- Our Flags Lead Us Forward
-
Our Flags Lead Us Forward Directed by Hans Steinhoff Produced by Karl Ritter (producer) Written by Bobby E. Lüthge (writer)
K.A. Schenzinger (novel Der Hitlerjunge Quex)
K.A. Schenzinger (screenplay)
Baldur von SchirachStarring See below Music by Hans-Otto Borgmann Cinematography Konstantin Irmen-Tschet Editing by Milo Harbich Release date(s) 1933 Running time 95 minutes
87 minutes (USA)Country Germany Language German Our Flags Lead Us Forward (originally Hitlerjunge Quex: Ein Film vom Opfergeist der deutschen Jugend or Hitlerjunge Quex) is a 1933 German film directed by Hans Steinhoff.
The film is also known as Hitler Youth Quex (American alternative spelling).
Contents
Plot summary
Heini Völker is a teen-aged boy. His comrades give him the nickname "Quex". He lives in poverty in Berlin, in a one room apartment. The year is 1932 - the depth of the Depression. His father is an out-of-work supporter of the Communist Party who sends his son on a weekend of camping with the Communist Youth Group. While there Quex finds the undisciplined revelry of the Communists to be distasteful. There is smoking, drinking, and dancing late into the night. Meals are served by cutting hunks from loaves of bread and throwing them to hungry campers who push to get something to eat. Boys and girls play games where they take turns holding each other down and slapping each other on their private parts. Quex runs away and in another part of the park finds a group of Hitler Youth camping by a lake. He spies on them from a distance.
The Hitler Youth are working together to make fires and cook a hot dinner. They sing patriotic songs, listen to speeches, and shout in unison their support for an "awakened Germany." There is no smoking or drinking. In the morning they awake early and run to the lake for a before-breakfast communal swim. Health, cleanliness, teamwork and patriotic nationalism is the image projected.
When Quex returns to his home singing one the Hitler youth songs, his father, an ardent Communist, beats him and signs him up to become a member of the Communist Party. However, Quex informs the Hitler Youth that the Young Communists are planning to ambush them during a march using guns and dynamite. He becomes a pariah to the Communists, and a hero to the Hitler Youth. His distraught mother tries to kill her son and herself by extinguishing the pilot light and leaving the gas on in their one room apartment at night. She is killed. Quex survives. His father, crushed by what happens, begins to wonder whether his son isn't right—National Socialism may be better for Germany than Communism.
A recurring character in the film is the Communist street performer. His theme is that "for some people things work out well...but for George they never do." The message is that life in Germany may improve for everyone else, but for the workingman, George, life won't be good unless he joins the Communist Party. It is eventually the Communist street performer who corners Quex in the streets of Berlin at night, and stabs him to death. Quex posthumously becomes a hero to the Nazi movement.
Heini Völker's antagonist is the communist youth leader Wilde, "a Nazi version of the incarnation of the 'Jewish-Bolshevik' will to destruction".[1] The movie's message is characterized by its final words, "The flag means more than death".[2]
Depiction of Communism
The film allows some sympathy for Communists. Quex's father, though violent and drunk, has become a Communist because of his, and the workers', desperate condition.[3] In one scene, his argument for his son being with him revolves about his sufferings in the war and his unemployment.[4] The Communist who invited Quex to a Communist Youth outing, while saying that he has to be eliminated, takes no part in the killing, Quex having made a strong impression on him.[5]
Differences from novel
Cast
- Jürgen Ohlsen as Heini Völker
- Heinrich George as Vater Völker
- Berta Drews as Mutter Völker
- Claus Clausen as Bannführer Kaß (Brigade Leader Kass)
- Rotraut Richter as Gerda
- Hermann Speelmans as Stoppel
- Hans Richter as Franz
- Ernst Behmer as Kowalski
- Hansjoachim Büttner as Arzt (doctor)
- Franziska Kinz as Krankenschwester (nurse)
- Rudolf Platte as Moritatensänger (carnival singer)
- Reinhold Bernt as Ausrufer (barker)
- Hans Deppe as Althändler (furniture dealer)
- Anna Müller-Lincke as Eine Nachbarin Völkers (Völkers' neighbour)
- Karl Meixner as Wilde
- Karl Hannemann as Lebensmittelhändler (grocer)
- Ernst Rotmund as Revierwachtmeister (desk sergeant)
- Hans Otto Stern as Kneipenwirt (bartender)
- Hermann Braun
- Heinz Trumper
Soundtrack
- "Unsre Fahne flattert uns voran" (Maschlied der Hitlerjugend) (Music by Hans-Otto Borgmann, lyrics by Baldur von Schirach)
- Sung several times by the communists - "The Internationale" (Written by Eugène Pottier & Pierre Degeyter)
- Sung on the camping trip of the communists and later in the movie by a Hitlerjunge - "Das ist die Liebe der Matrosen" (Written by Werner R. Heymann & Robert Gilbert)
Production
The novel was the basis for a subsequent movie version, produced in the Universum Film AG (Ufa) studios.[6] The plot was written by Bobby E. Lüthge and Karl Aloys Schenzinger, the author of the novel.[6] Produced by Karl Ritter,[6] the movie was supported by the Nazi leadership and produced for 320,000 reichsmarks[7] under the aegis of Baldur von Schirach.[8] The latter also wrote the lyrics for the Hitler Youth song "Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran",[9] based on an existing melody by Hans-Otto Borgmann, who was also responsible for the music.[6] The director was Hans Steinhoff.[6] For the movie, the novel's title was amended with the subtitle Ein Film vom Opfergeist der deutschen Jugend ("A film about the sacrificial spirit of German youth").[6] The movie has a length of 95 minutes (2,605 meters) and was premiered on 11 September 1933 in Ufa-Phoebus Palace, Munich, and on 19 September in Ufa-Palast am Zoo, Berlin.[6] It was one of three movies about Nazi martyrs in 1933, the other two being SA-Mann Brand and Hans Westmar, and by January 1934 had been viewed by a million people.[7]
The film is now rated "Vorbehaltsfilm" in Germany, meaning it is illegal to show the movie outside of closed educational events guided by an expert.
Reception
Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Joseph Goebbels and other high Nazi functionaries attended the first premiere in Munich.[10] Goebbels reflected on the movie as follows: "If Hitler Youth Quex represents the first large-scale attempt to depict the ideas and world of National Socialism with the art of cinema, than one must say that this attempt, given the possibilities of modern technology, is a full-fledged success."[11]
See also
Sources
References
- ^ Baird (1992), p. 121
- ^ Rentschler (1996), p. 69
- ^ Leiser (1974), p. 35.
- ^ Leiser (1974), p. 37.
- ^ Leiser (1974), pp. 35-36.
- ^ a b c d e f g Rentschler (1996), p. 319
- ^ a b Rentschler (1996), p. 56
- ^ Rentschler (1996), p. 54
- ^ Rentschler (1996), p. 320
- ^ Rentschler (1996), p. 55
- ^ Rentschler (1996), pp. 55-56
External links
- Our Flags Lead Us Forward at the Internet Movie Database
- Hitlerjunge Quex: Ein Film vom Opfergeist der deutschen Jugend is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Categories:- German-language films
- Drama film stubs
- 1933 films
- German films
- Drama films
- Black-and-white films
- Films based on novels
- Nazi propaganda films
- Films of the Third Reich
- Films of Weimar Germany
- Hitler Youth
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