Hitler's Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich

Lilian Karina · Marion Kant · Jonathan Steinberg

iyn, 2003 · Berghahn Books

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The Nazis burned books and banned much modern art. However, few people know the fascinating story of German modern dance, which was the great exception. Modern expressive dance found favor with the regime and especially with the infamous Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. How modern artists collaborated with Nazism reveals an important aspect of modernism, uncovers the bizarre bureaucracy which controlled culture and tells the histories of great figures who became enthusiastic Nazis and lied about it later. The book offers three perspectives: the dancer Lilian Karina writes her very vivid personal story of dancing in interwar Germany; the dance historian Marion Kant gives a systematic account of the interaction of modern dance and the totalitarian state, and a documentary appendix provides a glimpse into the twisted reality created by Nazi racism, pedantic bureaucrats and artistic ambition.

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Marion Kant was raised in East Berlin and began dancing at the Comic Opera at the age of 14. She took her PhD at Humboldt University in musicology and dance history and has taught at the Free University of Berlin, Kings College London, Cambridge University, the University of Surrey and now at the University of Pennsylvania.