Hitler Youth Quex

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Movie
Original title Hitler Youth Quex
- A film about the spirit of sacrifice among German youth
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1933
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK reserve film
Rod
Director Hans Steinhoff
script Karl Aloys Schenzinger ,
Bobby E. Lüthge
production Karl Ritter ( Universum Film AG (Ufa), Berlin )
music Hans-Otto Borgmann
camera Konstantin Irmen-Tschet
cut Milo Harbich
occupation

Hitler Quex (subtitle: A film from the spirit of sacrifice of the German youth ) is an 1933 based on the eponymous novel by Karl Aloys Schenzinger turned feature film by Hans Steinhoff . The National Socialist propaganda film refers to the biography of the stabbed Hitler Youth Herbert Norkus . Jürgen Ohlsen plays the main role of Heini Völker . Heinrich George and Berta Drews can be seen as Heini's parents.

It is a reserved film from the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation . It is part of the foundation's portfolio, has not been released for distribution and may only be shown with the consent and under the conditions of the foundation.

action

The Berlin printer apprentice Heini Völker is the son of a father who tends towards socialism . Whether he belongs to the SPD or the KPD remains open. (The Nazi propaganda intended to equate both parties.) Heini's mother remains ambivalent and largely apolitical. In a later US interpretation, it stands for the "German people". Heini is invited to a camp by a communist youth organization. In the propagandistic Nazi portrayal (in the film it is continuously referred to as the commune ), this organization is depicted as dissolute, devoted to sexual debauchery, and its organizational structure is portrayed as mafia -like. Heini finds the Hitler Youth , which is portrayed as respectable, run by the middle class and devoted to a new national Germanness (and in a form that is attractive for young people: campfire romance, heroism, heroism ...), much more appealing. He is of the opinion that there is more discipline and organization there. His father wants him to become a member of the communists. Shortly afterwards, Heini received an invitation from the Hitler Youth.

A friend of his father's is the leader of a group of the Communist Youth International (KJI). That evening he organized an attack on the premises of the Hitler Youth. The members of the Hitler Youth believe that Heini was responsible for this attack. But even that does not dissuade Heini from his desire to join the Hitler Youth. For this reason, he informs the young people that an attack against them is planned. The communists who miss their explosives immediately know who is responsible. Heini's mother is no longer able to cope with the whole situation and, out of fear, decides to kill herself and her son Heini with gas. Heini survived his mother's attempt to take him with her too, and ultimately became a member of the Hitler Youth under the name Quex. (The real person Herbert Norkus was nicknamed "Quex" by his comrades because he "executes orders faster than Mercury.")

During an election campaign, Heini distributed National Socialist leaflets in his old residential area. However, the communists have not forgotten that he betrayed them. Heini is murdered by them.

music

In this film, the battle song, Vorwärts! Which Baldur von Schirach wrote , was made public for the first time . Forward! presents. The HJ song composed by Borgmann is also known to us under its refrain Our flag flutters ahead . It ran through the film as a leitmotif and became the anthem of the Hitler Youth.

production

Preparations for the film probably began in April 1933. Hans Steinhoff was won as director about a month later, and again a month later the cast was largely complete. Then filming could begin. The film was shot in Berlin - Müggelsee , at Seddinsee near Berlin and at Anhalter Bahnhof . The film was produced by Universum-Film AG Berlin under the direction of Fritz Koch, production group Karl Ritter . The film was under the protectorate of the Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach . The buildings came from Artur Günther and Benno von Arent . Walter Tjaden was responsible for the sound .

The German premiere took place in Munich on September 12, 1933, after the film had been tested on September 7, 1933. On September 19, 1933, it was generally shown in German cinemas. The film was also shown in Japan, Brazil, Spain, France, Poland, Portugal and the USA.

background

"Hitlerjunge Quex" was the derisive nickname in Reichswehr officer circles for the Reichswehr Minister Werner von Blomberg , who was very obedient to Hitler.

The "youth leader of the German Reich" Baldur von Schirach was said to have had homosexual relationships with Hitler Youth, especially Jürgen Ohlsen . The rumors were so strong that the derived verb quexen was supposed to have been in use in the Hitler Youth since about 1933/34 .

In 1987, the right-wing extremist monthly Nation Europa described skinheads as “today's queens” .

In Defa - children's film The Sprungdeckeluhr 1990 reference is made to this movie. On the one hand a scene from the Hitler Youth Quex is reproduced, on the other hand excerpts from the film were shown at a cinema screening.

reception

The contemporary reception of film in Germany was dominated by National Socialist rule and the co-ordination of the press that had been promoted since March 1933 . The response to the premiere of the film in September 1933 was almost entirely positive. The film also became a commercial success. The film brought back the production costs of 310,000 Reichsmarks that ultimately came about without any problems. Five months after its premiere, the income was 718,000 marks. Hitler Youth Quex became one of the most successful films of the 1933/1934 season.

