guide’s voice turns somewhat embarrassed, mentioning that the gilded reliefs feature slightly risqué subject matter. We see the guide’s face struggling to find the right words before settling for a suitably neutral formulation - he hesitantly calls them «gewissermaßen bacchantische Szenen.» At Potsdam, Hans and Grete may seem to have attained what the main song promised them - «ein Auto und ein Schloß sogar» - in the mundane guise of a horrendously expensive taxi ride and a boring guided tour. Grete and Hans cannot completely immerse themselves in a historical fantasy, but have to precariously shuffle along in fluffy slippers that constantly come off, enduring the dry recitations of a tour guide listlessly going through the motions. The irony intensifies, attaining more and more political significance. In the library room, the tour guide makes a point of noting that Frederick the Great’s extensive collection comprises only books written in French: «2200 Bände, von antiken griechischen Schriftstellern und auch von französischen, alles in französischer Sprache, ja.» The distracted, somewhat embarrassed fashion, in which the guide hints at Frederick’s Francophilia twice in the same sentence, effectively debunks the myth of the Prussian king as German national hero. Instead of presenting Frederick as a great military leader and a source of German national pride, as Weimar Germany’s political Right was wont to do, the guide associates the king with an enlightened cosmopolitan intellectual elite. This association, however, The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 341 is undercut by the guide’s bored and disinterested delivery. Pointing to a signed copy of a philosophical work, the guide notes laconically, «Hier ist sogar eine gewissermaßen eigenhändige Widmung von Voltaire, na ja.» The tour continues into the king’s music room, where his famous flute is displayed in a glass case on top of a fortepiano. The guide makes an explicit association between the object and a famous instance of visual mythmaking: «Ursprünglich stand der Flügel in der Mitte des Raumes, so wie ihn Menzel auf seinem berühmten Gemälde ‹Das Flötenkonzert von Sanssouci› gemalt hat.» The film underscores the discrepancy between the current scene and Adolph Menzel’s painterly idyll of 1852 (which, ironically, had become an icon of authenticity, evoking the «real» atmosphere at Frederick’s eighteenthcentury court) by having the tour group crowd the screen and block our view. The guide’s dry narration continues, «Hier steht sein Notenpult. Und hier haben wir nun seine Flöte, sozusagen sein Originalinstrument.» At this point the audio track again splits from the visual track, as we are unable to see the cherished objects that have become quasi-religious relics, part and parcel of a veritable patriotic personality cult that the guide acknowledges but to which he clearly does not subscribe: «Das alles hat er nun gewissermaßen persönlich in der Hand gehabt.» The guide’s strange speech mannerisms (for instance, his excessive, and illogical, use of «sozusagen» or «gewissermaßen» - either it is Frederick’s original flute or it isn’t; he either held it in his hands or didn’t) add to the debunking of the myths associated with what for many had become a place of nationalistic hero worship. As the tour continues, the guide takes the group through the «Marmorsaal, in dem die berühmte Tafelrunde stattzufinden pflegte» - again obliquely invoking Frederick the Great, as well as another Menzel painting (of 1850), which shows the Francophile Prussian king enjoying conversation with leading Enlightenment intellectuals of his day, including Voltaire. By now, Hans and Grete have altogether lost interest in the guide’s monotonous recitation; Hans ventures to kiss Grete’s hands, and they lose contact with the rest of the group. As they fall behind, they get locked up in Frederick’s music room, but this place of romantic escape turns out to be a prison of sorts. After several futile and increasingly agitated attempts to open various doors, they resign themselves to the situation and settle into their new intimacy, sitting down, embracing, and exchanging a kiss. Grete notes: «Im Kino finge jetzt sicher Musik an! ,» then explains to a perplexed Hans: «Ja wenn, wenn es schön wird, fängt da immer Musik an! » And, miraculously, we begin to hear the faint strains of a flute playing. The filmmakers appear to have responded to Grete’s sentiments by obligingly providing the