Mädchen in Uniform’s Revolutionary Lessons

Or, What Can the World’s First Lesbian Film Tell Us About Lesbian History?

On November 27, 1931, Mädchen in Uniform, often considered the first-ever lesbian film, was released in Germany. The film takes place at an all-girls boarding school and follows a new student who falls in love with her teacher. Mädchen was directed by a Jewish woman, Leontine Sagan, who prior to the film worked in theater, and produced by Carl Froelich, an influential director who would go on to work under the Nazi party. That the world’s first lesbian film was produced this early on in film history is actually not as surprising as one might think. Indeed, the very existence of this film (as well as the splendid substance of its composition) might cause us to take pause, reconsidering the history of lesbian media and lesbian culture more broadly. 

The context in which Mädchen was made is important. The film was made in Weimar Berlin, during a German period following WWI that was marked by radically progressive ideas, particularly in regards to sexuality. Berlin in particular was a hotspot for queer people, lesbians included. Historian Brendan Nash calls Berlin “the lesbian capital of the world” at this time, noting that the lesbian culture in the city included “2 weekly newspapers, 12 social clubs, 2 ice skating leagues, a nudist retreat, 3 outdoor sports associations, 6 magazines, and as many as 50 bars and clubs.” This is also the period in which legendary bisexual actress Marlene Dietrich – who would go on to become a sapphic icon for films such as Morocco, which features the so-called “first lesbian kiss” on-screen – spent her youth. All of these venues and associations were shuttered when the Nazis came to power in 1933, less than a year-and-a-half after Mädchen premiered. 

That the film – which at its heart is an anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist treatise – was released just before the Nazis rose to power, is also telling. The film’s continued existence is something of a marvel in and of itself. As Amanda Lee Keo informs us in her Criterion essay on the film, Hitler’s cultural minister, Joseph Goebbels, “ordered all prints of Mädchen in Uniform burned, but this “degenerate” film survived by dint of the existing copies already circulating outside Germany.” The cast and crew of the film also faced consequences following the rize of the Nazis. Director Leontine Sagan initially fled to England and then settled in South Africa, the film’s writer, Christa Winsloe, who was openly bisexual, fled to France and joined the French Resistance, and the film’s star, Hertha Thiele, fled to Switzerland after refusing to make Nazi propaganda. Other members of the cast and crew, a number of whom were Jewish, certainly did not fare as well. 

School troublemaker, Ilse (right) telling Manuela (left) not to fall in love with Miss von Bernburg.

The narrative of Mädchen is undoubtedly subversive, even by today’s standards. The film was based on a play by Christa Winsloe titled Yesterday and Today, which was changed to Mädchen in Uniform by producer Carl Froelich in order to sound more titillating. The film takes place at a boarding school for daughters of Prussian military officers and follows the school’s newest pupil, a 14-year-old named Manuela (Hertha Thiele, who was actually 22 at the time). Upon arriving at the school, Manuela quickly falls in love with one of her teachers, Miss von Bernburg, a woman who all of the girls seem to have a crush on. (Manuela is explicitly warned by the other girls about von Bernburg’s amorous influence as soon as she sets foot in the school). 

The film has a very strong anti-authoritarian message, which, at the time, was emphasized by critics much more so than the film’s (very explicit) lesbian elements. The school is run by a very strict headmistress who wants to drill traditional Prussian values into her pupils – obedience and subservience chief among them. Manuela’s lesbian desire, thus, is a threat to these values and the discipline that the headmistress requires. Indeed, lesbian desire stands in contradiction to these patriarchal values that see women only as vessels of reproduction, and the girls’ hunger for love and affection challenges the headmistress’ dedication to restraint and self-control. The theme of hunger permeates the film, as the girls complain about not being fed enough and even attempt to send contraband letters to their parents complaining about their starved conditions. Manuela’s love for von Bernburg is similarly ravenous, and she even spills the beans and tells the whole school how she feels when she gets too drunk one night after a school play, leading to the film’s climactic final act. 

In one of Mädchen’s most overtly queer scenes, von Bernburg comes in to say goodnight to the girls, a routine all but Manuela are familiar with. Each girl kneels on the end of her bed like an eager puppy, waiting until Miss von Bernburg comes around to kiss them on the forehead. Manuela, already overcome with adoration and desire, foregoes the usual routine and wraps Miss von Bernburg in a crushing hug. Instead of chastising Manuela for her outsized display of affection, von Bernburg rewards her with a full-on kiss on the lips. Though Froelich reportedly wanted to de-emphasize the lesbian elements of the film in order to appeal to a wider audience, scenes such as these make the film’s lesbian premise difficult to ignore. (And indeed, in ignoring the film’s lesbianism, one also misses a central element of its anti-authoritarian, anti-patriarchal message). 

