Miracle of flying
Wunder des Fliegens is a Nazi propaganda film made in 1935 with Ernst Udet and Jürgen Ohlsen in the leading roles, which was dedicated to the enthusiasm for aviation. The director was Heinz Paul .
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Miracle of flying |
| Country of production | German Empire |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1935 |
| length | 79 minutes minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Heinz Paul |
| script | Peter Francke, Heinz Paul, Hans Rameau |
| production | Terra Film AG, Berlin |
| music | Giuseppe Becce |
| camera | Hans Schneeberger , Heinz von Jarowsky (aerial photos), Franz Weihmayr , Wilhelm Schmid |
| cut | Paul Ostermayr |
| occupation | |
| |
action
The young boy Heinz Muthesius, who loves flying, is a half-orphan and lost his father (a fighter pilot ) in the First World War . When he and friends fly a kite, it gets caught in the plane of the famous aerial acrobat and former fighter pilot Ernst Udet. He confronts Heinz after an unscheduled landing, but quickly becomes friends with him after it turns out that Udet and Heinz's father were war comrades. Heinz reveals to Udet that he wants to be a pilot but has never flown in his life, whereupon he is taken on a sightseeing flight in Udets Flamingo .
Heinz's mother is not very enthusiastic about her son's plans due to the fate of her fallen husband. Heinz not only wants to become a pilot, but also travel to Berlin at the invitation of Udet to marvel at his aerobatics during a flight day .
Despite his mother's express ban, Heinz secretly travels to Berlin and visits the air show at Tempelhof Airport . In the following sequences, flight demonstrations by Willi Stör with his Messerschmitt M35 and Hans Grade with his Grade monoplane , as well as the hustle and bustle on the airfield, are shown. The high point of the day, however, are the maneuvers of Ernst Udet with his Curtiss Hawk , which are crowned by a dive from 4500 meters.
After the flight day, Heinz is a guest in Udet's apartment and admires the numerous memories of his time as a fighter pilot on the Western Front as well as his aviation expeditions and filming in Greenland and Africa (these sections contain archive material, including from Manfred von Richthofen and from the Film SOS Eisberg used). The next day, Heinz is personally flown home by Udet, where he has a long conversation with his mother and tries to dispel her concerns. A little later, Heinz visits Udet in Switzerland and takes him on flights through the Alps.
Mother Muthesius finally gives up her resistance and her son begins paragliding and gliding training on single-seat school gliders , which he finally passes. During a glider flight to the Zugspitze, however, he gets into bad weather and has to parachute out of his damaged Rhön buzzard. Search teams on foot and Udet, who rushed over from Berlin with his plane, take part in the search for Heinz. In the end he also succeeds in locating Heinz and saving the half-frozen boy.
In the final scene, the discouraged Heinz von Udet is comforted with the words “Youth must dare!” While several chains of fighter planes fly past in formation in the sky and an eagle with a swastika in its claws fills the screen.
Production and publication
The working title of the film was Wolkenrausch.
In the opening credits, Hermann Göring, in his role as Reich Minister for Aviation and General der Flieger, is named as the client. According to the slogan “The German people should become a people of aviators”, the film made massive advertising for the German Air Sports Association .
After 1945 the film was initially banned from showing by the Allied military governments. In a review in 1980, the film was approved by the FSK for people aged 16 and over and this decision was confirmed in a review in March 1997. The film rights are now held by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation .
The film was released on VHS cassette in 1992 on the 75th anniversary of the founding of UFA .
Awards
The film received the ratings "valuable for the state" and "popular education" from the National Socialist Film Inspectorate .
Trivia
- On the flight day shown in the film at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, Ernst Udet demonstrated a Curtiss Hawk II aircraft in a dive. It is one of two machines of this type that were sold to the German Reich in 1934. Udet used them for sightseeing flights and as a test vehicle for the fall combat tactics he favored when fighting ground targets from the air. The machine with the civil registration D-IRIK later landed in the exhibition of the German Aviation Collection at the Lehrter train station in Berlin. During the war , parts of the collection were relocated to the east in 1943 in order to protect them from the threat of bombing. The D-IRIK is exhibited today in the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow.
- In a dream sequence, Heinz flies through several bridges and an aircraft hangar with a Klemm 25 . The photos were taken at Munich-Oberwiesenfeld Airport and on the Isar , among others . Ernst Udet himself was a stunt pilot.
See also
literature
- Manfred Hobsch: Film in the "Third Reich". All German feature films from 1933 to 1945 . tape 6 W – Z. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-89602-576-0 .
- Rolf Seubert: “Young Eagles”. Fascination with technology and military detention in the National Socialist youth film. In: Bernhard Chiari, Matthias Rogg, Wolfgang Schmidt (eds.): War and military in the film of the 20th century . Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, pp. 371-400.
Web links
- Miracle of flight in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The miracle of flying at filmportal.de
- The miracle of flying at murnau-stiftung.de
- The miracle of flying in the lexicon of international film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Miracle of Flight. Retrieved June 22, 2020 .