suitable romantic, apparently non-diegetic musical accompaniment. Grete’s surprised question, «Wer spielt denn hier Flöte? » is quickly dismissed 342 Christian Rogowski by the skeptical Hans in a deadpan remark, «Wer soll schon in Sans Souci Flöte spielen? » Yet the music continues and grows louder. By now, the multiple levels of irony underpinning this scene have become palpable: of course, most contemporary viewers would associate the flute music we hear not only with the palace’s historical occupant, King Frederick the Great, but also with Das Flötenkonzert von Sanssouci, the first sound film in the successful Preußenfilme franchise, featuring Otto Gebühr. The Ufa production, directed by Gustav Ucicky under the aegis of executive producer Günther Stapenhorst, presented a very different picture of the legendary monarch, one that led to politically motivated disturbances when it premiered in Berlin on 19 December 1930. Two weeks earlier, Nazis had staged riots in protest of the German screenings of the American film, All Quiet on the Western Front (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1930), based on the famous pacifist novel, Im Westen nichts Neues (1929), by Erich Maria Remarque. Now Ucicky’s film became the target of left-wing agitation, on account of its revisionist and militaristic glorification of the Prussian king. According to Helmut Regel, the film «stilisiert einen Friedrich, dem als Mann des Friedens in fast tragischem Widerspruch böswillige Feinde den Krieg aufzwingen» (128), playing into the hands of revisionists who indulged in fantasies of revenge for the defeat in the First World War. The threat to a beleaguered Prussia, Frederick explicitly notes in Ucicky’s film, emanates from «Versailles» - a claim of French belligerence that resonated strongly with Weimar Germany’s conservatives and völkisch extreme Right that sought to topple the «Diktat von Versailles,» the hated provisions of the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Ucicky’s glorifying portrayal of Frederick as military genius and national hero met with the approval of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, who expressed his hopes that the ensuing «Kinokampf» over films such as Im Westen nichts Neues and Das Flötenkonzert von Sanssouci would shake things up at Ufa, where, as he put it, «es i von Juden nur so wimmelt» (qtd. in Töteberg 277). As the music continues during the Potsdam episode in Berger’s film, we half expect to encounter a scene like the famous visual reconstruction in Ucicky’s film of the «Flötenkonzert» in Menzel’s painting. And, indeed, the camera begins to move in search of where the music is coming from. It pushes toward a window, behind which we begin to make out the contours of a man playing the flute - who turns out to be the tour guide practicing by himself in the evening. An agitated man knocks at the window pane, and the idyllic scene comes to an abrupt halt: we quickly realize that the musical interlude was not (quite) the wish fulfillment usually provided by the non-diegetic sound track of a romantic musical comedy. Rather, the musical magic is revealed to be nothing more than the sounds of an amateur musician. Yet, ever so subtly, the associa- The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 343 tion of non-diegetic music and wish fulfillment in genre films was evoked as well, since alongside the flute we heard the faint, almost imperceptible sounds of a harpsichord - even though the man is revealed to be alone. With such clever and subtle play upon audience expectations, Berger’s film, as Eric Rentschler has rightly noted, places his protagonists in a situation in which «[t]he reality of their world (and this film) reminds them (and us) of other films» (56). Not only of other films, I would add, but also of various political subtexts: in the summer of 1932, when Hans Székely and Robert Liebmann were working on the script for Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht, the Social Democratic Prussian government was ousted in a right-wing coup known as the «Preußenschlag» (20 July 1932). Invoking the emergency statutes of the Weimar constitution, Reich President Hindenburg dismissed the entire Prussian administration and placed control of Germany’s largest federal state in the hands of Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen, a monarchist with an at best ambivalent attitude towards the political pluralism of the Weimar Republic. The