Hans Steinhoff

The most incendiary of Nazi Germany’s anti-British films, and one of the most audaciously cynical movies ever made. Conceived by Joseph Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry as a propagandistic blockbuster, this lavish production leaves no stone unturned in its bitter indictment of Great Britain, which at the time (early 1941) stood alone as Germany’s wartime foe. In its historical re-enactment of the Second Boer War, Ohm Krüger depicts Britain as a relentlessly aggressive power, hell-bent on world domination; the film’s remarkable set pieces feature a scotch-swilling Queen Victoria, a cruelly conniving Cecil Rhodes and a Winston Churchill look-alike who presides over a murderous concentration camp. On the Boer side stands saintly “Uncle” Krüger, portrayed as a model of simple dignity and unerring moral right by one of the world cinema’s greatest actors, Emil Jannings. Read More »

Young Heini Volker has a problem. His unemployed father demands he joins Berlin’s young communists. But his heart belongs to the Hitler Youth. As violence escalates between these camps, Heini’s quandary deepens. How he finds his way to National Socialism is the story of Hitlerjunge Quex. Produced in 1933, just after Hitler’s ascension to power, this movie draws from the real-life story of Herbert Norkus, a Hitler Youth killed by communists in 1932. With its vivid recreations of Depression-era misery, it offers a fascinating portrait of Berlin’s working-class life viewed through the transformative lens of Nazi ideology. An immediate box office success, the film became a Nazi propaganda staple, viewed by 20 million by 1945.Read More »