“The Harmonists” (1997) is a deceptive film. Not deceptive in that it’s false or misleading or because director Joseph Vilsmaier takes artistic liberty with the story of the personal lives of the group members and sometimes deviates from fact, but in that it’s far more complex than it’s simple plotline suggests.
On the surface, we have a film about the 1927 formation, literally almost overnight rise to stardom, and 1935 disbanding of Germany’s close harmony vocal group Comedian Harmonists. With the exception at the top of the film of a brief glimpse of the group at the height of their career, the film is a conventionally structured, straightforward, linear, no-frills, no special effects, feature length biopic with perfunctory dialogue that serves only to advance the story. It’s incidental that their enormous success renders the young men blind to the changing political climate in Germany that eventually prompts the group’s breakup. Yet a closer examination reveals the changing position of Jews within German society and the resulting impact on Jewish-gentile relations.
The actual members of Comedian Harmonists themselves are well suited as a cast because collectively, they represent different attributes of Jews and Jewish-gentile relations that prevailed during the time period in which the film is set.
Harry Frommerman is a Jew who despite his attraction to a gentile and his assertion that he stopped going to synagogue a long time ago holds fast to Jewish customs by donning kipot and laying a stone when honoring his parents with regular visits to their graves.
Roman Cvowski, who emigrated from Poland at a time when Germany was more tolerant of Jews, considers himself a religious man and insists his sweetheart convert to Judaism prior to marriage.
Erich Collin, born of Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism prior to his birth, is not a Jew in his own eyes and insists he can do whatever he wants to do and be whomever he wants to be. But from the Nazi perspective his blood is tainted.
Erwin Bootz marries a Jew and divorces her, presumably to protect himself from guilt by association.
Ari Leschnikoff is so focused on his career as a singer that he doesn’t care to even give a thought to Nazism, which is certainly just a passing aberration.
Robert Bilberti Aryan’s features position him as best suited to serve as the singing group’s initial business negotiator and later, suitor of Frommerman’s sweetheart.
What the members themselves don’t realize – but the film’s writers, director and producers certainly do – is that Comedian Harmonists have an important place in history not because of their valuable contributions to music but because their music is part of what actually prompted the Nazi’s extensive efforts to protect German culture from the influences of internationalism, foreign infiltration, ”Jewish-Marxist noise,” and other liberal-minded, Enlightened attitudes in favor of more conservative, bourgeois and national alternatives like Deutschländers (dances the Nazis created from traditional German folk dances).
The fact that the popularity of Comedian Harmonists extended beyond Germany into most of Europe and beyond was a huge threat to the Nazis. Although it had become known that a few of the Comedian Harmonists were Jews, the group continued to sing to sold-out audiences. A large part of the population simply didn’t care that the group contained Jewish members. Others (including some highly ranked Nazis) simply overlooked it – at least for a period. Obviously it was problematic for a partially Jewish singing group to enjoy such tremendous fame and fortune and regardless of their popularity, the Comedian Harmonist issue had to be addressed.
By 1933, the Nazis were sanctioning performances, requiring that all performers hold membership in Reichkulturkammer, an Association of Culture to which Jews could not belong. The Nazis made a concession by holding off on issuing a summons until 1934, thus allowing Comedian Harmonists to perform concerts that had already been booked (albeit without the inclusion of songs written or arranged by Jews, namely Frommerman). In 1934, the Nazis pulled the plug entirely and prohibited the Jewish members of the group from performing. Comedian Harmonists gave their last concert in Munich on March 25, 1934.
Perhaps had the popular, politically naive musicians not ignored all the warning signs of the political milieu that was changing around them the outcome of Comedian Harmonists would have been different. Regardless, we are indebted to them for their contribution to history, musically and otherwise.
References
“The Harmonists” (1997)
The Holocaust by Leni Yahil
“Film Art: An Introduction” by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
“The Comedian Harmonists” by Dr. Karl Schindler
Chicago Sun-Times film review by Roger Ebert
Filmtabs film review by Gunter H. Jekubik
The New York Times television review by Walter Goodman
Variety film review by Derek Elly
World Socialist Web Site film review by Bernd Reinhardt
http://www.apencollector.com/palast.html
http://www.comedian-harmonists.de
http://www.geocities.com/~jimlowe/eurojazz/eurodex.html
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/1945/WSB/comhar.html
http://www.german-cinema.de/app/filmarchive/film_view.php?film_id=186
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128133/
http://www.singers.com/jazz/vintage/comedianharmonist.html