The Old Greenbelt Theatre’s free 80th anniversary matinee series will conclude this Sunday, May 27, at noon with a showing of a 35mm print of the anti-war masterpiece All Quiet On The Western Front. Based on the international best-seller by Erich Maria Remarque, the 1930 film (running time 2 hours, 36 minutes) is a searing indictment of war. The anniversary showing of the film is sponsored by American Legion Post 136, along with Colorlab, the sponsor of the entire Films For A Better Tomorrow series.
Set during the final weeks of the First World War, the story concerns a group of idealistic German students who enlist in the army and are sent to the front lines. The brutality of trench warfare impels them to see through the jingoistic nationalism spouted by their political leaders. Remarque drew on his own experience as an infantryman during the war.
The film’s depiction of war conflicted with the propaganda of the rising Nazi movement, making the film a target for Joseph Goebbels. During the film’s initial run in Berlin, Goebbels led 150 Nazi Brownshirts into the theater to disrupt the screening and intimidate the audience. After Hitler took power in 1933, the Nazis made it a crime to own a copy of Remarque’s novel.
The film was shown in Greenbelt on May 30, 1940, which was Memorial Day – or, as it was frequently called at that time, Decoration Day, a reference to the custom of visiting graves and decorating them with flowers. The Second World War was underway, and Americans were debating whether the United States should enter the conflict to assist the Allies against the onslaught of the Nazis. Greenbelters held differing views, which are preserved in the newspaper archive for current Greenbelters to peruse.
On the front page of the May 23, 1940 issue, the Greenbelt Cooperator took the remarkable step of publishing a symposium editorial, setting forth the thoughts of 16 community leaders on the question of the war. A majority of the leaders were then opposed to sending American troops into what they characterized as a European conflict. In the words of Town Council member Ruth Taylor, the previous war had taught a “bitter lesson.”
Greenbelt Citizens Association president J.E. Bargas acknowledged that “in light of our experience in the last World War,” nobody relished the prospect of sending an expeditionary force to Europe. In his view, however, the recent devastating success of the Nazi blitzkrieg meant that Americans could no longer be complacent. He wrote, “[W]e were horrified at the seeming ease with which the low countries were overrun, and France’s impregnable Maginot line penetrated, and the destruction brought to neutrals. Suddenly, we realize that here is a force for destruction the Allies may not be able to stop. And after the Allies – what?”
Ultimately, America entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941. Fifteen men from Greenbelt lost their lives serving in the war. Their names are inscribed on the granite memorial on the Centerway greensward, less than a block from the Old Greenbelt Theatre. Thus, citizens can combine the viewing of the film with a pilgrimage to the memorial, where a wreath will be laid the following day at 11 a.m. by members of the Legion. The May 23, 1940 symposium editorial can be viewed in the archives section of the News Review’s website at greenbeltnewsreview.com.