‘The Director’
By Daniel Kehlmann
Summit Books, 2025

Garbo to Goebbels, Daniel Kehlmann’s historical novel “The Director” is the story of Austrian film director G.W. Pabst (1885-1967) and his descent down a crooked staircase of ambition into collaboration with Adolph Hitler’s film industry and its Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Kehlmann’s historical fiction is rooted in the world of Weimar German filmmaking and Nazi “Aryan” cinema, but it is a searing story for our challenging time as well.

Pabst was a legendary silent film director from the Weimar Republic’s Golden Era of filmmaking. He “discovered” Greta Garbo; directed silent screen star Louise Brooks; worked with Hitler’s favored director Leni Riefenstahl (“Triumph of the Will”); was a close friend of Fritz Lang (“Metropolis”); and lived in Hollywood among the refugee German film community, poolside with Billy Wilder (“Some Like it Hot”) and Fred Zinnemann (“High Noon”) — both of whose families perished in the Holocaust. 

Yet, Pabst left the safety of a life and career in Los Angeles and returned to Nazi Germany in pursuit of his former glory. He felt the studios were giving him terrible scripts and not permitting him to cast his films as he wished. Then he received a signal that he would be welcome in Nazi Germany. He was not Jewish.

Kehlmann, whose father at age 17 was sent to a concentration camp and survived, takes the reader inside each station of Pabst’s passage from Hollywood frustration to moral ruin, making the incremental compromises that collectively land him in the hellish Berlin office of Joseph Goebbels. In an unforgettably phantasmagoric scene, Goebbels triples the stakes with the aging filmmaker, “Consider what I can offer you….a concentration camp. At any time. No problem,” he says. “Or what else…anything you want. Any budget, any actor. Any film you want to make.” Startled, paralyzed and seduced by the horror of such an offer, Pabst accepts not with a signature but a salute: “Heil Hitler,” rises Pabst.  He’s in.

The novel develops the disgusting world of compromise and collaboration when Pabst is called in to co-direct a schlock feature with Hitler’s cinematic soulmate Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl, the “Directress” is making a film based on the Fuhrer’s favorite opera. She is beautiful, electric and beyond weird playing a Spanish dancer who mesmerizes the rustic Austrian locals with her exotic moves. The problem is scores of extras will be needed to surround and desire Fraulein Riefenstahl. Mysteriously, the “extras” arrive surprising Pabst who wonders where she had gotten so many young men when almost everyone was on the front fighting the war. The extras were trucked in from Salzburg, he is told, “Maxglan to be precise.” He pretends not to hear.  Maxglan was a forced labor camp for “racially inferior” Sinti and Roma gypsies, who will later be deported from Austria and exterminated. Pabst does not ask questions. All he wants is their faces, tight black and white shots of their manly, authentic, and hungry features. “You see everything you don’t have,” he exhorts the doomed prisoners to emote for his camera. Great art, he believes, is worth the temporal compromises and enticements that Kehlmann artfully dangles in the director’s face.  And it gets worse.

One collaborates in this world with cynicism born of helpless futility. In Hollywood, Pabst was desperate to develop his own pictures and lure the star who could bless his script, one of the thousands that come their way.  Such was Greta Garbo, “the most beautiful woman in the world” she was called after being filmed by Pabst in the 1920s. He shot her close-ups in slow motion to make her look even more gorgeous and ethereal. Garbo loved Pabst and owed him much, but Kehlmann writes, “Excessive beauty was hard to bear, it burned something in the people around it, it was like a curse.” 

Garbo imagined what it would be like to be “a God or archangel and constantly feel the prayers rising from the depths. There were so many, there was nothing to do but ignore them all.”  Fred Zinnemann, later to direct “High Noon”, explains to his poolside guest, “Life here (in Hollywood) is very good if you learn the game.  We escaped hell, we ought to be rejoicing all day long, but instead we feel sorry for ourselves because we have to make westerns even though we are allergic to horses.”

The texture of history in the novel is rich. So, it was disappointing and puzzling there was not an original gay character, a “degenerate” according to Nazi propaganda, portrayed in Pabst’s theater or filmmaking circles. From Hollywood to Berlin to Vienna, it would have been easy to bring a sexual minority to life on the set. Sexual minorities and gender ambiguity were widely presented in Weimar films. Indeed, in one of Pabst’s films “Pandora’s Box” starring Louise Brooks there was a lesbian subplot. In 1933, when thousands of books written by, and about homosexuals, were looted and thrown onto a Berlin bonfire, Goebbels proclaimed, “No to decadence and moral corruption!” The Pabst era has been de-gayed in “The Director.”

“He had to make films,” Kehlmann cuts to the chase with G.W. Pabst. “There was nothing else he wanted, nothing more important.” Pabst’s long road of compromise, collaboration and moral ruin was traveled in small steps. In a recent interview Kehlmann says the lesson is to “not compromise early when you still have the opportunity to say ‘no.’” Pabst, the director, believed his art would save him. This novel does that in a dark way.

(Charles Francis is President of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., and author of “Archive Activism: Memoir of a ‘Uniquely Nasty’ Journey.”)

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ICE agents murdered another American citizen on the streets of Minneapolis. His murder is both caused, and condoned, by the evil felon in the White House, and his incompetent, and equally evil, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristie Noem. She, the woman who thought nothing of killing her dog, now apparently thinks nothing of killing American citizens. The most recent murder, condoned by both of them, occurred on Jan. 24 and was that of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen.

His grieving parents released a statement, “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand, and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.”