pretext had been the Prussian police’s handling of what became known as the «Altonaer Blutsonntag»: on 17 July 1932, some 7,000 SA and SS members staged a deliberate provocation of the Communists, when they marched into one of their strongholds, Altona - then an independent city just outside of Hamburg and part of Prussia. The police’s bungled efforts to curb the violent clashes that ensued resulted in the some sixteen deaths, including innocent bystanders who were killed by ricocheting bullets (Schirmann). Von Papen’s coup dismantled one of the most important pillars of Weimar constitutionalism, the autonomy of Prussia, where the Social Democrats ruled. On 26 July 1932, the «Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens» (C.V.) held a meeting in Berlin to protest the anti-Semitic agitation that ensued from the dismantling of due legal procedures and the collapse of civic order, a «Kundgebung gegen judenfeindlichen Terror und Entrechtung.» 13 The destruction of the democratically elected, left-leaning Prussian government, a major political force in Weimar Germany’s largest and most populous state, left the Republic vulnerable to the onslaught of the Right: as noted above, the Reichstag elections of 31 July 1932 turned the NSDAP into the country’s largest party, garnering 37.2% of the vote and 230 seats in the parliament. Throughout the final years of the Weimar Republic, the rise of the National Socialists was accompanied by increases in anti-Semitic violence. One of the most notorious events occurred in the fall of 1931, on Rosh Hashana (12 September) in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg, home of many upper-middle-class assimilated Jews. That evening, SA members marched along Kurfürstendamm, shouting «Juda, verrecke! » und «Schlagt die Juden tot! » before attacking people streaming out of the synagogue on Fasanenstraße as 344 Christian Rogowski well as anyone else whom they deemed Jewish-looking (Hecht 236). Political tensions and anti-Semitic agitation continued through the next year, during the filming of Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht, between August and November 1932. Throughout Germany, synagogues and Jewish graveyards were defiled and Germans of Jewish descent were increasingly subjected to harassment or violent attacks by Nazi thugs. An annual report of the Jewish Central- Verein, issued in December 1932, notes a drastic increase in the work of the «Rechtsschutzstelle des Central-Vereins» and gives an overview of the frenetic «massenpolitische Aufklärungsarbeit» that the organization found necessary to combat anti-Semitic agitation and the erosion of legal protection for Germany’s Jewish citizens («Was tut der C.V.? » 355). One of the most dramatic events that occurred as part of the «Preußenschlag» was the public arrest of Bernhard Weiß, the vice-president of Berlin’s police forces. A trained lawyer, Weiß had become the first non-baptized Jew to hold a major office in the Prussian executive, and distinguished himself as one of the most well-known and staunchest defenders of Weimar constitutionalism, using every legal device to stem the rising tide of Nazism. That made him a target for Joseph Goebbels, who conducted an extended smear campaign against «Isidor» (as he called Weiß to draw attention to Weiß’s Jewishness), in a series of articles in the Nazi paper Der Angriff and the vituperative f Buch Isidor (1928), which combined libelous denunciations with anti-Semitic carr toons. Over the years, Weiß had successfully sued Goebbels over sixty times (Bering). On 20 July 1932, Weiß was arrested when he refused to recognize the takeover of Prussia’s administration by the Reich as legitimate. The general turmoil of 1932 included public protests in Berlin against increases in rents and cuts in unemployment benefits, continued street battles between Nazis and Communists, as well as a general strike of Berlin’s transportation workers (the BVG) in early November (Kerbs and Stahr). As a result, «by 1932 Germany was in a state of virtual civil war» (Diehl 287). With escalating acts of violence against Germans of Jewish descent, the collapse of constitutionality in Prussia, and the arrest of a prominent Jewish-German defender of the rule of law, there were very good reasons for Berger and his collaborators (most of them of Jewish descent) during the filming of Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht in the summer and fall of 1932 to be worried about