{{Short description|Subgenre of film}} {{more citations needed|date=July 2015}} [[File:Ilsa she wolf of ss poster 02.jpg|thumb|''[[Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS]]'' is considered the quintessential ''Nazisploitation'' film.]] '''Nazi exploitation''' (also '''Nazisploitation''') is a subgenre of [[exploitation film]] and [[sexploitation film]] that involves [[Nazism|Nazis]] committing [[sex crimes]], often as camp or prison overseers during [[World War II]]. Most follow the [[Women-in-prison film|women-in-prison formula]], relocated to a [[concentration camp]], an [[extermination camp]], or a Nazi [[brothel]], with an added emphasis on [[Sadomasochism|sadism]], [[Graphic violence|gore]], and [[Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment|degradation]]. The most infamous and influential title (which set the standards of the genre) is a Canadian production, ''[[Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS]]'' (1974). Its surprise success and that of ''[[Salon Kitty (film)|Salon Kitty]]'' and ''[[The Night Porter]]'' led European filmmakers, mostly in [[Italy]], to produce similar films, with just over a dozen being released over the next few years. Globally exported to both cinema and VHS, the films were critically attacked and heavily [[censored]], and the sub-genre had all but vanished by the end of the 1970s.
In Italy, these films are known as part of the "il sadiconazista" cycle, which were inspired by such [[art-house]] films as [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]]'s ''[[Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom]]'' (1975), and [[Tinto Brass]]'s ''[[Salon Kitty (film)|Salon Kitty]]'' (1976).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hughes |first=Howard |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Cinema_Italiano.html?id=btuRDwAAQBAJ |title=Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult |date=2011-04-30 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-0-85771-978-2 |edition=1st |language=en}}</ref> Prominent directors of the genre include [[Paolo Solvay]] (''[[La Bestia in Calore]]'', also known as ''The Beast in Heat'' and ''SS Hell Camp''), [[Cesare Canevari]] (''[[Last Orgy of the Third Reich]]'', also known as ''L'ultima orgia del III Reich'', ''Gestapo's Last Orgy'' and ''Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler''), and [[Alain Payet]] (''[[Train spécial pour SS]]'', also known as ''Special Train for Hitler'' and ''Helltrain''), all from 1977.
==History== Italian directors pioneered a blend of sexual imagery and Nazi themes. This can be found as early as 1945 in ''[[Rome, Open City]]'' by [[Roberto Rossellini]]. Another Rossellini film, ''[[Germany, Year Zero]]'' (1948), connects Nazism with [[pedophilia]]. The controversial art-house production ''[[The Damned (1969 film)|The Damned]]'' (1969), directed by [[Luchino Visconti]], about the rise and fall of a German industrialist family in the Third Reich, is also a major influence on the genre. The film features an orgy of homosexual SA-Men. It depicts one of the main characters as a troubled pervert posing in a transvestite outfit, molesting little girls, and committing incest with his mother.
Other early examples that combine sexual themes and Nazism include the West German productions ''[[Des Teufels General]]'' (''The Devil's General'') (1955) by [[Helmut Käutner]] and ''{{ill|Lebensborn (film)|de|3=Lebensborn (Film)|lt=Lebensborn}}'' (''Ordered to Love'') (1961). The French art-house film ''[[Vice and Virtue]]'' (1963), directed by [[Roger Vadim]], is a stylized retelling of the [[Marquis de Sade]]'s ''[[Justine (de Sade novel)|Justine]]'' set during the Nazi occupation of France. This is a subtle and satirical rendering that only hints at the sexual depravity explicit in the original novel.
The critically acclaimed 1964 film ''[[The Pawnbroker (film)|The Pawnbroker]]'' includes a [[flashback (narrative)|flashback]] scene showing nude women kept in a concentration camp brothel. The Italian [[Giallo]] thriller ''[[In the Folds of the Flesh]]'' (also known as ''Nelle pieghe della carne'', 1970) has a similar flashback sequence with attractive nude women being herded into a Nazi [[gas chamber]]. However, the earliest full-blown [[sexploitation]] film set in a Nazi camp was ''[[Love Camp 7]]'' (1969). The film can also be viewed as a precursor to the similarly themed [[women-in-prison film|women-in-prison]] genre which was initially popularized by [[Roger Corman]]'s ''[[The Big Doll House]]'' (1971).
''Love Camp 7'' established the pattern for the many films that followed. The story resembles a "true adventure" pulp yarn from a [[men's adventure]] magazine of the period (''Man's Story, Men Today, World of Men'', ''Man's Epic'', et al.). In order to rescue a Jewish scientist, two female agents infiltrate a Nazi [[Joy Division (WWII)|Joy Division]] camp, where prisoners are kept as sex slaves for German officers. There are scenes of boot-licking humiliation, whipping, torture, lesbianism, and near-rape, culminating in a violent and bloody escape. The stock characters include a cruel and perverse commandant, a lesbian doctor, sadistic guards who freely abuse the prisoners, and a sympathetic German who tries to help the captive women.
The theme of Nazi sexual abuse continued in the sleazy, violent drive-in programmer ''The Cut-Throats'' (1969) and ''Torture Me, Kiss Me'' (1970), a low-budget, black-and-white B-movie about sadistic Nazi officers tormenting female civilians (including fetishistic flogging scenes) in occupied France.
===The ''Ilsa'' influence===
Producer [[David F. Friedman]] had a small acting role in ''Love Camp 7''. He went on to produce ''[[Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS]]'' in 1974. ''Ilsa'' was unique in that the camp commandant was a sexy, sex-crazed woman played by the busty and frequently nude [[Dyanne Thorne]]. Between sex scenes, Ilsa subjects her male and female inmates to horrific scientific tests, much like [[Josef Mengele]]'s notorious [[Nazi human experimentation]] at [[Auschwitz]]. Some of the tests on hypothermia and pressure-chamber endurance were factual, while others were pure fantasy.
The character is also loosely based on "The Witch of Buchenwald", [[Ilse Koch]], the wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Koch was known for having perverse sexual dalliances with the prisoners and was rumored to have had [[lampshades made from human skin]].
''Ilsa'' includes the standard elements of sadism, degradation, whipping, sexual slavery, graphic torture, and a bloody finale where Ilsa is shot dead and the camp is set ablaze. The film was a surprise hit on the drive-in theater and [[grindhouse]] circuit. Ilsa was resurrected for three profitable sequels that ignored the original film's Nazi origins and are closer in nature to the women-in-prison genre. As a freelance mistress-for-hire, she became a harem manager in ''[[Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks]]'' (1976), commander of a 1953 gulag in ''[[Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia]]'' (1977), and the warden of a corrupt Latin-American prison in ''[[Ilsa, the Wicked Warden]]'' (1977).
===Nazi films from Italy and France===
Meanwhile, European filmmakers were creating their own lurid Nazi movies with Ilsa-type villains. In 1977, [[Malisa Longo]] starred in ''[[Helga, She Wolf of Stilberg]]'' as a black-booted, leather-clad, sexually sadistic commander of a prison camp for women. That year, Longo also starred in the ''Salon Kitty''-inspired ''[[Fräulein Devil]]'' (also known as ''Elsa: Fraulein SS'') as Elsa, a former hooker with a penchant for S&M, who manages a Nazi brothel train. This was filmed [[Back to back film production|back-to-back]] with ''Hitler's Last Train'' (also known as ''Special Train for the SS'', ''Helltrain'' and ''Love Train for the SS'', 1977). These films, plus ''Nathalie: Escape from Hell'' (1978), were produced by the French studio Eurociné.
One of the most notorious films in this genre is ''[[La Bestia in Calore]]'' (also known as ''SS Hell Camp'' and ''The Beast In Heat''), produced in Italy in 1977. German actress Macha Magall played Dr. Ellen Kratsch, another icy blond Nazi who is sexy, yet thoroughly evil. This film, with its extensive and graphic scenes of torture, brutality and rape, was initially banned in England. A milder, edited version was released in the U.S. as ''SS Experiment Camp 2''. Magall was also in ''[[SS Girls]]'' (1977), another story set in a Nazi brothel.
The Nazi exploitation subgenre presented an opportunity for Italian studios to make very low-cost horror pictures whilst tapping a previously ignored market: the exploitation war film. The Italian films are different from "Ilsa" in many ways; for instance, they focus on far more extreme aspects of human abuse.
The films of 1976 include Sergio Garrone's ''[[SS Experiment Camp]]'' (also known as ''SS Experiment Love Camp''), depicting soft-core sex scenes and the castration of an SS officer''; SS Hell Camp'', Luigi Batzella's second Nazi film, featured a sexually crazed mutant created by an Ilsa-like Nazi scientist; ''[[SS Girls]]'', directed by [[Bruno Mattei]], is a blatant copy of ''Salon Kitty''. Mattei also made ''Women's Camp 119'' starring [[Lorraine De Selle]], a film based on actual documents which depicts horrific scientific experiments performed on prisoners; ''[[SS Special Section Women]]'', which stars [[John Steiner]] as a sex-crazed SS commandant whose love for a Jewish girl causes him to be castrated as punishment; and ''Achtung! The Desert Tigers'', from [[Luigi Batzella]], which is interwoven with stock footage and scenes at a Nazi camp in the desert where tortures abound.
1977 saw the release of ''[[Last Orgy of the Third Reich|Gestapo's Last Orgy]]'' (also known as ''Last Orgy of the Third Reich'' and ''Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler''), which depicts a love affair between a camp Commandant and a prisoner. ''SS Camp 5: Women’s Hell'' is ''SS Experiment Camp's'' sister film featuring the same cast and crew. ''[[Red Nights of the Gestapo]]'' is a soft-core sex film with SS soldiers abusing women in a castle. ''[[Nazi Love Camp 27]]'', starring [[Sirpa Lane]] as a Jewish girl forced into a brothel, is notable for its hardcore sex scenes and for being written by famed scripter [[Gianfranco Clerici]].
By the end of the decade the genre had run its course.
===Nazi pornography===
Adult films also exploited Nazi scenarios in a string of sadomasochistic "roughie" pornographic films in the 1970s and early 1980s. Examples include the [[Mitchell brothers]]' ''Hot Nazis'', ''Hitler's Harlot'' (1973), and 1980's ''Nazi Love Island'' (also known as ''Prisoner of Paradise'') with [[John Holmes (pornographic actor)|John Holmes]] and [[Seka (actress)|Seka]]. One of the last entries, ''Stalag 69'' (1982), stars [[Angelique Pettyjohn]] as an Ilsa-type SS officer. The story was largely a remake of ''Love Camp 7'', bringing the cycle back to its origins. The genre remained mostly dormant for the next two decades. In 2006, Mood Pictures, a Hungarian producer of S&M films, released ''Gestapo'', ''Gestapo 2'', and ''Dr. Mengele'' in 2008, all of which are set in a Nazi prison camp and pay homage to ''Ilsa'' and the Italian exploitation films.
===Present===
In 2007, as part of [[Robert Rodriguez]] and [[Quentin Tarantino]]'s tribute to exploitation cinema, ''[[Grindhouse (film)|Grindhouse]]'', director [[Rob Zombie]] created a trailer for a fake film called [[Grindhouse (film)#Werewolf Women of the SS|''Werewolf Women of the SS'']], starring [[Nicolas Cage]] and [[Udo Kier]]. According to Zombie, "Basically, I had two ideas. It was either going to be a Nazi movie or a [[women-in-prison film]], and I went with the Nazis. There's all those movies like ''[[Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS]]''; ''[[Fräulein Devil]]''; and ''[[Love Camp 7]]''—I've always found that to be the most bizarre genre." On December 18, 2007, Zombie posted an entry on his [[MySpace]] page, asking if people would want to see a [[feature-length]] version of ''Werewolf Women of the SS''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.myspace.com/robzombie |title=A Werewolf Women question |access-date=2007-12-21 |publisher=[[MySpace]]}}</ref> ''[[Iron Sky]]'' and ''[[Nazis at the Center of the Earth]]'' (both released in 2012) are in a similar vein.
==Themes== Most of the Nazi exploitation films have [[stalag]] settings with young female inmates like ''[[Women's Camp 119]]''. Their tormentors are female or male [[Nazi]] officers in [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] uniforms, usually speaking with a fake German accent and irrelevant or mispronounced [[German language|German]] words, who often use "experiments" as excuses to implement sadistic physical violence (perhaps inspired by the work of people like [[Josef Mengele]], who performed [[Nazi human experimentation|medical experiments]] that often killed people). There are scenes of sexual conduct or, more routinely, exposed nude bodies of the victimised inmates. The level of violence depicted in these films may often reach the level of [[Splatter film|gore]].
This genre mainly focused on female SS officers. It presented them as lusty and buxom women, such as Dyanne Thorne's Ilsa, who also sexually abused their male prisoners (mainly in [[non-statutory female-on-male rape]] fashion). As the setting is a Stalag ([[prisoner-of-war camp]]), not a concentration camp, the prisoners are mainly Allied soldiers, not Jewish civilians.
There are also many films that do not follow the conventions of Nazi exploitation, such as ''Bordel SS'' (1978) of [[José Bénazéraf]] (one of the very few Nazi exploitation films to hold the dubious honor of having actual [[hardcore sex]]) and ''[[Salon Kitty (film)|Salon Kitty]]'' (1976) of [[Tinto Brass]]. These films are not usually considered as "prototypical" Nazi exploitation films and qualify more for the "[[Art film|art house]]" subgenre. However, because of the vague term, even the film ''Il portiere di notte'' (''[[The Night Porter]]'') (1974) by [[Liliana Cavani]] that (in the opinion of many) lacks the exploitation motive, may be deemed one such film.
== Reception == Nazi exploitation is discussed by the critic [[Serge Daney]] in his article "Le travelling de Kapo": "It was [[Jean-Luc Godard|Godard]] who, showing me a few tapes of "concentration camp porn" tucked away in a corner of his video library in [[Rolle]], expressed surprise one day that no one had spoken out against such films or issued any bans. As if the baseness of their makers' intentions and the triviality of their consumers' fantasies somehow "protected" them from censorship and outrage."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Daney |first=Serge |author-link=Serge Daney |date=1992 |title=Le travelling de Kapo |journal=[[Trafic (journal)|Trafic]] |issue=4 |pages=5-19}}</ref>
Laura Frost's book ''Sex Drives: Fantasies of Fascism in Literary Modernism'' (2002) ({{ISBN|0801487641}}) says that the genre is part of a problematic attempt to link political deviance (i.e. [[fascism]], [[militarism]], [[genocide]]) with sexual deviance (i.e. [[sadomasochism]], [[homosexuality]], [[transvestism]], [[pedophilia]]).
