A few months ago I watched 'Der alte und der junge König' ('The making of a King'), Hans Steinhoff 1935, and was impressed in spite of myself. For a piece of Nazi-propaganda, that film was remarkably subtle. Kolberg was filmed almost a decade later, during the dying days of the Third Reich, and 'subtle' is about the last word of which you'll think when watching it. The message of the film is driven home like a Panzerfaust. It is (as you would expect in late 1944/early 1945) what Hitler, Goebbels and the whole gang of depraved criminals at the apex of Nazi-Germany thought they needed in order to prolong their lives by another few weeks or maybe even months: fight to the last bullet, even if the result means death under the rubble of Germany's towns and cities. To demonstrate how commendable such a course was, 'Kolberg' draws on the history of the eponymous small Pomeranian port during the Napoleonic wars. Back then, Kolberg had held out for months against a besieging French army; the town had struck its colours only once news of the Franco-Prussian Peace of Tilsit (1807) reached the defenders. The film, by contrast, claims falsely that defence lasted until the French gave up the attempt to conquer Kolberg, and it shows the result of the French shelling in pictures evidently intended to remind the audience of the consequences of the allied bombing campaign during WWII. In short, viewers were expected to draw the conclusion that if they were prepared to fight the allies to the last bullet, Germany might still win the war. It says something about German public opinion (hard to gauge given that the Nazi terror machine went into overdrive towards the end of the war) that 'Kolberg' flopped. As far as acting is concerned, the film has its impressive moments. Heinrich George (as Joachim Nettelbeck) is great. Kristina Söderbaum (who plays Nettelbeck's niece) does far less well; especially her undercooked romance with Lt. Schill (Gustav Diessl) cannot convince. The pacing of the film is uneven. There are impressive action sequences, but especially the first half hour with its background story in Breslau 1813 and its other historical vignettes does not work. By the way: the background story claims that the war of 1813 was a 'people's war' of the kind Goebbels wanted to unleash against the allies. Modern historical research has put paid to that myth. Popular participation was actually quite weak in 1813. This is another historical detail that 'Kolberg' distorts in the interest of Nazi-propaganda, and another reason why I am adding the film to my 'Horrible Histories'-list.
Review of Burning Hearts
