Blogs

By Anke Napp (May 2026)

The history of religion in the twentieth century is incomplete without the filmstrip. The Protestant and Catholic filmstrips from Germany are evidence of this. The medium was invented around the early 1920s, and German filmstrip publishers and distributors advertised this durable and portable media form as ideal for parochial purposes.

In this blog, I present a short history of how both Protestant and Catholic institutions deployed the filmstrip in negotiating a period of significant socio-political change. The blog largely centres on religious filmstrips under the National Socialist or Nazi regime. While I discuss some examples in the main text, I provide links to digitised filmstrips, lecture notes, and other filmstrip ephemera from Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv (Deutsches Bildbandarchiv) in the footnotes.

Just like lantern slide shows, religious filmstrips with accompanying lecture notes, retold Bible stories, explained the Sacraments and Christian folklore, taught Catechisms and Christian behaviour, were used to recruit members of lay organisations. Others were made to train altar boys and showed any action of the Catholic mass in great detail.[1] The filmstrip in church became central to Lichtbildfeierstunden – multimedia events involving not only projected images, but praying, singing, and music (filmstrip companies often supplied records to go with the images here).

Several large collections housed at the Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv come from Protestant and Catholic parishes and can be dated between 1925 to 1960. Publishers like the Deutsche Evangelische Filmdienst/Filmosto, based in Dresden, or the Film-Vertriebsgemeinschaft in Berlin, were administratively and/or ideologically connected to the Lutheran Protestant church. Catholic distributors/publishers included BiFiz, a media organisation located in Cologne (later Düsseldorf), and the CaLig (Caritas Lichtbilder-Gesellschaft).

Many of the filmstrips produced before and during the Second World War, by Protestant publishers firmly interlace Protestant faith with German Nationalism. In most cases, the images in the filmstrips are ostensibly neutral (historical figures, paintings, places, etc.) and only acquire their nationalist meaning through the accompanying lectures. Dr. Martin Luther (Evangelischer Filmdienst, 1929) celebrates the Fifteenth Century priest and theologian not only as a fervent reformer of the Church, but also as an example of model German manhood and Germanness more generally.[2] Protestantism was declared the only true expression of being German, and Luther’s reform of the Catholic Church characterised as Germany’s fight to break free from foreign powers. Other strips, such as the 1944 Opfer und Dank (Sacrifice and Thanks) essentially convey that only a good Protestant is able to be a good German soldier and sacrifice himself as a martyr for his country.[3] To complement the photographs of soldiers in a Protestant church, the filmstrip lecture exclaims: “So hört im Gottesdienst der deutsche Soldat auch fern von der Heimat den Herrn der Geschichte als seinen Vater und wagt um Christi willen den Griff nach seiner vollen Gemeinschaft, neu gestärkt in der lutherischen Gewissheit „Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott!“” (Thus, in divine worship—even far from home—the German soldier hears the Lord of History as his Father and, for Christ’s sake, dares to reach out for full communion with Him, newly strengthened in the Lutheran certainty: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!”).[4] Such filmstrips became arguments to show that Protestants were good and reliable citizens and soldiers of the Third Reich.[5]

A similar emphasis on the importance of Christianity for German culture and Stammesgemeinschaft can also be found in Catholic filmstrips.[vi] Just like the Protestant filmstrips with Luther, Catholic portraits and biographies of saints also position them as role models for German men and women. Strip titles such as Heilige Elisabeth von Thüringen, ein Denkmal der deutschen Frau (Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia, a Monument of the German Woman) are some examples here.[7] Moreover, the texts accompanying religious art-historical filmstrips adopt Nazi terminology to project a specific idea of German art and architecture. The lecture for Der Christliche Deutsche. Mann und Frau in der Darstellung der Kunst (The Christian German in Art) starts its table of content with “Das Verhältnis der christlich-deutschen Kunst zur Rasse” (Christian-German Art and Race) and “Bejahung des Bluthaften” (Affirmation of Bloodline).[8] A lecture accompanying a filmstrip about the development of sacral architecture praises modern (1930s) church buildings with the words: “Der heutige Kirchenbau (…) kündet von den Grundkräften des Menschen (…) von der Wurzelung in der Natur und von der völkischen Ausprägung des Glaubens,” (The modern sacral architecture tells of the basic forces of man, of the roots in nature and the ethno-national expression of faith).[9]

Although evolving from nationalist ideologies dating back to the nineteenth century, such religious filmstrips foreground the predicament of the Churches under Nazi regime. Whether Protestant or Catholic, they had to prove their cultural allegiance to evade persecution. For instance, the lecture of Deutsch und evangelisch (German and Protestant) by the Evangelisch-Sozialer Pressverband (Protestant and Social Press Association), states that the images of this filmstrip bear testimony for the tight relationship between Christianity, German people and Protestant faith to counter the contemporary view of Christianity as perversion of Germanness.[10]

