Werner Herzog is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusual talents in obscure fields, or individuals in conflict with nature. His style involves avoiding storyboards, emphasizing improvisation, and placing his cast and crew into real situations mirroring those in the film they are working on.
The Thule Society, originally the Studiengruppe für germanisches Altertum, was a German occultist and Völkisch group founded in Munich shortly after World War I, named after a mythical northern country in Greek legend. The society is notable chiefly as the organization that sponsored the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which was later reorganized by Adolf Hitler into the National Socialist German Workers' Party. According to Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw, the organization's "membership list ... reads like a Who's Who of early Nazi sympathizers and leading figures in Munich", including Rudolf Hess, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Julius Lehmann, Gottfried Feder, Dietrich Eckart, and Karl Harrer.
The Tzadikim Nistarim or Lamed Vav Tzadikim, often abbreviated to Lamed Vav(niks), refers to 36 righteous people, a notion rooted within the mystical dimensions of Judaism. The singular form is Tzadik Nistar.
Cabaret is a 1972 American musical period drama film directed by Bob Fosse from a screenplay by Jay Allen, based on the stage musical of the same name by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff, which in turn was based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten and the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood. It stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson, and Joel Grey. Multiple numbers from the stage score were used for the film, which also featured three other songs by Kander and Ebb, including two written for the adaptation.
Werner Finck was a German Kabarett comedian, actor and author. Not politically motivated by his own admission but just a "convinced individualist", he became one of Germany's leading cabaret artists under the conditions of the Nazi suppression after 1933.
The association of Nazism with occultism occurs in a wide range of theories, speculation, and research into the origins of Nazism and into Nazism's possible relationship with various occult traditions.
Erik Jan Hanussen, born Hermann Steinschneider, was an Austrian Jewish publicist, charlatan and clairvoyant performer. Acclaimed in his lifetime as a hypnotist, mentalist, occultist and astrologer, Hanussen was active in Weimar Republic Germany and also at the beginning of Nazi Germany. He is said to have instructed Adolf Hitler in performance and the achievement of dramatic effect.
James Harting Madole was a prominent fascist and leader of the National Renaissance Party in the United States. He is now recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of post-war occult-fascism.
Victor Klemperer was a German scholar who also became known as a diarist. His journals, published in Germany in 1995, detailed his life under the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Fascist Third Reich, and the communist German Democratic Republic.
The Mortal Storm is a 1940 American drama film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Frank Borzage and stars Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart. The film shows the impact on Germans after Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany and gains unlimited power. The supporting cast features Robert Young, Robert Stack, Frank Morgan, Dan Dailey, Ward Bond and Maria Ouspenskaya.
The Golden Twenties was a particular vibrant period in the history of Berlin. After the Greater Berlin Act, the city became the third largest municipality in the world and experienced its heyday as a major world city. It was known for its leadership roles in science, the humanities, art, music, film, architecture, higher education, government, diplomacy and industries.
Jouko Ahola is a Finnish former strongman, powerlifter and actor. He is a two time World's Strongest Man winner, a two time Europe's Strongest Man winner, and is regarded as one of the best pound for pound strongmen in history.
Hanussen is a 1988 Hungarian film directed by István Szabó, centered around the life of Erik Jan Hanussen. Starring Klaus Maria Brandauer, the German-language film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also featured at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.
Rescue Dawn is a 2006 epic war drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog, based on an adapted screenplay written from his 1997 documentary film Little Dieter Needs to Fly. The film stars Christian Bale and is based on the true story of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down and captured by villagers sympathetic to the Pathet Lao during an American military campaign in the Vietnam War. Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Pat Healy, and Toby Huss also have principal roles. The film project, which had initially come together during 2004, began shooting in Thailand in August 2005. It received critical acclaim but was a box office failure.
Siegmund Breitbart, also known popularly as Zishe or Sische Breitbart, was a Polish-born circus performer, vaudeville strongman and Jewish folklore hero. He was known as the "Strongest Man in the World" and Eisenkönig ("Ironking") during the 1920s.
Watermarks is a 2004 award-winning theatrical feature documentary co-written and directed by Yaron Zilberman as his directorial debut. The film reunites the champion women swimmers of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna, who were forced to disband during the rise of fascism in 1930s Austria.
Das häßliche Mädchen is a German comedy film made in early 1933, during the transition from the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany, and premièred in September that year. It was the first or second film directed by Hermann Kosterlitz, who left Germany before the film was completed and later worked in the United States under the name Henry Koster, and the last German film in which Dolly Haas appeared; she also later emigrated to the US. A Nazi-led riot broke out at the première to protest the male lead, Max Hansen, who was supposedly "too Jewish." The film's representation of the "ugly girl" as an outsider has been described as a metaphorical way to explore the outsider existence of Jews.
Melvin Irwin Gordon was an American professor, director and writer.