Prussia - including concerns over economic security, constitutional democracy, and enlightened reason in general, and the status of Germany’s Jews in particular. After his return from his near four-year sojourn in Hollywood in the spring of 1931, Ludwig Berger found Germany profoundly changed. As he put it in his memoirs, The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 345 Deutschland war wie vom Erdboden verschwunden. Kommunistische Umtriebe und eine furchtbare Art von Revolver-Nationalismus […]. Es war 1931. Während der Premiere von «Im Westen nichts Neues» liefen weiße Mäuse durchs Publikum und Tränengasbomben explodierten. Und die Regierung? Sie tat nichts. Europa, das zur Toleranz bestimmt war, ist schon damals an Herzschwäche gestorben. (Berger, Wir sind 278) d Between 1931 and the summer of 1933, Berger lived in his comfortable apartment at Carmerstraße 16, in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district, around the corner from Steinplatz, some three doors down from Bernhard Weiß’s residence at Steinplatz 3, and about two blocks away from the Synagogue on Fasanenstraße. During the final months of the Weimar Republic, Berger, appalled by the erosion of civic culture and public discourse, gathered a small circle of like-minded friends around himself for weekly meetings at his Charlottenburg apartment to discuss the political situation and to uphold the values of liberal humanism: «[…] und dann versuchten wir mit vereinten Kräften eine möglichst gültige Definition des Begriffes der Humanität zu schaffen, gewissermaßen als Mauer im Sturm der Zeit» (Berger, «Der Film» 13). In this context, the Potsdam episode in Berger’s romantic comedy takes on a decidedly political significance: through humor and irony, the episode employs sound in defense of liberal enlightened rationality, offering a subtle critique of the irrational, nationalistic mythmaking that propelled the country into increasingly violent spasms of anti-democratic, anti-intellectual, and anti- Semitic violence. In sending its protagonists to the capital of a different, nonauthoritarian Prussia, invoking the «miller of Sans Souci» legend and the image of Frederick the Great as cosmopolitan ruler, Berger’s film appeals to humanistic ideals of the rule of law, civic order, and a pluralistic democratic society. It exudes a liberal, enlightened spirit, with its light touch and through subtle allusion and gentle suggestion. With its witty, coolly sardonic dialogues, its playful juxtaposition of filmic realities with a «film-within-the-film,» and its repeated unmasking of seemingly non-diegetic music as part of the diegesis, Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht trains its audience to be enlightened viewers. While the film acknowledges the «reality of desire,» to quote Sabine Hake (61), it also ultimately reaffirms the distinction between filmic fantasy and actual everyday life. Towards the end of the film, Hans and Grete are shown inside the movie theater, enjoying the presentation of the film-within-the-film. As he tries to sneak a kiss from her, the lights go on, and the word «Ende» appears on the (fictional) screen, as people are shown to file out of the movie theater. Even as Hans and Grete seem to experience their own private happy ending, realizing that, in a sense, they have been bedfellows all along, they come to learn that the cautionary message of the film’s main song, «Einmal leben so wie die - doch zu 346 Christian Rogowski sowas kommt man nie! » still applies: the couple may be experiencing a cinematic boy-meets-girl fairytale, but at the end of the day, they find themselves - just like the audience - faced with the task of remaining vigilant about the seductive power of make-believe. Unmasking and acknowledging the filmic illusion as a «soziales Narkotikum» (Haas), Berger’s film places Hans and Grete firmly in the real world, reminding them that they need to keep their eyes, and their ears, open. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but also eminently political: within just over two months of the film’s release, the Weimar Republic fell prey to the very nationalistic myths and irrational fantasies that Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht, through subtle humor and gentle irony, sought to debunk. Notes This research was supported by a grant from the Amherst College Faculty Research Award Program, funded by H. Axel Schupf ’57 Fund for Intellectual Life. 1 Violent clashes, primarily between Nazis and Communists, had resulted in nearly 100 deaths and over 1,000 injured in the month prior to the July 1932 election. After the election, violence continued, including politically motivated beatings and murder (Eyck 502). 