Despite their best efforts though Protestant, and, even more so, Catholic filmstrip-publishers, were affected by the Nazi regime. The highest-ranking Protestant navy pastor, Friedrich Ronneberger – who was also the owner of a large collection of filmstrips now in the Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv – was regularly asked to justify why Protestant pastoral care for soldiers and their families was still needed.[11] Similarly, the Catholic CaLig and BiFiz (Bild- und Filmzentrale Düsseldorf) were under observation since 1934, because of their films and filmstrips, were often accused of being anti-Nazi propaganda.[12] The Catholic St. Benno-Bildkammer that distributed to Catholic and even Protestant parishes, was defamed as owned by a “Jewish Bolshevik, Gangster and Lecher.”[13] Indeed, many religious organisations facing the ire of the establishment, were finally asked to shut their businesses on grounds of war-related “resource-efficiency”, a manoeuvre used to target many media companies. Among them the Protestant press service “epd,” in 1941 and the Catholic BiFiz closed in 1940.[14]

However, sometimes publishers also found strategies to distance themselves from topics, such as art, history, and folklore, that demanded overt German (Nazi) allegiance. Here, the publisher K.M.H./Ludwig Schumacher Erkenschwick filmstrips such as Lobgesang der drei Jünglinge (Song of the Three Holy Children) or Gottes Größe in der Natur (God’s Magnitude in Nature), both made in late 1930s or early 1940s, are useful here: they reveal an attempt to bypass the promotion of a National Socialist Germanness, by placing the filmstrip’s theological focus on nature and landscape. Such manoeuvres perhaps are also evidence of how filmstrips were used to resist the Nazi regime. In fact, Paul Wasmer, a Catholic priest who was imprisoned by the Third Reich (1940-1945), prepared the CaLig filmstrip, Lobt den Herrn ihr Berge und Hügel (Praise the Lord, You Mountains and Hills) after World War II, where he discusses how he overcame prison horrors by finding God in nature. Wasmer’s strip here can also be read as an acknowledgement of nature as an avenue for Nazi defiance.[15]

While the end of the Second World War generally abated the pressures on religious filmstrip makers, their recovery was not straightforward. Most Protestant publishers were based in Berlin and Dresden and had suffered severe losses during air-warfare. The ones that survived, now found themselves in Soviet occupied territory exacting their own post-war reparations. Filmosto in Dresden, which evolved into a new company named ASCOP, largely started producing filmstrips of fairytales and tourism. Extant filmstrip catalogues from the 1950s shows that Protestant filmstrips were still made (by ASCOP and some newer companies).[16] However, the limited availability of contextual information on Protestant filmstrips in the GDR – there is only one small collection of filmstrips and no lecture texts at all Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv – currently makes their postwar impact difficult to assess.

In Western Germany or Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Catholic publishers like CaLig, Christophorus-Verlag, and K.M.H./L.S.E (Kurt Schumacher) continued to provide religious-themed filmstrip packages (filmstrips, lectures, records). Now faced with widespread destruction of cityscapes, human bodies and families, their new goal was to remind the population of God’s loving presence despite their harsh realities, urging the German people to do Christian charity. Images of ruins, needy and crippled people in these strips contrast with messages of a caring God and hopeful future.[17]

One topic, though, which was common in Protestant as well as Catholic filmstrips from the 1920s and remained so in the 1950s was the fight against “Bolshevism.” Bolshevism was projected as being an anti-church and held responsible for the destruction of traditional familial and gender roles. While earlier filmstrips focused more on the real destruction of churches in the Russian Revolution, the 1950s anti-communist strips warn of Soviet warmongering and their desire for world domination.[17] There is a whole thesis to be written on that topic alone…

The history of religious filmstrips in Germany thus spotlights a wider history of political engagement and survival by both the Protestant and Catholic churches. It reveals the ways in which Christian organisations negotiated, and perhaps even challenged, the Nazi regime, while also foregrounding the other parts of the politics underpinning their religious instruction.

References:

