Austrian cinema weekly report from the northern and southern theater of war

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Alexander Joseph "Sascha" Count Kolowrat-Krakowsky (left) around 1915/1916.

Austrian cinema weekly report from the northern and southern theater of war was the title of one of the first published war newsreels on the Austrian market. The Austrian Cinema Weekly Report was broadcast from the northern and southern theater of war under different names from 1914 to 1918.

history

The first attempts at a newsreel in Austria were initiated by French film companies a decade before the outbreak of the First World War. These first weekly news reports were mainly produced by Pathé Frères , which expanded from Paris to Vienna in 1904. In addition to the reports produced on site, Pathé Frères also distributed its weekly newsreels, produced in France, which quickly gained international fame. In 1908 and 1909, Gaumont and Société Eclair, two other French film companies that produced Austrian newsreels, followed. It was only with the outbreak of the First World War and the related import ban on foreign films that the Austrian film industry was able to free itself from foreign, especially French, competition, as the latter were no longer allowed to import film material into Austria. Alexander Joseph Graf Kolowrat-Krakowsky was one of the first to obtain approval for filming theaters of war as early as August 1914 through his good relationships and only a few months later began implementing his idea of ​​a newsreel. The model for the weekly Austrian cinema report from the northern and southern theater of war was the weekly war journal of the Viennese art film industry , which was shown weekly in cinemas from September 1914. At the beginning of 1915, the Austrian cinema weekly report was renamed from the northern and southern theater of war to cinematographic war reporting and only a few months later to Sascha war weekly report . From 1915 onwards, Count Kolowrat also sought the position of head of the film exposure of the KuK war press quarter, which was responsible for producing films about the war and the KuK army. In November 1915 he was entrusted with the management of the department, which was under the command of Major General Maximilian von Hoen . There he worked closely with later well-known filmmakers such as the director Gustav Ucicky and the cameraman Hans Theyer .

production

editor

The Austrian cinema weekly report from the northern and southern theater of war was published by the Sascha-Filmindustrie together with the film distributor Philipp & Pressburger and the Austro-Hungarian Cinema Industry Society and was first broadcast at the end of 1914, just a few months after the outbreak of the First World War . The Sascha film industry was founded in 1910 by Count Alexander Joseph Kolowrat-Krakowsky in Pfraumberg in Bohemia and moved to Vienna in 1912. At the time of the First World War, the Sascha film industry was the largest film production company in Austria, alongside Wiener-Kunstfilm. In April 1916 the Oesterreichisch-Hungarian Sascha-Meßter-Film Gesellschaft mbH , later Sascha-Meßter-Film , arose from the already existing cooperation between the Sascha film industry and the German film producer Oskar Meßter and his Austrian subsidiary Meßter-Film . Shortly before the end of the First World War, in September 1918, the company was merged with the film distributor Philipp & Pressburger, which was already significantly involved in the production of the Austrian weekly cinema report from the northern and southern theater of war , and renamed Sascha-Filmindustrie AG.

The Austrian Cinema Weekly Report as a Propaganda Tool

With the appearance of the first own weekly newsreels and the first propaganda films in Austria at the beginning of the First World War, the medium of film was first consciously used for propaganda purposes and thus gained immense importance for Austria-Hungary. In addition to demonstrating their own strength, the task of the newsreels was on the one hand to have an opinion-forming effect on the people during the war and on the other hand to convert a possible military defeat into a moral victory. The most common methods for this were, as you can read more precisely in the article Propaganda in the First World War , the degradation of the opponents, the highlighting of one's own strength, the focus on fighting and victory morale as well as the reference to the need to support one's own country, whether by giving up military service or buying war bonds . It was hoped that this would strengthen patriotism and trust in the state itself among the people . In terms of content, the focus was on the events of the war, the events on the home front, the KuK army and the representative image of the imperial family. It is noticeable, however, that all broadcast newsreels and propaganda films, including the Austrian weekly cinema report from the northern and southern theater of war , were strictly censored by the KuK war archive under military supervision during the First World War and therefore hardly any recordings of the actual fighting, and if so, then could only be seen in idealized form. The Austrian Cinema Weekly Report was shown weekly in the cinemas before the actual feature films , after it had been submitted to the censors, and thus reached a large audience. Although the cinema operators were not obliged to broadcast the newsreels, a refusal on their part could also lead to coercive measures, which clearly shows that the potential of the newsreels for the propaganda machine was recognized as early as the beginning of the First World War.