All this occurred amid heightened tensions in the city following recent clashes over federal immigration actions. The chaos in Minneapolis is clearly caused by the federal agents. We have also been told by the Minneapolis police that Pretti had no criminal record beyond minor traffic violations and held a valid Minnesota permit to carry a concealed weapon. His family said they had never seen him carry it. 

The chaos in Minneapolis was heightened after an ICE agent murdered Renee Good, while she was in her car. The agent who shot her was clearly seen in videos to be in no danger. “An autopsy commissioned by the family this month, found that she suffered three clear gunshot wounds, including one to her head, lawyers for her family said Wednesday. One of the injuries was to Good’s left forearm, the lawyers said in a statement, while another gunshot struck her right breast without piercing major organs. Neither of those wounds was immediately life-threatening, the attorneys said. A third shot entered the left side of Good’s head near the temple and exited on the right side, according to the statement, and she also appeared to have sustained a graze wound.”

After both these murders, the felon and his lapdog, Noem, claimed the murders were appropriate as both victims were ‘domestic terrorists.’ In both cases they told Minnesota law enforcement they could not participate in the investigation. Clearly, they don’t want real investigations. It has become crystal clear, the felon in the White House considers anyone who disagrees with him, or his policies, a ‘domestic terrorist’. I, and so many others, consider the felon, and his personal Goebbels, Stephen Miller, along with Noem, and others in his Cabinet, to be the real ‘domestic terrorists.’

In my lifetime, I have never seen a president declare war on American citizens, but that is what this president is doing. He is sending federal agents, including the National Guard, into cities across the nation, to fight with, and threaten to curb, the legal actions of American citizens. He is a clear danger to our democracy, and is being assisted by the Republicans in Congress, and the Supreme Court. They are all guilty of enabling his vicious attacks on all of us. 

When Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down, we all suffered. We were all attacked, when they were attacked. None of us can feel safe if during a legal demonstration, we can be murdered, and no one will step forward to stop it from happening. We live in a country where our Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., is literally killing children by saying they shouldn’t be vaccinated against diseases that can be prevented with a vaccine and by ending research into Alzheimer’s, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. This is the government of the felon, and his campaign against our own people. 

Every person in a minority, or group who has ever been discriminated against, is at risk while the felon is in the White House. Whether you are a woman, Black, Asian, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, or LGBTQ, you are being threatened by this administration, your rights, and even your life, are being threatened. We must all stand together, and work to stop him, or as the poem, “First They Came,” attributed to Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, will prove to be true. There are many versions of the poem and just put your group in any of the paragraphs, and you will clearly understand its meaning. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following text as one of the many poetic versions: 

First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

Reportar sin Miedo es el socio mediático del Washington Blade en Honduras. Esta nota salió en su sitio web el 19 de enero.

Por DORIS GONZÁLEZ * | TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — En la sentencia del caso Leonela Zelaya y otra vs Honduras emitida por la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos se estableció un hito jurisprudencial para las personas LGBTQ en Honduras, así como en la región en relación a las diversas conformaciones de familias existentes. La Corte IDH interpretó por primera vez el concepto de familia social, indicando que la construcción de familia no debe restringirse a la familia nuclear o a nociones tradicionales, bajo el entendido de que hay diferentes formas en las que se materializan los vínculos familiares.

Este análisis se trae a colación debido al contexto de discriminación, prejuicio y violencia que atravesamos las personas LGBTQ, el cual se puede manifestar incluso dentro de nuestras propias familias. Esta violencia se manifiesta a través de actos de odio como ser el desarraigo familiar, violencia física, psicológica, social, económica, expulsiones de los hogares, violaciones correctivas e incluso, culminando en muertes violentas. Esta violencia motivada por la orientación sexual, identidad y expresión de género de las personas imposibilita la convivencia familiar.

Ante esto, las personas LGBTQ construimos vínculos sociales fuera del vínculo familiar tradicional, los cuales a través de la convivencia, amistad, apoyo económico-social y construcción de vida en común constituyen familias, tal como ocurrió en este caso.

Tras el abandono de su familia biológica, Leonela Zelaya y Thalía Rodríguez construyeron una familia tras más de una década de convivencia, en los cuales se apoyaron mutuamente en diversas situaciones, viviendo como mujeres trans, portadoras de VIH, ejerciendo el trabajo sexual y en situación de pobreza, enfrentando constantes episodios de detenciones arbitrarias y violentas por parte de los órganos policiales.

Tras su asesinato, fue Thalía quien recogió el cuerpo de Leonela en la morgue de Tegucigalpa y quien gestionó el féretro a través de la Funeraria del Pueblo. Los servicios fúnebres de Leonela Zelaya fueron realizados en un bar por mujeres trans, trabajadoras sexuales, al cual no asistió ningún miembro de su familia biológica.

El asesinato de Leonela y la falta de esclarecimiento generaron a Thalía un sentimiento de inseguridad, frustración e impotencia. Por estas violaciones de derechos humanos, la Corte reconoció a Thalía Rodríguez, en calidad de familiar de Leonela, como víctima del caso, generando estándares aplicables a todas las personas LGBTQ.

A juicio de la Corte, esta situación lleva a que, en casos de muertes violentas de mujeres trans, las personas que integren las redes de apoyo de la persona fallecida puedan ser declaradas víctimas por la violación de sus derechos a la integridad psíquica o moral, siempre que se acredite la existencia de un vínculo estrecho con la víctima y una afectación a sus derechos, derivada, por ejemplo, de las gestiones realizadas para obtener justicia. Esta sentencia logra reconocer que las personas LGBTQ construimos familias sociales, familias elegidas, e indica que estas deben ser reconocidas y validadas.

* Abogada litigante del caso Leonela Zelaya y otra vs Honduras, Red Lésbica Cattrachas

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