The musical Cabaret (stage 1966, movie 1972) is considered groundbreaking from a theatre history perspective for the way its staging implicates the audience in the descent of Germany to Nazism, blending the plot-world of Cabaret with the world of the Kit Kat Club cabaret.
But I recently read that the evolution--the sexification, basically--of the successful 1990s/2000s revivals was necessary because the social content of the musical was no longer as worldview shaking as it had been in the 60s.
How was Nazi Germany handled in Korea/Vietnam-era pop culture that made Cabaret so topically as well as theatrically innovative?
Here's an article by Jan-Cristopher Horak, Director of the UCLA Film and Television Archive entitled Hollywood and the Holocaust, that I think does a good job of answering your question.
In addition to films related to the Holocaust that came out in that period, the article talks at length about a particular episode of the show "This is Your Life" that aired in 1953. In the 1950s, "This is Your Life" was one of the most popular shows on television. Each episode they brought on a famous celebrity and recounted the story of his/her life for the audience, complete with old friends and acquaintances coming by to share a few details.
In 1953, they decided to do something different. In a surprise to both the audience and the guest, they had on a regular woman who wasn't famous at all named Hanna Bloch-Kohner and they told her story. Hanna was a holocaust survivor.
That episode really provides some insight into the way Americans viewed the Holocaust at the time. It's fascinating to watch today. For one thing, names like Auschwitz and Mauthausen barely seem to register. For another, there seems to be little understanding in the studio of the full extent of the tragedy they're discussing. They intersperse details of her time in (4!) concentration camps with advertisements for catalogs and TWA as if it were a lifetime movie. The most glaring thing though is how much emphasis is placed on the heroic role of American troops in liberating the camp and in how well she was integrated in the US and how much she loves America. That seemed to be far and away the most important part for the audience at the time. I really recommend watching the episode -- it's pretty short and I think it tells the story of 1950s America and their relationship with the holocaust as much as it does that of Hanna Bloch-Kohner.
Addition: The Producers is stage 1967, movie 1968, and addresses explicitly the representation of Nazi Germany in pop culture (and won the screenplay Oscar)--but in contrast to the immediacy of Cabaret/cabaret, on a very meta level. Clearly this was a very timely but touchy topic at the end of the 60s. I'd be very interested in how the satirical take played into/helped shape contemporary depictions as well.
Well, that was a two hours well spent.
1960s/1970s US representations of Nazism
Due to Cold War politics, the Nazi crimes were seen as having been perpetrated by Hitler, a few Nazi leaders, and the SS. Hence, when we look at the Nuremberg Trials and the subsequent De-Nazification program, the overwhelming idea is that there was a criminal organization responsible for the crimes. According to the indictment for the Nuremberg Trials, the prosecution "asks that the Tribunal declare to be criminal the following organisations: The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party; The Gestapo; The S.D.; The S.S.; The S.A.; The Reich Cabinet, and The General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces." This is not to say that no others could be prosecuted, but it delineated the perspective of the authorities toward the crimes. Members of these organizations were the natural perpetrators, others were only perpetrators upon proof. Other Germans were innocent. The Wehrmacht in general was innocent.
Furthermore, the development of Nazism in Germany was overwhelmingly represented as having occurred due to propagandistic indoctrination or even Hitler's ability to "hypnotize" the masses. This is often thought due to Cold War politics and assessments. With West Germany having been made a part of NATO in 1955 and its clear importance as a bulwark against the expansion of communism in Europe, American authorities were hesitant to make the connection between the Nazi regime and the FDR. Indeed, the limited scope of de-Nazification was a political consideration and was seen (or used as an accusation) by the USSR as a resuscitation of "fascism" in Germany.
Two textbooks in Texas demonstrate this narrative. In the first instance, Man's Cultural Heritage, published in 1969, consistently discussed how "Hitler and his Nazis" persecuted the Jews. Key is that Hitler is depicted as having ultimate control even over top Nazis. The German people are not even discussed. Worse, in the 1952 edition of The Making of Today’s World, R.O. Hughes stated that the Nazis “terrorized or hypnotized the Germans into being willing to take Hitler as their Fuehrer." Such an educational tool clearly demonstrates how such views were propagated and the perspective of the authorities and society of the time.
Nevertheless, in spite of how many saw the Third Reich and the rise to power of the Nazis depicted, there was also a different representation of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1961, Judgment at Nuremberg challenged the narrative that Germans "didn't know." Judge Haywood, an American judge sent to preside over a de-Nazification court, responds to a German woman who says that she didn't know what was happening. He states, “as far as I can make out, no one in this country knew.” Later, in his final judgment, he says, "Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial. If he and the other defendants were all depraved perverts - if the leaders of the Third Reich were sadistic monsters and maniacs - these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake or other natural catastrophes. But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination." Such a depiction speaks both to the cultural realization that Germans were not wholly innocent and to what Hannah Arendt would call the "Banality of Evil."
