Ewiger Wald

Ewiger Wald is a 1936 German film directed by Hanns Springer and Rolf von Sonjevski-Jamrowski. The film's international English title was Enchanted Forest.

Ewiger Wald
Directed by	Hanns Springer Rolf von Sonjevski-Jamrowski
Written by	Albert Graf von Pestalozza (writer) Carl Maria Holzapfel (poems[clarification needed])
Produced by	Albert Graf von Pestalozza (producer)
Starring	See below
Cinematography	Sepp Allgeier Werner Bohne Otto Ewald Wolf Hart Guido Seeber A.O. Weitzenberg Bernhard Wentzel
Edited by	Arnfried Heyne
Music by	Wolfgang Zeller
Production company	Culture Group
Release date	8 June 1936 (1936-06-08)
Running time	75 minutes 88 minutes (Germany)
Country	Germany
Language	German

Commissioned by Alfred Rosenberg's cultural organization Militant League for German Culture in 1934 under the working title Deutscher Wald–Deutsches Schicksal (German Forest – German Destiny), the feature-length movie premiered in Munich in 1936. Intended as cinematic proof for the shared destiny of the German woods and the German people beyond the vicissitudes of history, it portrayed a perfect symbiosis of an eternal forest and a likewise eternal people firmly rooted in it between Neolithic and National Socialist times.

Plot

In accordance with Rosenberg's anti-Christian beliefs, the first section on prehistory displays various customs and rituals of an asserted pagan forest religion like a maypole dance or funerals in treetrunk coffins. Further, it depicts the forest sheltering ancient Germanic tribes, Arminius, and the Teutonic Knights, facing the German Peasants' War, being chopped up by war and industry, and being humiliated by black soldiers brought into Germany by the French occupation army. The years of the Weimar Republic appear to be disastrous for people and forest alike. The film culminates in a National Socialist May Day celebration filmed at the Berlin Lustgarten.^[1]

Cast

• Günther Hadank (voice)
• Heinz Herkommer (voice)
• Paul Klinger (voice)
• Lothar Körner (voice)
• Aribert Mog
• Kurt Wieschala (voice)

Production

Ewiger Wald was produced by the Culture Group^[2] and co-directed by Hanns Springer and Rolf von Sonjevski-Jamrowski.^[3]

Release

The film premiered at the UFA Palace in Munich on 8 June 1936.^[4] It was re-edited to reduce its length and this version was accepted by the censors on 20 August, and premiered in Oldenburg on 28 August.^[5]