Never-ending war requires a never-ending pot of money to pay for it, but as the fighting continued for a third year, the German public’s pockets seemed decidedly less deep than they’d been in the beginning. This was the seventh time the Treasury had issued ‘War Bonds’, and persuading potential investors to get involved was going to require a more cunning approach: celebrity endorsements. In Hann, Hein und Henny! – fragments of which we found on a Messter cinema advertising reel – some navy marines run into Frieda ‘Henny’ Porten, Germany’s most beloved movie star of the silent era, and plead for her support. But Henny requires little persuasion, and is soon excitedly proposing that two of the marines co-star with her in a commercial to support the Fatherland’s complicated fundraising scheme. For all its seeming-creativity, however, and despite Henny’s enthusiasm (she seems genuinely fired up), the clip’s final prosaic caption shows we haven’t progressed so far: “Support the 7th Edition of the War Bonds” it suggests. Or not.

Karl Wratschko