Herr Schulz from Chemnitz

“Herr Schulz aus Chemnitz” is singled out standing next to the Ross family aboard the steamer that has brought them to Australia. A bit later in Achtung Australien! Achtung Asien! (1930), when the Rosses visit the German settlement of Tanunda in Southern Australia, Ross will mention that Schulz has found a job here. While the name goes unmentioned in Ross’s Australia book Der unvollendete Kontinent (1930), it features an analogous subplot about German crew members disembarking with the Rosses and finding jobs in the same settlement (see: Ethnic solidarity vs. national policy).

That a German would leave the industrial town of Chemnitz, specifically, to look for work in Australia suggests an alarming lack of work opportunities even before the Great Depression. (The Great Depression had not started when Ross arrived in Australia in March 1929, and was only  beginning to affect Germany when the film premiered in November 1930.) The reference to a giraffe–who is declared “a fellow immigrant” and “the only one stretching his neck for us”–addresses Australia’s strict anti-immigration policy in a jokey manner.

Joachim Schätz