literature

  • Alexander Graf Kolowrat (ed.): 30 years of Sascha-Film. A commemorative publication by Sascha-Film Verleih- und Vertriebs-Ges.mbH Vienna, 1948.
  • Hannes Leidinger / Verena Moritz / Karin Moser / Wolfram Dornik: Habsburg's dirty war. Investigations into the Austro-Hungarian warfare 1914–1918. Residenz Verlag, St. Pölten 2014, ISBN 978-3-7017-3200-5 .
  • Heinz Hiebler: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the modern media culture. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg, 2003.
  • Ingrid Maria Hübl: Sascha Kolowrat. A contribution to the history of Austrian cinematography. Vienna, 1950.
  • Ludwig Gesek: On the history of the newsreel in Austria. In: Günter Moltmann (ed.): Contemporary history in film and audio document. Musterschmidt-Verlag, Göttingen, 1970.
  • Wilhelm Guha: The story of an Austrian film company. From the Sascha-Film-Fabrik Pfraumberg in Böhmensur Wien Film. Vienna, 1975.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Guha: The story of an Austrian film company. From the Sascha-Film-Fabrik Pfraumberg in Böhmensur Wien Film. Vienna, 1975.
  2. ^ Heinz Hiebler: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the media culture of the modern age. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg, 2003.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Guha: The story of an Austrian film company. From the Sascha-Film-Fabrik Pfraumberg in Böhmensur Wien Film. Vienna, 1975.
  4. ^ Film in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  5. ^ Ludwig Gesek: On the history of the newsreel in Austria. In: Günter Moltmann (ed.): Contemporary history in film and audio document. Musterschmidt-Verlag, Göttingen, 1970
  6. ^ Alexander Graf Kolowrat (ed.): 30 years of Sascha-Film. A commemorative publication by Sascha-Film Verleih- und Vertriebs-Ges.mbH Vienna, 1948.
  7. ^ Helmut Spitzer: Sascha film. Alexander Joseph "Sascha" Kolowrat Krakowsky. A brief historical overview. Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies, University of Vienna. 1998 (accessed January 20, 2017)
  8. ^ Heinz Hiebler: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the media culture of the modern age. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg, 2003.
  9. ^ Alexander Graf Kolowrat (ed.): 30 years of Sascha-Film. A commemorative publication by Sascha-Film Verleih- und Vertriebs-Ges.mbH Vienna, 1948.
  10. ↑ Frauke Haag, spokeswoman for the Filmmuseum in an interview with Salzburger Nachrichten: 1914: film discovered as a propaganda instrument. Salzburg, 2014. Via: http://www.salzburg.com/nachrichten/spezial/1914/sn/artikel/1914-film-als-propaganda-instrument-entdeck-91003/ (accessed on January 20, 2017)
  11. ^ Hannes Leidinger / Verena Moritz / Karin Moser / Wolfram Dornik: Habsburgs dirty war. Investigations into the Austro-Hungarian warfare 1914-1918. Residenz Verlag, St. Pölten 2014, ISBN 978-3-7017-3200-5 .
  12. ↑ Melanie Letschnig: Our Royals. Vienna 1910. Two emperors go to the cinema. In: Film documents on contemporary history. Edition 2. Film Museum. Vienna, 2008 (accessed January 20, 2017)
  13. Jump up ↑ Doris Cabinet: Cinema in Vienna, from the beginning to the present . University of Vienna, 2009. (accessed March 1, 2017)

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