The Film-Kurier wrote about the Hitler Youth Quex : “[...] this brave young soldier died a heroic death. [...] He died for a cause he believed in, for his comrades, for his flag, and above all for his beloved leader. "

From the film testing of the Third Reich, the film on September 7, 1933 received, five days before the premiere, the film title "Artistic particularly valuable." However, it soon came to the conclusion that the ideological message of the film was spread too transparently and clumsily, which is why, on the instructions of Joseph Goebbels , they switched to representing Nazi propaganda in the cinema mostly more subtly and inconspicuously. Goebbels wanted better craftsmanship films than the all too transparent Hitler Youth Quex .

Because of its propaganda for National Socialism and in particular because of its advertising for the Hitler Youth , the film was banned by the high command of the Allied victorious powers after the end of World War II . Today the exploitation rights are held by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung , which only allows this film to be shown in the context of special educational events.

Karlheinz Wendtland judged the third (after SA Mann Brand and Hans Westmar ) of the “tendentious films” that dealt with the Hitler party's time of struggle: “While the first two tendency films were insignificant and therefore unsuccessful, you can clearly feel the work here by professionals. Hans Steinhoff thus became one of the directors of the Third Reich loyal to the line. From this film comes the later song of the Hitler Youth Our flag flutters ahead . So the song was a movie song. "

The media scientist Rolf Seubert writes in retrospect that the Hitler Youth Quex was a “well-made and successful film”. It had become “the prototype of the youth propaganda film par excellence”, even if its effect as a “founding myth” had “faded” and had become “untrustworthy” shortly after the NSDAP came to power as a film about the “fighting time” before 1933 .

In her study Jugend und Film , published in 1944 by the central publishing house of the NSDAP , the author Anneliese Ursula Sander gave an opinion on the film, which is now eleven years old. She spoke of "the occasional black and white drawing", but also of "extraordinarily bloody representation" and of the fact that the "contrasts are sometimes pushed to the limit, but not beyond". She continued: “The expressiveness and impact of this film is unique, measured by the subtlety of the material and the politically tendentious problem. With such images, with such scenes, with such dialogues, with such people characters, people can be grabbed, seized, shaken and thus convinced and led. The use of artistic means was great. The success even greater. This film will tell the next generation of “the spirit of sacrifice among German youth in the time of National Socialism”. "

See also

literature

  • Thomas Arnold, Jutta Schöning, Ulrich Schröter: Hitler Youth Quex. Settings protocol (= IHSA working paper no. 4, ZDB ID 982132-6 ). Filmland Press, Munich 1980.
  • Rolf Giesen , Manfred Hobsch: Hitler Youth Quex, Jud Süss and Kolberg. The propaganda films of the Third Reich. Documents and materials on Nazi films. Verlag Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-471-X .
  • Hilmar Hoffmann : "And the flag leads us into eternity". Propaganda in Nazi films (= Fischer pocket books 4404). Volume 1. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-596-24404-8 .
  • Friedrich Koch : "Hitler Youth Quex" and the helpless anti-fascism. to the National Socialist youth film. In: Ulrich Herrmann, Ulrich Nassen (Hrsg.): Formative Aesthetics in National Socialism. Intentions, media and forms of practice of totalitarian aesthetic domination and domination (= Journal for Pedagogy. Supplement 31, ISSN  0514-2717 ). Beltz, Weinheim et al. 1993, pp. 163–179 (also: special print. Ibid 1994).
  • Friedrich Koch: School in the cinema. Authority and education. From the “Blue Angel” to the “Feuerzangenbowle”. Beltz, Weinheim et al. 1987, ISBN 3-407-34009-5 , p. 127 ff.
  • Martin Loiperdinger (ed.): Martyr legends in Nazi films. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1991, ISBN 3-8100-0700-5 .
  • Kurt Schilde: Hitler Youth Quex - world premiere on September 11, 1933 in Munich. In: History in Science and Education. 59, H. 10, 2008, ISSN  0016-9056 , pp. 540-550.

Web links

Notes and sources

  1. ^ Baird, Jay W .: To Die for Germany. Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon, Bloomington 1992, p. 120
  2. ^ Heinrich Brüning in a conversation with Harry Graf Kessler on July 20, 1933 in Paris
    Manfred Overesch , Friedrich Wilhelm Saal: Droste-Geschichte-Kalendarium. Chronicle of German history, politics, economy, culture. Volume II / 1: The Third Reich 1933–1939. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1982. S. 222f.
  3. ↑ Jürgen Reulecke: "I want to be like the ..." Men's associations in the 20th century. Campus Verlag, 2001. p. 124.
  4. ↑ Christoph Butterwegge u. a .: Topics of the right - topics of the middle. Immigration, demographic change and national awareness. leske + budrich Verlag, 2002. p. 127.
  5. ^ A b Philipp Stiasny: Subject to reservation Hitlerjunge Quex dhm.de
  6. ↑ Illustrierter Film-Kurier - (1933), No. 2016., program booklet for Hitler Youth Quex , ed. from the United Publishing Companies Franke & Co., Berlin
  7. ^ Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945 with numerous artist biographies born in 1933 and 1934, edited by the author Karlheinz Wendtland, Berlin, Chapter: Films 1933, Film No. 82.
  8. ↑ Rolf Seubert: "Young Eagles". Fascination with technology and liability for military power in National Socialist youth films. In: Bernhard Chiari / Matthias Rogg / Wolfgang Schmidt (eds.): War and the military in the film of the 20th century. Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag 2003, p. 382 f.