[1] Quadragesima (BiFiz, 1936): filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Quadragesima/index.html. The lecture is missing. All links last accessed May 2026.
[2] Dr. Martin Luther (Evangelischer Filmdienst, 1929) Filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Dr_Martin_Luther/DrMartinLuther/index.html. Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Dr_Martin_Luther/Bildband-26-Dr_Martin_Luther.pdf
[3] Hans Hafenbrack, “Geschichte des Evangelischen Pressedienstes,” Evangelische Pressearbeit von 1848 bis 1981 (Bielefeld, 2004), 189-191, 265; Anke Napp, “Unter Luthers Führung zum Heldentod an die Front. Völkisches Christentum in Bildbandvorträgen 1921-1941” in Reformation und Militär. Wege und Irrwege in fünf Jahrhunderten edited by Angelika Dörfler-Dierken (Im Auftrag des Zentrums für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr, Hg) (Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2019), 201-210.
[4] Opfer und Dank (Film-Vertriebsgemeinschaft, 1944), Lecture p. 7, for image 22:. Filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Opfer-und-Dank/Opfer-und-Dank2/index.html. Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Opfer-und-Dank/Bildband-333-Text.pdf
[5] Lecture, Deutsch und Evangelisch.
[6] Auf Gottes Spuren in deutscher Heimat, author Angelus Pauper (i. e. Lothar Schreyer) (CaLig, before 1945), Lecture for image 34. Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Vortragstext%20TK6-GottesSpuren
[7] Heilige Elisabeth von Thüringen, ein Denkmal der deutschen Frau, author Elisabeth Fink (Lichtbildverlag L.S.E. Ludwig Schumacher, no publishing date known)
[8] Lecture of Der christliche Deutsche. Mann und Frau in der Darstellung der Kunst, author Heinrich Lützeler (Lichtbildverlag K.M.H./L.S.E. Ludwig Schumacher, 1935): https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de//Vortragstext-TK48-MannFrau. (filmstrip not yet digitized)
[9] Lecture Die Entwicklung des abendländischen Kirchenbaus II, author Heinrich Lützeler, p. 31 and 33 (Lichtbildverlag L.S.E. Ludwig Schumacher, before 1940): https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Kirchenbau2/Vortragstext%20TK42a-Kirchenbau2.pdf. Filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Kirchenbau2/index.html
[10] Deutsch und Evangelisch (Evangelisch-Sozialer Pressverband, before 1945). Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de//Vortragstext-214-Deutsch_und_Evangelisch. The filmstrip itself has not survived.
[11] Friedrich August Ronneberger, Letter to Großadmiral Dönitz, 22. Sept. 1944, München, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, ZS 1808.
[12] Status report of the director of the Sicherheitsamt des Reichsführers SS 1934: https://www.jugend1918-1945.de/ND/default.aspx?root=18383&id=24902
[13] Volksgemeinschaft: Heidelberger Beobachter, 4. Nov. 1935, p. 5: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/volksgemeinschaft1935e/0059
[14] See Volker Lilienthal, “In die Illegalität gedrängt”? Herkunft, Tradierung, Funktion und Korrektur der Legende vom epd-Verbot 1937, in: Publizistik 2 (2003), 156-175, 159.
[15] Lobt den Herrn ihr Berge und Hügel, author Paul Wasmer (CaLig, after 1945). Filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Lobt-den-Herrn/index.html. Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Lobt-den-Herrn/Vortragstext-TK1.pdf. Documents about Paul Wasmer and his resistance: https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/LHFD3WWYPOWVLBJAB4STB7WMLOBUCSJ7.
[16] Catalogue Evangelischer Jungmännerverein (1957): https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/EvJungmaennerverein-Katalog-1957.pdf
[17] Die frohe Botschaft vom Reiche Gottes. Gott unser himmlischer Vater (CaLig and Christophorus, 1950s); Unsere Sorge: der Mensch (CaLig, 1950s); Barmherzigkeit im Alltag (CaLig, 1950s).
[xviii] Anke Napp, “Massenmensch und Maschinenmensch: Das Bedrohungsszenario der Oktoberrevolution und ihrer Folgen in deutschen Bildbändern von 1929 – 1941,” in Die Wahrnehmung der Russischen Revolutionen 1917 edited by Frank Jacob and Riccardo Altieri (Zwischen utopischen Träumen und erschütterter Ablehnung, 2019), 413-437. Protestant example Sowjetkultur droht! (Vereinigung für praktische soziale Arbeit, Breslau, 1932): Filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Sowjetkultur/Sowjetkultur2/index.html Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/Sowjetkultur/Bildband%20542%20-%20Sowjetkultur%20droht.pdf. Catholic example (CaLig, 1950s): Filmstrip: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/RotGreiftAn/index.html Lecture: https://www.deutsches-bildbandarchiv.de/RotGreiftAn/Vortragstext-HS190-RotGreifAn.pdf

Images

Top: Frames from filmstrip Die frohe Botschaft vom Reiche Gottes. Gott unser himmlischer Vater (The Gospel of God’s Kingdom. God our Heavenly Father) (CaLig and Christophorus, Number CC 702, c.1950). The filmstrip was discovered in a Catholic Parish near Frankfurt/Main. Courtesy Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv (Deutsches Bildbandarchiv).

Left: Frames from the filmstrip Der Kampf der Sowjets gegen die Kirche Christi (The Fight of the Soviets against the Church of Christ) (Film-Vertriebsgemeinschaft Number A 159, 1941[1929, the image is from the 1941 second edition]). The strip was found in a parish in Wilhelmshaven, Fürsorgeabteilung der Deutschen Marine. Courtesy Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv (Deutsches Bildbandarchiv).

Author:
Anke Napp is a medieval and media historian and the custodian of the Jörn Napp-Bildbandarchiv (Deutsches Bildbandarchiv), which houses one of the largest filmstrip collection across the world. Napp regularly digitises filmstrips and ancillary materials, making filmstrip images and the histories they contain accessible to all.