Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
Veit HarlanThe Life and Work of a Nazi Filmmaker$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
Veit Harlan: The Life and Work of a Nazi Filmmaker

Frank Noack

Print publication date: 2016

Print ISBN-13: 9780813167008

Published to Kentucky Scholarship Online: September 2016

DOI: 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167008.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM KENTUCKY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.kentucky.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright The University Press of Kentucky, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in KSO for personal use.date: 29 June 2022

The Trial

The Trial

Chapter:
(p.267) 21 The Trial
Source:
Veit Harlan
Author(s):

Frank Noack

Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
DOI:10.5810/kentucky/9780813167008.003.0022

This chapter deals with the first public trial ever conducted against a German film artist, with many celebrities appearing on the witness stand. Although of high entertainment value, many of the testimonies are irrelevant with respect to Harlan’s actual guilt or responsibility. Journalists center on how short he is or such lurid details as Kristina Söderbaum’s nude bathing during the Venice Film Festival in 1941. Several witnesses for the prosecution were themselves fellow travelers, so Harlan’s defense finds it easy to discredit them. What ultimately helps him to be acquitted of the charge of crimes against humanity is the lack of written evidence, and the trial is of interest chiefly to film historians interested in the influence of the film medium on spectators. Without its participants being conscious of it, the Harlan trial is a conference on film authorship.

Keywords:   celebrity witnesses, defense, film authorship, prosecution, Harlan trial

Kentucky Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .