The Alps as "Lebensraum"—Cinematic Representations of the Alpine War and the South Tyrol Question in 1930s Germany

This essay reads the mountain (war) films Berge in Flammen (The Doomed Battalion, 1931) and Standschütze Bruggler (Militiaman Bruggler, 1936) as cinematic renationalizations of the South Tyrol territory prior to and after the Nazi takeover. Alongside a flurry of publications in the early 1930s about the Alpine War by writers like Luis Trenker, Fritz Weber, and Anton Graf Bossi Fedrigotti, the films are influenced by the then rampant discussions concerning living space and panGerman geopolitics, including pressing questions about the Italianization of South Tyrol under Mussolini's fascists. The genre of the mountain film was increasingly utilized to mobilize and militarize the German population.