Himmelhunde (1942) User Reviews

The Boys Own Guide to Sailplanes

[robinakaaly · 6/10 · 16 May 2011]

This seemed to be a sort of propaganda recruiting film for the Hitler Youth and for critical review needs to be considered in comparison with other youth propaganda films of the time. Here, the scene is a Hitler Youth summer camp in the hills of southern Germany. The boys are all making or maintaining gliders under the paternalistic eyes of there officers. It is all very friendly, healthy and challenging, with scenes of camp life and camaraderie, and not a little tweaking of authority's tale. The boys and their gliders attend a competition, and so far as I could make out, one of the boys disobeys orders in taking part and although flying well, crashes his glider. He is disciplined for this, takes umbrage, gets cross with his parents and goes off in a huff. He spurns the help of a friend, but eventually listens to the wise words of one of his officers, returns to his team, is re-admitted without fuss, and plays his full role in the next competition. Lots of shots of gliders, bucolic towns and villages, beer drinking, children at play, and not a sign of war, but plenty of swastika arm bands. Sadly the Internet Archive copy is a poor one; nevertheless, one can see some decent acting and camera-work going on to make a slight story interesting. The problem with a film like this is we all know that Götterdämmerung is round the corner. However, on there own, the messages of the film are reasonable: the importance of giving one's best; teamwork involves acceptance of authority, comradeship means accepting one will not always get one's own way.

The film is notable for lots of footage of a Horten Ho I flying wing glider. Germany of course developed a talent for gliders to counter the Versailles restrictions on any air force.

when cross boy scouts with the Nazi, what you got ? Hitler youth

[cynthiahost · 7/10 · 22 March 2011]

Let me tell you something ,my days as a boyscout was a night mare. Nothing but authority but looking at this it wasn't as bad. At a Hitler youth camp all the young boys are working on a project, creating gliders. You hear the innocent back ground music of a family picture. It was a family picture ,a Nazi one. These scouts for the Nazi cause are being supervised by their Nazi scout masters, played by Maltie Yeager and an actor who also played one of the teachers, in the Fuerzangbowl, with his red hair still dyed black.Each Nazi scout is building their own glider plane. The funny part of this movie is that there is some what an anti authority stance that in real life the Hitler scouts would never get away with. Those youthful Nazi boys pull a prank against the cook. While a sleep they sneak in the kitchen and steals his pot and pans Its the day that all the Hitler youth groups have a jamboree and display their glides. One of the boys takes off and flies his glider while you Nazi citizens watch him. The supervisors and the head of the Nazi scouts visiting find his flying his plane until he wreck his plane. Now he and his friends have been disqualified against participating in the group. His grand father ,played by Albert Florath, character actor stalwart of U.F.A., tries to convince his grandson to check to see what happen by rebuilding a model of the plane to see what happen.He even talk over to the Nazi scout master Yeager about this. His grandson tries but can't figure out why the plane fell apart. Later on at a restaurant His Superviser Yeager has a talk over this with him about this.Later they both agree to start all over again. Maltie helps him rebuild the plane and succeeds in not crashing the second time. An up grade print from 35mm resources from transit films is available at Reich's Kino. 03/23/11 The actor who had his hair died dark from his original color red who was the teacher in the fuerzanglebowl who's now a Nazi scout leader in this picture was Lutz Gotz,