In his early teens, Rabenalt began his stage career directing operas at theatres in Darmstadt, Berlin and Gera. From then on to the mid-1920s he worked (though uncredited) as a production assistant on several films such including G. W. Pabst's Joyless Street (1925).[5] After Nazi's rise to power, Rabenalt made his feature film debut directing the musicalcomedy, What Am I Without You (1934), which was then shortly followed with the release of the comedy Pappi (1934). He continued to work in different genres, including The Love of the Maharaja (1936), and Men Are That Way and Midsummer Night's Fire which were released in 1939.
Throughout the 1940s, Rabaenalt worked with melodramatic dramas and comedy. Some of his early films in the 1940s, such as Riding for Germany, supported Nazi ideology. In 1989, he said "I had only made circus films and chamber-type entertainment films since 1941. The only Nazi film I knew was ... rides for Germany (1941), and it was admired. The first films of mine that were distributed again after the war were Circus Renz (1943) and Regimental Music (shot in 1944 under the title The Guilty of Gabriele Rottweil, the film only came to the cinemas in 1950). The controversy about ... rides for Germany came much later.[6]
After the war he resumed his stage career as a director, beginning with the East German production, Chemistry and Love (1948), satire on anti-capitalism based on a play by Bela Balasz. He continued to work on productions for East German state studio DEFA until 1948. In the 1950s, he moved into more mainstream entertainment,[1] including the Weimar horror remake of Alraune (1952), which starred Hildegard Knef and Erich von Stroheim.
From 1960, Rabanalt worked only in television, adapting classic comedies and operettas for a mainstream audience. He also wrote several erotic pulp fiction books as well as memoirs and factual books about Nazi Germany.[citation needed]