The famous kiss between Manuela (right) and Miss von Bernburg (left). Note the soft focus and the backlighting, which creates a halo effect around the women.

After Manuela drunkenly declares her love for von Bernburg (breaking the implied code of secrecy around the teacher’s amorous effect on her students), the headmistress puts Manuela in isolation, refusing to let the other girls see or speak to her. Understandably, this has a negative effect on Manuela, who doesn’t realize what she’s done wrong. In her last conversation with von Bernburg, in which the teacher seems to imply that Manuela’s feelings are reciprocated, von Bernburg tells her she must stop what she is feeling, that she must be cured. Manuela replies “Cured? Of what?” At this point Manuela’s mental state deteriorates even further, and as the girls frantically run through the halls looking for her, fearing something is wrong, Manuela tries to kill herself by jumping off the schools’ grand staircase (a central motif in the film). Luckily, the girls get there in time to save her, just as von Bernburg has a psychic vision of what Manuela is about to do, signified by a stunning cross-fade between von Bernburg and Manuela’s faces. (A technique that was famously used decades later in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona). 

In the play, Manuela does actually succeed in killing herself, an ending that would have given the film a much different message. Instead, the film ends with the girls triumphant, lining the staircase with revolution written on their faces, as the headmistress walks down a dark hallway, alone. The girls – along with their powerful desires and collective longing to be free – have won, at least for now. As B. Ruby Rich writes in her seminal 1981 article about the film, the “cliffhanger ending is at once a powerful statement of political resistance, both individual and collective, and a validation of lesbianism as a personal and public right.” Indeed, it is almost impossible to view the film now without seeing the intrinsic connection between the film’s two themes – anti-authoritarianism and lesbianism – fundamental as they are to the film’s moral center. 

Manuela giving her drunken speech to the girls after the play. Importantly, the play gives many of the girls the opportunity to dress in drag – as Manuela is here, having just played Don Carlos – and Manuela’s amorous monologue in the play allows her to express her feelings for von Bernburg while wearing this princely costume.

Though the final act of the film is fairly dark and foreboding, Mädchen is also interspersed with many wonderful moments of girlhood joy. A particularly ebullient montage depicts the girls in a bathroom together in various states of undress, chatting and innocently (or not so innocently, depending on how you look at it) enjoying each other’s company in this intimate setting. The scene is filmed as a tracking shot, the roving pan slowly revealing the full picture of these private moments. 

Scenes like these illustrate the film’s emphasis on girlhood camaraderie and kinship, or as one lesbian director puts it, the idea of sororité. Céline Sciamma, director of the lesbian masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire, maintains that her film, which also depicts a world entirely devoid of men, embodies this idea of sororité. In Portrait. Sciamma depicts this idea through various wide shots of the three main characters, such as a particularly striking one that sees all three women in the kitchen, sans hierarchy. In Mädchen, sororité is embodied in a similar way, in wide, roving shots that take place in the bathrooms or in the girls’ dorms, illustrating not only the kinship they feel with one another but also the crucial absence of men in this configuration.

Wonderfully artful in its composition, the film also illustrates its thematic elements in a unique cinematic language¹. An early sound film, it has since been appreciated as a sophisticated use of this new technology, utilizing both cacophony – such as when the girls sing in the choir, or giggle in the halls or dorms – and silence – such as the final scene when the headmistress reaches the stairwell and takes in the dramatic scene before her  – to a powerful effect. Sagan also utilized some wonderful tracking shots, as I mentioned above, in addition to several very powerful shot reverse shots² that emphasize the heightened desire between Manuela and von Bernburg. Many of the most pivotal scenes in the film are shot as close-ups in soft focus, emphasizing both the emotional state of the characters and the romantic, feminine tint of their relationships. As Amanda Lee Koe puts it, these thematic elements, which are also illustrated visually, are not simply superficial artistic choices. She writes:

“Girlhood kinship is not affect or aesthetic, but an agent of femme solidarity and queer allyship. In the face of a coercive apparatus, tender camaraderie is practiced as nothing less than political warfare. Softness is hardcore.” 

One of the bathroom scenes. Note the defiant positioning of the girls, with many taking protective stances.

