Hochzeit im Korallenmeer

"Hochzeit im Korallenmeer", or "Wedding in Coral Sea" (Czech "Svatba v korálovém moři"), is a 1945 animated short film created by the Nazis as propaganda material. It was written by cartoonist Horst von Möllendorff and animated in Prague by Jiri Brdecka. Many other Czechs also contributed to the production of this film.

The plot involves the creatures of the sea preparing for the wedding of two fish. When the fish bride is kidnapped by an octopus all the sea creatures must team up to defeat him and rescue the bride. The octopus is clearly shown to be Russian when he puts on a Russian hat and does a peasant dance. (At the time the cartoon was made, the Red Army was invading Germany and the Nazis were frantically trying to rally resistance).

Although the Warner Brothers cartoon this film was based on was never distributed in Germany, it's likely that a print of it was discovered by the Nazis during their campaign in Europe and shown by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to his filmmakers. This was common practice for the minister: Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was shown in 1939 to students at the German Film Academy. In another case, public versions of Max and David Fleischer cartoons substituted the first names of the animators with the pseudonyms Kurt and Carl, as the Fleischers were Jewish with first names that were obviously not German.

See also

*List of films made in the Third Reich
*Nazism and cinema