Although Hans Steinhoff is credited as director, this is actually co-directed
by Karl Anton and Herbert Maisch and produced by Emil Jannings who also takes the title role.
It is highly debatable whether the propoganda films of the Third Reich, with the possible exception of 'Jud Suss', actually produced the effect for which they were intended. Although it won the Mussolini Cup, no surprise there(!) it did not even begin to recoup its massive cost.
The concentration camp scenes are highly visceral and designed to shock which would no doubt have deterred those Germans who desired only to be entertained during the war years.
All those representing perfidious Albion are shown to be despicable and devoid of any of the finer qualities, from Queen Victoria down to the ordinary soldier.
The cast is superlative. Gustaf Grundgens as Joseph Chamberlain (a dead ringer for Bertie Wooster) Ferdinand Marian as a sinister, white-suited Cecil Rhodes and Otto Wernicke as the camp commandment. Ironically Wernicke had initially to be granted permission to work as his wife was Jewish! There is a very touching performance by Gisela Uhlen as Kruger's daughter-in-law. Needless to say Jannings' performance is monumental as indeed it is intended to be. The scene where he resists being bribed by Rhodes is especially effective.
Crowd and battle scenes are stupendous.
Fritz Arno Wagner is behind the camera and the powerful score is by Theo Mackeben.
Double standards abound here of course as the English soldiery are seen to behave like Nazis.
Apparently Goebbels himself wrote Kruger's final speech. Earlier in the film Kruger says that if a lie is repeated often enough it will be believed. A sentiment with which the Minister for Propoganda would have wholeheartedly concurred!
This film represents the classic dilemma for cinephiles. Egregious it may be but one cannot deny how well made. Keep your moral compass handy!