Unsurprisingly – considering its achievements in both cinema and lesbian storytelling – Mädchen in Uniform has continued to be an influential work, even though its name is not a household one. Upon its release in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, Hertha Thiele became an immediate lesbian heartthrob, receiving thousands of letters and fan mail from across the continent. Though the film’s reviewers at the time de-emphasized the film’s lesbian themes and highlighted only its anti-authoritarian ones (a reading of the film that persisted for decades), the immediate sapphic response to the film quickly dispels the idea that Mädchen was ever not a lesbian film. (Though Thiele did indeed become a star after the film’s release, she maintains that Dietrich was much more of a sex symbol than she ever was because, by her estimation, Marlene’s films were more ostentatious, and, as she puts it, attractively “reprehensible” than something as comparatively tame as Mädchen in Uniform). 

The film was eventually released in the U.S. in 1932, though it was almost banned entirely by U.S. censors who thought it was “totally unsuitable for showing in any theater.” (Some of the more overt lesbian scenes in the film were ultimately edited out in the final U.S. version). The film’s U.S. release was only made possible by none other than Eleanor Roosevelt, who was an ardent fan of the film (and famously sapphic herself). The popularity of the film was duly noted by some in Hollywood, including the producers of Queen Christina, starring Greta Garbo (famously rumored to have had an affair with Dietrich a decade earlier in Berlin), whose lesbian elements were reportedly added as a nod to the popularity of Mädchen in Uniform. Always one to do her part for the sapphic community, Dietrich wore a suit to the film’s U.S. premiere.

Miss von Bernburg defying the headmistress.

Mädchen also inspired several remakes, including a 1951 Mexican remake, considered by some to be the first Mexican lesbian film, a 1958 West German remake (starring a Jewish lesbian – who was also the lover of famous lesbian actress and writer Erika Mann, who was in the original film – as the headmistress), a 1967 British tv remake on the BBC, and a 1974 filmed broadcast of a revival of the play in Berlin. Since the film’s release, the girls’ boarding school drama has almost become a genre in and of itself, with many lesbian descendants. For example, the French film Olivia (1951), which contains many similar themes to Mädchen, The Children’s Hour (1961), starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, Lost and Delirious (2001), a pre-Imagine Me and You Piper Perabo vehicle, and the hokey lesbian classic Loving Annabelle (2006). (Like Mädchen, two of the four aforementioned films also end with (successful) suicide attempts). 

As film historian Jenni Olson says in the Criterion commentary³ for the film, though Mädchen is generally understood to be the first lesbian film ever made, “it also transcends that label,” and is simultaneously a staunchly anti-authoritarian, anti-fascist film that reflects the cultural milieu of its time. Indeed, there is much we can learn from Mädchen, as it is a film that can modify our understanding of lesbian history in its sapphic persistence. Though we often think of that nebulous period known as “the past” as being principally less progressive than the present, Mädchen’s existence (and relative success) in the early days of sound film proves this hypothesis wrong. At the same time, Hitler’s rise directly following the film’s release jarringly clarifies the pressing significance of artistic resistance and collective action.

Rather than viewing history as a linear escalation of progress, a more prudent view would understand cultural transformation as a more volatile force. In this instance, Mädchen in Uniform stands as a prescient time capsule of a period that feels almost impossible to comprehend. Rich contends that rather than being a curious blip in history, Mädchen is instead “an archaeological relic pointing back to an obliterated people,” something that can teach us about ourselves and give us some much-needed perspective on where we’ve come from. “When we reflect back on the vibrant lesbian subculture that flourished in Weimar Berlin at this time,” Rich writes, Mädchen emerges “not as an anomaly, but as a survivor.” Certainly, the arc of history bends, but in different directions than we might have imagined. As the beneficiaries of this cultural vortex, it’s our job to sort through the rubble and clear away the haze. Who knows what we might find.

1. Much of the film’s style – most notably its use of montage – is certainly influenced by the Soviet style of filmmaking. Montage was a style filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein used to differentiate the filmic medium from theater.

2. A shot reverse shot is a common filmmaking technique wherein the camera is initially placed to show the perspective of one character, and then the next shot is used to show the perspective of another character – ie. the reverse view of the initial shot. This is a common way to film conversation scenes between two characters.

3. A restored version of the film is streaming on the Criterion Channel, including the version with Olson’s commentary. There is also a lower quality version on YouTube, but if you’re interested in watching the film I would recommend at least getting a trial of Criterion Channel so you can watch the restored version – the quality is far superior (and worth it to see the striking visual elements I mentioned).