1POPULAR CINEMA

To conclude: As the prototype of the “little man,” Rühmann played a
key role in the presentation of the private sphere as separate from social and
political concerns and untouched by the pressures of ideology. Through his
comic acting style, he offered an imaginary solution to the continuous existence
of social conflicts and gender troubles by collapsing the one into the
other and by translating both into purely psychological terms. Recently
Antje Ascheid has argued that even “if stars under National Socialism could
not help but become tools that were used to further the National Socialist
cause—their sociohistorical function can neither be fixed nor limited to
these determinants.” 37 The case of Rühmann suggests that it was precisely
the resistance to all neat distinctions between intentions and effects that
constituted his popular appeal and his political relevance. With these qualities,
the textually articulated tension among role, persona, and performance
and the historically specific alliance between Heinz Rühmann’s
comic style and the German national character implicate the actor forever
in the performative strategies of avoidance and denial that I have identified
earlier as one of the constitutive elements of popular cinema in the Third
Reich.
106 Popular Cinema of the Third Reich