This leads to more scholarly depictions of the Holocaust. Both Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem and Raul Hilberg in The Destruction of the European Jews, the seminal historical work on the Holocaust, noted how bureaucratic activities led seemingly normal Germans to control and refine the mechanisms of destruction. Clearly, scholars challenged the popular depictions of the "good German," but such challenges often remained in the ivory tower.
Hence, by 1966 and certainly by 1972, the perpetration of the Holocaust, particularly the role of ordinary Germans, was mixed.
Cabaret
There are three themes I noticed from the film which relate to this discussion: escapism, decadence, and political maneuvering.
The film begins and ends with it. Willkommen suggests that one should come to the Cabaret because "life is disappointing". The showmaster says that one should "leave your troubles outside!" The final song of the film, says, "Life is a cabaret, come to the cabaret." In other words, life is dirty, foul, dark, and corrupt. Come here to escape it.
Throughout the film, the characters are caught up in sultry matters and do not act against the growing Nazi threat. It continues to force itself into their lives and even into their method of escape. As such, the film depicts the cabaret and life within it as an escape from the existence outside it. One can escape from the Nazis by ignoring them; however, ultimately they actually end in dominating the audience and ruining the way that the characters had, until then, chosen to live. Hence, the film critiques such escapism as ultimately consenting to the fate.
Notice the scenes in which the film maker suggests that we should be taken aback. It isn't important if the audience is or is not offended, but the film tells us we should be. We might not recognize them, but in the 1970s, it would have been more likely that they would have been. During the mud fight scene, the camera quickly flits from laughing faces, to the wrestling, to the showmaster spraying seltzer and on in a loop. Additionally, this is the exact moment when the first Nazi is kicked out. In other scenes, similar technique is used. It is in these scenes that we are to view as decadent. During "Two Ladies," we have the added light flickering.
Contextually, the Weimar Republic was accused by the Nazis as having been morally degenerate. In fact, many of the conservative groups, including the Lutherans, supported the Nazis because they had similarly aligned principles in creating an orderly, moral society. They focused particularly on sexual "misbehavior" and racially "degenerate" works, ie art by any group deemed racially impure, especially Jews, but also Blacks. Their other main point was a critique of capitalism. This shows up when Sally and the showmaster sing "Money, Money" in their depiction of Weimar life.
There are two places where the idea of "using" for ulterior motives is discussed. First, when Sally assures Brian that she will not fall to Maximilian, but she states, "I can handle him." Later in the film, Max suggests that his political group, assumedly the Conservative party due to his aristocratic background, will let the Nazis get rid of the Communists and then they will get rid of the Nazis. Max becomes a surrogate for the depiction of how the Nazis come to power. In the private lives of Sally and Brian, their alliance with Max backfires when Sally can't "handle him" and in Germany, Hindenberg and his Conservatives can't get rid of Hitler as they wished.
1960s and 1970s
It probably doesn't need to be said that the late 60s were filled with societal upheaval. Politically, economically, socially, and morally challenges to the established order were being made. However, what might have begun as unified movements against the Vietnam War and for an end to segregation had splintered into a number of various groups with their own interests. Some sank into self-fulfilling acts, others called for violent protest or reaction. The work is, therefore, situated in a tumultuous time that can be compared, at least in some ways, to the final years of the Weimar Republic.
Cabaret and Culture
It seems to me that the writers of the play and the filmmakers MAY have wanted to do a number of things.
They wanted to show the audience how nihilism and escapism could lead to disaster. A call for action against evil was necessary. Brian saw the nature of the Nazis, but was caught up in cabaret.
Alliances in which the ends justify the means don't always work out well. Think Vietnam and anti-communist activities that might be critiqued.
The final artistic point is this. It is the one in which the film might "implicate the audience." Notable for Cabaret is that even such depictions as Judgment at Nuremberg hinted that German society went from the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich in a surprising coup. The Weimar Republic was portrayed as a foil to the Third Reich. If the Third Reich was bad, then the Weimar Republic was good. The failures of the republic did not seem to play into the rise of the Nazis. In Cabaret, the Republic's failings are brought to light. Its decadence leads it to ignore danger. The Republic's societal focus on pleasure, wealth, self, and entertainment helped in its descent into darkness.
This ultimately requires greater "sexification" in order to shock the audience and also to give the film/play a level of voyeurism necessary.
Yet what is the audience doing if not reveling in an entertaining display of sexuality? Is it not also at the cabaret? Is it not also ignoring the threats to society?
Sources
Nuremberg Trial Indictment via The Avalon Project.
Hughes, R.O. The Making of Today’s World. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1952.
Welty, Paul. Man’s Cultural Heritage. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1969.
Edit Grammar and formatting.