==Legal status in the United Kingdom== Sometime in the early 1980s, Nazi exploitation films made their way onto the [[United Kingdom|British]] market, made popular by the growing [[VHS]] home video technology. With major [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] studios steering clear of the new format, it was left to small, domestic companies to populate the shelves with tapes. A small company from [[England]], [[GO Video]], purchased the rights to an Italian film named ''SS Experiment Camp''. The company ran a marketing campaign with full-page ads showing a naked woman hanging from her feet, a [[swastika]] dangling from her wrist and an [[SS]] commander looming in the background. Advertisements for the film in [[video rental]] stores became a target for protestors, who picketed such stores and petitioned for the film to be banned. After the [[Video Recordings Act 1984|Video Recordings Act]], most of the Nazi exploitation films (labelled 'Nazi [[Video nasty|Nasties]]') were denied [[BBFC]] classifications. The following Nazi exploitation films were taken off the shelves:
* ''[[SS Experiment Camp]]'' (''SS Experiment''/''Lager SSadis Kastrat Kommandantur'') * ''[[La Bestia in Calore|The Beast In Heat]]'' (''SS Hell Camp''/''La Bestia in Calore'') * ''[[Last Orgy of the Third Reich|Gestapo's Last Orgy]]'' (''Last Orgy of The Third Reich''/''Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler''/''L'ultima orgia del III Reich''). This was most recently, in 2021, refused a DVD release by the [[BBFC]]. * ''[[Love Camp 7]]'' * ''[[Deported Women of the SS Special Section]]'' (''Le Deportate della sezione speciale SS'') *''[[Nazi Love Camp 27]]'' was refused a cinema certificate in 1977.
Of the above films, only ''SS Experiment Camp'' is now available in the [[U.K.]]
==Israeli literature== [[Literature of Israel|In Israel]] specifically, during the 1960s, "[[Stalag fiction]]" was pocket books whose stories focused on the unique features of this genre. The phenomenon took ground in parallel to the 1961 [[Eichmann Trial#Trial|Eichmann trial]]. Sales of this pornographic literature broke all records in Israel as hundreds of thousands of copies were sold at kiosks.<ref name="NYTimes">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/middleeast/06stalags.html |title=Israel's Unexpected Spinoff From a Holocaust Trial |first=Isabel |last=Kershner |newspaper=New York Times |date=September 6, 2007 |access-date=February 20, 2011}}</ref> They were inspired by [[Ka-tzetnik 135633]]'s ''[[House of Dolls]]'', the experiences of a Jewish girl prostituted in the "Joy Division" ([[Block 24]]) of the [[Auschwitz]] camp, the factuality of which is disputed.<ref name="NYTimes"/>
==See also== * [[:Category:Nazi exploitation films]] * [[Films dealing with Nazism and sexuality]] * [[Nazi chic]] * [[Nazi zombies]] * [[Stalag fiction]] * [[World War II in popular culture]] * [[Waffen-SS in popular culture]] * [[Nazi memorabilia]] * [[Murderabilia]]
==References== <references/>
==Further reading== * Buttsworth, Sara, and Maartje Abbenhuis (eds.) ''Monsters in The Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-War Popular Culture''. [[Westport, Connecticut|Westport]]: [[Greenwood Publishing Group]], 2010. {{ISBN|978-0-313-38216-1}} * [[Evers, Florian]].''Vexierbilder des Holocaust''. [[Munich]]: L.I.T. Verlag, 2011. {{ISBN|978-36-43111-906}} * Magilow, Daniel H., Elizabeth Bridges, and Kristin T. Vander Lugt (eds.) ''Nazisploitation!: The Nazi Image in Low-Brow Cinema and Culture''. [[New York City]]: Continuum, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-441-18359-0}} * [[Roy, Pinaki]]. “''Incarcerated Fantasies'': Women in Nazisploitation Films”. ''Portrayal of Women in Media and Literature''. Eds. Nawale, A., S. Vashist, and P. Roy. [[New Delhi]]: Access, 2013 ({{ISBN|978-93-82647-01-0}}). Pp. 23–33.
==External links== * [http://popfiction.com/handsoftime/html/she/thenazi.html Popfiction.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111003041628/http://popfiction.com/handsoftime/html/she/thenazi.html |date=2011-10-03 }} Nazi Exploitation Cinema * [http://www.ikonenmagazin.de/artikel/sadiconazista.htm Sadiconazista] Analytical essay on Nazi exploitation films
{{Exploitation film}} {{Nazism}} {{film genres}} {{Italian film genres}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nazi Exploitation}} [[Category:Exploitation films]] [[Category:Nazi exploitation| ]]