Pour le Mérite (film)

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Movie
Original title Pour le Mérite
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1938
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK none
Rod
Director Karl Ritter
script Fred Hildenbrandt
Karl Ritter
music Herbert Windt
camera Günther Anders
Heinz Jaworsky (aerial photos)
cut Gottfried Ritter
occupation

Pour le Mérite is a Nazi propaganda film by Karl Ritter from 1938. It propagates the stab in the back legend , which puts the military defeat in the First World War on an alleged treason at home. At the same time, he describes the former combatants as pioneers of National Socialism in Germany and glorifies the illegal armament of the Wehrmacht .

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 film is structured like episodes and places the flight officers Fabian, Prank, Moebius and Gerdes partly together, partly alternately, at the center of the plot.

In South Germany

The almost nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Fabian celebrates exuberantly with his fiancée in a garden restaurant in southern Germany. In the evening he received the news that he had been awarded the Pour le Mérite order . Fabian then wants to go to the Eibsee with his fiancée, but is ordered back to the front early the next morning.

Fighter Squadron 12

On the western front , Fabian and the other officers of Jagdgeschwader 12 are involved in various dogfights. They achieve numerous aerial victories, but also lose some squadron members in the battles with heavy losses. One day, Captain Prank returns with the news from the stage that a revolution ( November Revolution ) has broken out in Germany . The squadron does not want to hand over its machines and gets into a dispute between Darmstadt and Mannheim with the workers 'and soldiers' council there . Eventually the planes are burned, only Moebius suddenly seems to have disappeared.

post war period

After the end of the war, the former officers have to find their way into civilian professions, which they manage more badly than well. In the end, Prank in particular is faced with utter nothing. Suddenly reappearing, Moebius takes Prank and his wife to his estate , where Moebius hides his secretly rescued aircraft from wartime. A fight with a communist group takes place over the plane, the plane is destroyed and Isabel Prank dies. Prank ends up in prison, where an attempt to free his ex-comrades fails. After serving his sentence, the embittered prank goes abroad.

time of the nationalsocialism

After 1933 the Nazi regime set up a new air force in Germany . The former officers are reactivated and integrated into the air force . Gerdes, Moebius and Fabian finally brought Prank back to Germany, where the latter was entrusted with a new fighter squadron as a colonel .

The film closes in 1935 with the announcement of general conscription by Joseph Goebbels , while cheering crowds gather under the war memorials of the World War. The front-line soldiers of the World War are shown in the uniforms of the new Wehrmacht .

Production and reception

The film was produced and distributed by the UFA . The German premiere took place on December 22, 1938. He received the ratings "politically and artistically particularly valuable" and "youthful value".

After the end of the Second World War , the high command of the Allied victorious powers prohibited the performance. Today, the exploitation rights are held by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation that the presentation of this proviso film allows only through special training courses.

criticism

Pour le Mérite is a prime example of the perspective of the Nazi film on the November Revolution and the Weimar Republic , clearly illustrated in the film by the declaration of a former front soldier in court against democracy and parliamentarism :

“I have nothing to do with this state because I hate democracy like the plague. Whatever you may do, I will harm and disturb you wherever I can. We have to get a Germany back on its feet that corresponds to the ideas of a front soldier. I consider helping to be my life's work. I will solve it the soldier way. "

See also

Web links

swell

  • Illustrierter Film-Kurier - No. 2896, program booklet for Pour le Mérite , ed. from the United Publishing Companies Franke & Co., Berlin

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Erwin Leiser : "Germany, awake!" Propaganda in the film of the Third Reich . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1968, p. 45f.