Nazi Era The German
Anschluss of Austria in 1938 put an end to the country's independent film production. The German-Austrian Tobis-Sascha-Filmindustrie AG, which had already been sold, under pressure, to the Cautio Trust Company, was transformed on 16 December into
Wien-Film. The new company was officially presented with a new mission statement, signed by
Joseph Goebbels: "In competition with the other arts, the purpose of film is to give form to what satisfies human hearts and what makes them shudder, and by the revelation of the eternal, transports them into better worlds." The company's expected propaganda function was thus made unmistakably clear. Jews had been forbidden to work in the Austrian film industry since 1935, as the German
Reichsfilmkammer had threatened to ban the import of Austrian films unless the industry kept to German terms. In the drama films produced by the new company Austrian themes dominated, typified by the standard Viennese light romantic comedy, the
Wiener Film, lavish in music, costumes and sets, which mostly portrayed past times in rosy hues. From 1943/44, Wien-Film also made
colour films, a privilege previously restricted to the
UFA company. Wien-Film also produced cultural films. Besides the production of dramas and cultural films, Wien-Film concentrated on the management of
cinemas. Across Austria, the company owned 14 cinemas in
Vienna,
Berndorf,
Linz,
Steyr and
Steyrermühl. The Vienna cinemas were the "Scala", the "Apollo", the "Busch" and the "UFA-Ton", which were used for premieres. Wien-Film also ran the cinemas formerly owned by KIBA (
Wiener Kinobetriebsanstalt) and UFA, under the newly established
Ostmärkische Filmtheater Betriebsgesellschaft m.b.H. ("Ostmark Film Theatre Company Ltd"). The film production programme laid down by Berlin was to make films that were rooted in the soil of the Ostmark and provided distraction, in line with the government slogan
Kraft durch Freude ("Strength Through Joy").
After WWII After the end of
World War II, Wien-Film was confiscated by the
Allies as "German property". After Vienna had been divided up into
five zones of occupation it became apparent that the film studios in
Sievering and the main offices in Siebensterngasse came under the
American administration, but that the film workshops at
Rosenhügel were in the
Soviet sector. The
Sievering film studios, it was believed, were to be liquidated by the Americans, in the interests of eliminating all possible competition to
Hollywood productions. At the end of 1945, the former head of Vienna film production,
Karl Hartl, was nominated the industry's business leader. While the Soviets, according to the provisions of the
Potsdam Agreement, took over all former "German" businesses as war reparations, the western occupying powers -
Great Britain, the
United States and
France - waived their rights in this regard. For the newly refounded Wien-Film, this meant that they could continue work at the studios in Sievering and
Schönbrunn, but had to write off the studios and workshops at Rosenhügel. These were incorporated into
USIA, the Soviet body responsible for administering Austrian assets as war reparations, and operated from then on as
"Wien-Film am Rosenhügel". On 21 August 1945, Wien-Film and the State Department for Reconstruction (
Staatsamt für Wiederaufbau) signed a contract for a documentary about the restoration works in Vienna. After the
Austrian State Treaty of 1955, the company passed into state ownership. Since the returns on production and the renting out of the studios were becoming less and less profitable, Wien-Film was wound up as a state company in 1985, leaving only a small holding company to maintain rights over earlier productions. == Personnel ==