Fine Toys – Made in USA

(Feine Spielwaren – Made in USA)

GDR, 1969, 13 min, color
In German; English subtitles
Credits:
Director
Animator
Script
Camera
Music (Score)
Production Company

Synopsis

A short, puppet-animated film about the American toy company Aurora, founded by Paul W. Lindburg after WWII. This company specialized in kits for making model vintage and modern military aircraft and other vehicles, passenger planes and ships. Different lines of Lindburg kits were very popular, not only in the U.S. but also abroad, especially in West Germany.

 

In this short animation film, the narrator uses sarcasm to present these toys in terms of the rehabilitation and propagation of the German imperialist military tradition, which is seen as responsible for destroying humanistic viewspoint and replacing them with perverted, sadistitc attitudes towards humanity.

Commentary

This 1969 Cold War propaganda film illustrates how countries in the East (and West) Bloc used all available means, including film, to defend their ideology and policies. It was one of many DEFA film productions that framed West Germany (FRG) and the U.S. as the enemy of East German ideals

 

The film focuses on an American toy company to talk about US support for West Germany and its "dangerous" remilitarization. Starting in the mid-1950s, the FRG rebuilt its military with the help of the U.S. and other western allies that believed it was urgent to set up a strong defense against possible Soviet military incursions. In 1955, the FRG also joined NATO.

Awards

2020 Film as a Subjective Art: Amos Vogel at Oberhausen retrospective, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison Cinematheque, USA
1969

Gold Medal, Workers' Film Festival, Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany

1969 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, West Germany

Press comments

"This film is a slashing, frontal attack, skillfully edited, on American toys ('sold in West Germany') showing Nazi soldiers and tanks, and Fokker, von Richthofen, and Stuka planes. ('Have the Americans forgotten that these planes bombed England?') For good measure, the film ends with monster toys, torture chabers, the Bloody Mummy, and an operating guillotine ('we apologize for showing this in an East German film'). The conclusion is that even toys have been put at the service of agressive American imperialism, which aims at achieving Hitler's unattained goal: the destruction of the socialist bloc."   —Amos Vogel, "East Germany; Against the West," Films as a Subversive Art

 

 

Availability

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