Imaginary Reality: Ireland and the Irish in German Nazi Film

This article examines the image and purpose of the representation of Ireland and the Irish in the film production of the Third Reich during the early 1940s. It analyzes The Fox of Glenarvon (1940) and My Life for Ireland (1941) in relation to the imminent transfer of propaganda and national or cultural stereotyping. Though both are fiction films rather than documentaries, the cinematic imagination of Ireland and the Irish connotes historiographic and cultural realism. The films present a highly subjective and ideological (Nazi) view of an assumed “reality.” The article explores the often distorted realities, largely derived from historical German-Irish cultural contacts, and their impact on the German perception of “Irishness” and its cinematic representations.