The Wonderful World of Hans Fischerkoesen

A few years ago I discovered and became a big fan of the German cartoonist Hans Fischerkoesen.

Fischerkoesen established his own production company in the 1920s and specialized in advertising cartoons that were shown between features in cinemas. Though Fischerkoesen was very much not a supporter of the National Socialist regime, the advertising nature of his output enabled him to work without a lot of interference from Nazi censors. In 1941, however, Propaganda Minister Goebbels ordered him to collaborate with the German film monopoly UFA for the production of propaganda films - and in those films he was able to sneak in very subtle and implicit jabs against the Nazis. At the end of the war he was arrested by Russian troops on suspicion of being a Nazi collaborator and was held for three years at Sachsenhausen, a former Nazi concentration camp that had been taken over and put back into use by the Russians. In 1948 Fischerkoesen was tried, exonerated and released. Since he was not a communist, however, he was not permitted to work in the East German film industry. He and his wife managed to escape to West Germany where he was able to resume making advertising films and did so through 1969. He died in 1973.

Fisherkoesen's cartoons have an incredible charm about them. Here is one of my favorites. It is a 1937 advertisement for Phillips light bulbs. I especially enjoy the scenes of the animals, insects and flowers.




Here is a 1933 cigarette advertisement in black and white where cigarette smoke is transformed into a ballet:



Finally, here is one of Fischerkoesen's most famous cartoons, Weather Beaten Melody from 1942. The premise of the cartoon is a bee who discovers an abandoned phonograph player left over from a pre-war picnic and is able to revive the spirit of happier and less troubled times. A rather lengthy article at this link talks about some of the implicit anti-Nazi elements in the cartoon - though, in some cases, I think the author is stretching things a bit. Here, too, the scenes featuring assorted animals, insects and plant are very well done and actually have a three dimensional aspect to them as a result of then state-of-the-art stereo animation techniques. It must have been something to see on a big screen in a theater.



You can view a few more Fischerkoesen cartoons by entering his name into a search box on YouTube. Some of the others I did not include here are his post-War efforts which, while well done, strike me as being much more low budget.