2 Like many films of the early sound era, Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht was produced in multiple language versions for the international market, in this case an English one, entitled, Early to Bed, and a French one, À moi le jour, à toi la nuit (co-directed by Claude Heymann), with alternate casts. My reading of the film is based on the German version. See Wahl for a discussion of the differences between the three language versions (Wahl 59-66). 3 Hans Wollenberg, in his reviews of Berger’s film, includes the laconic note, «Film im Film ist gegenwärtig, nebenbei, verdächtig en vogue» (Hawa). 4 To appreciate the sardonic irony in Arnheim’s remarks, one has to remember that Ufa had, since 1927, been under the control of right-wing media mogul and politician, Alfred Hugenberg (Kreimeier 158). 5 kr., «Großer Erfolg des neuen Films im Gloria-Palast. Ich bei Tag und Du bei Nacht»; see also the quotations from press reviews featured in the full-page ad for the film in Film-Kurier 285 from 3 December 1932. r 6 Later, Hans’s prediction seems to have come true: we discover a «Kuckuck» (the colloquial term for a «Pfändungsmarke,» or bailiff’s seal, indicating bankruptcy) at Herr Generaldirektor Krüger’s place, indicating that even «feine Leute» such as the ostensibly wealthy Jewish businessman are «ja auch schon pleite.» 7 The reference here is to the extravagant filmic vehicles for Hungarian operetta diva, Gitta Alpár, such as Gitta entdeckt ihr Herz (premiered 5 April 1932) and Die - oder keine (premiered 26 September 1932), both directed by Carl Froelich. Other operetta stars who appeared in filmic musical spectacles of the period include soprano Marta Eggerth and tenors Jan Kiepura and Richard Tauber. 8 Gehler and Kasten 18. In this special issue of Colloquia Germanica, Davidson argues that the assessment of Die Drei von der Tankstelle as a social mobility tale is inadequate. 9 The point is reinforced later on: at Café Viktoria, where Hans is shown working in the afternoon, a colleague asks why Hans, as a tired nightclub waiter, would take on extra The Politics of Sound in Berger’s Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht 347 hours during daytime. Hans laconically remarks, twice: «Mensch, weißt du, was ein Taxi nach Sans Souci kostet…? » 10 Potsdam, of course, is also the location of the Ufa studios at Babelsberg, where Ich bei Tag und du bei Nacht was filmed, subtly suggesting that Grete and Hans are escaping into a kind of filmic fantasy, the world of make-believe projected by the film-within-the-film. 11 The mill is located to the west of Sans Souci palace, an unlikely destination for a taxi coming from Berlin: the taxi would presumably approach the palace through downtown Potsdam and head for the main entrance of the palace grounds, the «Grünes Gitter» to the south-east of the palace. 12 A review of the French version singles out the sophisticated humor of this episode: «la visite de Sans-Souci à Potsdam est d’une drôlerie spirituelle.» «À moi le jour, à toi la nuit.» 13 See the ad in C.V.-Zeitung 22 July 1932: 413. Works Cited «À moi le jour, à toi la nuit.» Cinématographie française 24 Dec. 1932: 199. Arnheim, Rudolf. «Filmnotizen.» Die Weltbühne 49 (1932): 847-48. Aros. «Er bei Tag und sie bei Nacht. Filmkritische Bemerkungen.» Beilage zum «Montag» 5 Dec. 1932: N. pag. Ashkenazi, Ofer. «‹A New Era of Peace and Understanding›: The Integration of Sound-Film into German Popular Cinema, 1929-1932.» The Many Faces of Weimar Cinema. Rediscovering Germany’s Filmic Legacy. Ed. Christian Rogowski. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2010. 249-67. Berger, Ludwig. Wir sind vom gleichen Stoff, aus dem die Träume sind. Summe eines Lebens. Tübingen: R. Wunderlich, 1953. -. «Der Film - bevor er war. Betrachtungen über das spezifisch Filmische.» Hamburger Filmgespräche II. Hamburg: Hamburger Gesellschaft für Filmkunde, 1965. 13-22. Bering, Dietz. «Isidor - Geschichte einer Hetzjagd.» Die Zeit 14 Aug. 1981: N. pag. Braune, Heinrich. «Ich bei Tag und Du bei Nacht.» Hamburger Echo 19 Nov. 1932: N. pag. Diehl, James M. Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1977. Eyck, Erich. 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