Hitlers Traum von Micky Maus - Zeichentrick unterm Hakenkreuz

  • January 1999
  • 34mins

  • Documentary
  • Animation
  • Directed by

    Ulrich Stoll,

    Starring

    Matthias Ponnier,

    Bernd Kuschmann,

    Rainer Pause,

    Heinz Kaskeline

    ...

    The order comes in the summer of 1941 from propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels himself: The best animators are summoned to Berlin. Their task: Producing feature-length cartoons in ‘Disney-Quality’ with the newly founded ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH’. To get trained, the Disney movie “Snow White” is re-traced frame by frame. After the final victory, one new feature-length production of quality shall be released every year from 1947 onwards. – that is the plan. Only in 1943, the first production is completed: “Armer Hansi” a 17-minute-long colour movie, realized with the effortful Multiplane-technology. The second film by the ‘Deutsche Zeichenfilm’ is only completed in 1946 – by DEFA. In the territories occupied by Germany, cartoons are produced as well, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes propagandistic ones. With excerpts from animated movies, life-action film documents, and witness reports by contemporaries, this documentary draws a picture of the cartoon production in the third Reich.