Erosvastika

As an unexpected response to Sontag’s analysis, the genre of Nazi exploitation would become particularly big in Italy, following the high culture success of Liliana Cavani’s 1972 depiction of a S&M relationship between Lucia and her ancient torturer Max in Il portiere di notte divided the audience was divided between disgust towards what looked as an apology for sado-masochism and Nazi nostalgia and the intellectuals that defended it as a dignified appendix to Visconti’s La caduta degli dei. Haunted by the fascist past and the political turmoil of the present Italian cinema was fascinated by Nazi S&M, culminating in Pasolini’s political adaptation of Sade Salo that explored the debate on the totalitarian dimensions of the Marquis pornotopia.

Popular culture appropriated itself of the trend in violent erotic fumetti like Hessa and the mini-genre alternatively designated as nazi-porno, sadico-nazista porno-svastica or eros-svastica, or yet simply nazi-movie. The genre can be in fact divided between those features that emphasize sex and others where gore and horror predominates.

Following closely high culture precedents Tinto Brass’ Salon Kitty (1975) was intended to attack Power itself as a corruptive force, basing itself on a historical book on the infamous brothel run by the SS. Sex becomes the hallucinatory symbol of power’s aberration and the Salon the emblem of the general battleground not only of World War II but of human destiny, a theatrum mundi akin to Jean Genet’s Balcony. Focusing on sexploitative elements Bruno Mattei shoots one year later La casa privata delle SS (SS_Girls), collage of incoherent scenes depicting forced bestiality of disfigurations. His following KZ9 extermination camp was a real horror film, one of the most outrageous of the genre.

In the obscure Liebes lager de Enzo Gicca Pilli Kieran Canter, future hero of necrophiliac Blue Holocaust, is an SS who masturbates the female prisoners before the routine general revolt of the camp and the ensuing massacre. Gli ultimi giorni delle SS is more of a war film mixed with erotic scenes like that of Lea Lander being whipped to orgasm, whereas Sergio Garrone’s cheap Kommandatur SS (« the cheapest eros-svastica ever shot ») only presents the poor originality of a scene of clinical transplant of testicles that the commandant hopes will improve his sexual potency. With Le deportate della sezione speciale SS Rino Di Silvestro (1976) manages the biggest Italian hit of the genre, less sexploitative and more atmospheric than its counterparts.