Hitler's Children (1943)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Edward Dmytryk

Writers:

Emmet Lavery (screenplay)
Gregor Ziemer (book)

Release Date:

6 January 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

SHOCK To hear a woman cry "Let me be the mother of a soldier for Hitler! SHOCK To know how they make sure that women will bear the "right kind" of children...or none at all!

Plot:

This lurid exposé of the Hitler Youth follows the woes of an American girl declared legally German by the Nazi government.

Plot Keywords:

German | Nazi | Hitlerjugend | Für Elise | Colonel

Cast

Tim Holt	...	Lieutenant Karl Bruner
Bonita Granville	...	Anna Miller
Kent Smith	...	Professor Nichols
Otto Kruger	...	Colonel Henkel
H.B. Warner	...	The Bishop
Lloyd Corrigan	...	Franz Erhart
Erford Gage	...	Dr. Schmidt
Hans Conried	...	Dr. Graf
Gavin Muir	...	Nazi Major
Nancy Gates	...	Brenda
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter van Eyck	...	Arresting Sergeant (as Goetz Van Eyck)

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-11 (2005) | USA:Approved (PCA #8878) | Australia:PG

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Made for $205,000, the film grossed $3.355 million (topping original studio grosses for King Kong (1933), Top Hat (1935) and Little Women (1933)).

Movie Connections:

Version of Education for Death (1943)

Soundtrack:

Fur Elise

The way we saw Germany in 1943

I saw this as a young girl in 1943. It was in the middle of WW2 and the end of the war was not clear cut as it might seem now. People were getting tired of rationing certain foods and gasoline and the restrictions of war time precautions on the East Coast.

Looking back I see now that this type of propaganda was necessary in the view of the Movie crowd. Many young men were being killed and taken prisoner in France and Germany and Italy. I think people needed to be reminded that the war was necessary because of the aggression forced upon the United States people.

I suppose not too many of us are alive now to remember those days so it is easy to put the movie down as exaggerated propaganda. And it was but I see it as one of those things that one would expect during a war.

Truthfully I saw the movie as being very real at the time and I loved Bonita Granville and Tim Holt as the stars. I see it now as part of a pattern of keeping the ordinary people stirred up against our enemies. So be it. How will todays movies be interpreted in 60 years?

It's just interesting to have lived through 5 wars and be able to look at things more objectively.