Hitlerjunge Quex

Just as a good commercial can induce us to buy a car that we do not need or drink water instead of a sugared soda, «Hitlerjunge Quex» is an effective propaganda film that, once again, proves to me how effective were Nazi communications, public relations, press and propaganda. «Hitlerjunge Quex» fulfills its objective, by passionately putting forward a romantic vision of the Hitler youth against a bleak and humorless description of a group of violent and aggressive communists. While the nazis are described as prosperous and kind, communist have old proselytizing tactics and are hard hit by the economic Depression in Germany, around 1932, when the victory of the National Socialist Party was irrepressible.

The story moves us because the little protagonist Heini is not seduced by bribes, a public office, sexual blackmail or electoral promises: through his child's eyes he perceives and is moved by symbols, hymns and group singing, he is seduced by uniform and order, in the face of shady chaos at home and the customs of the friends of his father, an unemployed ruffian who, in the course of the plot, begins a process of re-evaluating his own life. Curiously, this process had continuity off screen: the leftist actor Heinrich George ended up convinced by the Führer's strong harangues and joined the ranks of the party.

At this point of history neither George nor anyone imagined the potential for malice and depravity of the Nazis: everything was hope for renewing the country... as it happens every time that the electoral process begins and the people go to polls that hide their real nature as slaughterhouses. A good film, an excellent reminder of the directions by which we can be seduced and taken by moving images.