Lecture: Roel Vande Winkel: Between Propaganda and Pragmatism: German Film Policy Implementation in Occupied Belgium (1940-1944)

In World War Two, in occupied Belgium, all propaganda issues came under the sole responsibility of the Wehrmacht, more specifically of its “Propaganda-Abteilung Belgien” (Propaganda Division Belgium, PAB). By supplying information, qualified staff and considerable financial support, Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda (RMVP) nevertheless managed to exercise tight control over the PAB. Through the PAB Film Group, the RMVP started reorganising Belgian cinema and assisting the German industry in colonising this commercially important outlet.

Based on documents produced by the PAB, the RMVP and by German film companies (Ufa, Tobis), I have, in previous publications, outlined the German film policy/strategy vis-à-vis occupied Belgium. I have in particular paid attention to the various manners in which German organisations reorganised - and largely took - over film distribution in occupied Belgium (closing down British and American distributors while favouring newly established subsidiaries of German film companies).

This lecture, however, focuses on the market that was targeted by these German and other film distributors. Based on trade information published by the (German-led) Belgian film guild, which was entered into a database, this lecture offers a detailed analysis of some 770 cinemas that were active (or allowed to be active) on the Belgian film market (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels). Combined with data retrieved in the two-monthly trade magazine published (from December 1940 until September 1944) by the Belgian Film Guild, this lecture also analyses, for the first time, the various measures imposed on those cinemas as well as on the punishments carried out against offenders.

This lecture will also touch briefly on ongoing research reconstructing film programs (films shown from May 1940 until September 1944) in various Belgian cities and how such research may lead us to revise previous assumptions about the popularity of specific films, actors or genres.

Suggested reading:

Vande Winkel, R., Welch, D. (2011). Introduction. In: Vande Winkel R., Welch D. (Eds.), Cinema and the Swastika. The International Expansion of Third Reich Cinema. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 1-5.

Further reading:

Vande Winkel, R. (2011). "German influence on Belgian cinema, 1933-45: from low-profile presence to downright colonisation." In: Vande Winkel R., Welch D. (Eds.), Cinema and the Swastika. The International Expansion of Third Reich Cinema, Chapt. 5. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 72-84.