OhmKrüger’sTravels:
A Case Study in the Export of
Third-Reich Film Propaganda
Roel Vande Winkel1
Assistant Professor of film historiography at the University of Antwerp,
postdoctoral research fellow at the ‘Research Foundation Flanders’ (FWO), Ghent University,
and lecturer at the Sint-Lukas University College of Art and Design in Brussels
Abstract • The Nazi propaganda film OhmKrüger (Uncle Krüger, 1941) utilized former South
African statesman Paul Kruger and his role in the Boer War to promote a virulently antiBritish
message. By analyzing the international career of Ohm Krüger, this article reassesses
the propaganda value traditionally ascribed to the film in an attempt to encourage further
research on the exportation of Third-Reich cinema. The parallels between the British invasion
and occupation of Boer land, as represented in the film, and the Nazis’ invasion and
occupation of European countries were so striking that Ohm Krüger was exported almost
exclusively to nations allied with Germany while being withheld from occupied territories.
The one notable exception was France, which had a long tradition of anti-British sentiment.
Keywords • Boer War, Joseph Goebbels, Emil Jannings, Nazi cinema, Ohm Krüger (Uncle
Krüger), Hans Steinhoff, World War II
On 1 October 1941, the French-dubbed version of Ohm Krüger (Uncle
Krüger, 1941) premiered in Paris at the prestigious Normandie cinema
on the Champs-Elysées. Directed by Hans Steinhoff for the Nazi-controlled
company Tobis, the big-budget feature utilized former South African statesman
Paul Kruger (1825–1904) and his role in the Boer War (1899–1902) to
promote a virulently anti-British message. Ohm Krüger was of the greatest
importance to German authorities.2
Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels
expected so much from the film that he created a special honorary title for it:
Film der Nation (Film of the Nation), a distinction that was subsequently bestowed
on only a handful of other productions. Given its crucial propaganda
value, Germany should logically have aggressively exported and publicized
Ohm Krüger throughout Europe. Doing so would have been relatively easy,
for by 1941 Germany had seized control of film production and distribution
in many European countries.
Historical Reflections Volume 35, Issue 2, Summer 2009 © Berghahn Journals
doi: 10.3167/hrrh2009.350207 ISSN 0315-7997 (Print), ISSN 1939-2419 (Online)
•••••••••
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 109
Yet the French release of Ohm Krüger was exceptional. Unlike other semihistorical,
big-budget propaganda films such as Veit Harlan’s Jud Süss (Jew
Süß, 1940) and Der Grosse König (The Great King, 1942, also by Harlan), Ohm
Krüger was withheld from most countries that Nazi Germany occupied. This
self-imposed ban prevented the film from breaking even financially, in stark
contrast to the considerable profits Tobis was used to and that Terra earned
with Jud Süss. More importantly, this ban made it impossible to export the
anti-British spirit that pervaded Ohm Krüger. By analyzing the international
career of Ohm Krüger, this article reassesses the propaganda value traditionally
ascribed to the film in order to offer some general reflections on the
exportation of Third-Reich cinema.
Production
In early 1941, Emil Jannings, the Oscar-winning actor best remembered for
his portrayal of Professor Rath in Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel, 1930),
wrote a text that eventually ended up as a preface to the memoirs of Paul
Kruger. This new edition of Kruger’s autobiography, which had originally
appeared in German in 1902, featured sixteen new black-and-white pic-
tures.3
The illustrations were not original photographs from Paul Kruger and
his contemporaries, but stills from the Ohm Krüger movie. Emil Jannings,
who like Leni Riefenstahl and Steinhoff never officially joined the Nazi party
but strongly supported it, occupied a privileged position within Tobis and
was actively involved in the production of several films in which he also
starred.4
In his baroque preface to the Kruger memoirs, Jannings wrote:
The actor, who takes it upon himself to bring an historical personality to life,
must strive for grasping the inevitable and the legitimate in the fate of this
individual in such manner that his own time understands the meaning of
the past. I have played “Uncle Krüger,” the legendary leader [Führer] of the
Boers, not because he was a well-known personality for the older people
among us, a person whose life can be depicted in colorful, varied and exciting
ways, but because he was chosen to start a battle that will reach completion
in our days. […] Although he didn’t possess military or economic
power, he was the first to unwaveringly and incorruptibly defend his little
nation’s right to life. A wave of outrage swept over the whole of Europe
when people heard about the means England dared deploy to break the
resistance of this heroic little nation. Those very same means were meant
to be used against the German people today. In our own adventurous days,
in which the European world is taking on a new order, each sign of life of
the German nation is directed towards the goal of reckoning with England.
In this the actor does not stand aside, for in such times there is no place for
art in a vacuum. […] As the latest and strongest form of dramatic representation,
film in particular has the task of promoting, through its choice
of subject, a national community of experiencing and judging. […] Paul
Kruger’s ancestors are German by descent—his thoughts, his acts and even
110 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
his misconceptions5
are similar in our character; only now his fate becomes
completely clear to us, although forty years have passed since the Boer War.
However, this is only a short time span for historical justice to prevail. The
hour of judgment has already been announced. Before this court, Uncle
Kruger also appears as prosecutor, to demand atonement for the feigned destruction
of the liberty of his people and for the 26,000 women and children
that England let die of epidemics and hunger in concentration camps.6
Jannings’ introduction perfectly reflects the ideological premise of Ohm
Krüger as well as the political circumstances under which the film was produced.
The production of Ohm Krüger was closely linked to the British declaration
of war, which Nazi Germany provoked (but Adolf Hitler nevertheless
did not expect) by invading Poland. After the British-French declaration
of war, Goebbels immediately ordered the development of screenplays for
anti-British films. Goebbels was very enthusiastic when Emil Jannings’ suggestion
to make a film about Paul Kruger and the Boer War landed on his
desk toward the end of November 1940.7
In many respects, the Boer War
constituted an ideal subject for an anti-British propaganda film. Projecting
the contemporary military conflict against the background of British imperialism
was, after all, not without historical validity. The imperialistic policy
Great Britain took towards the Boers and some of the tactics employed by
the British during the ensuing war, including the creation of concentration
camps, do in fact belong to the darker pages of British history.
Although Jannings would strongly repudiate his statements after the
war and even claim to have done everything within his power to prevent
the film from being made, it was indeed he who came up with the basic idea
for the film. The task of directing was entrusted to Hans Steinhoff (1882–
1945) who had proved his dedication to the Nazi regime as early as 1933
with Hitlerjunge Quex (Hitler Youth Quex). Steinhoff undeniably left his
mark on Ohm Krüger, but so did Jannings, who was credited with the film’s
artistic direction. In practice, Jannings acted as producer and on one occasion
personally discussed rushes with Goebbels in Steinhoff’s absence. After
his meeting with Jannings, Goebbels noted that the actor was “working like
a man possessed on his Boer film,” which the propaganda minister was sure
would become “a great success.”8
Shooting Ohm Krüger ran from September 1940 through March 1941.
The film cost 5,477,000 Reich marks, the third highest budget of any film
produced in the Third Reich and five times more than the average.9
The film
was approved by censors on 2 April 1941, and premiered two days later. Goebbels
was ecstatic: “an anti-England movie you wouldn’t dream was possible
[…] Some find it too cruel. But it must be cruel in order to have an effect on
people. And that is its goal. […] Jannings is proud and happy. He has every
reason to feel that way.”10
As Goebbels’ comments and Jannings’ preface
indicate, Ohm Krüger served to justify Germany’s ongoing war against Great
Britain as well as to legitimize an eventual German occupation of British
territory.
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 111
The movie’s main argument, which tied in perfectly with similar arguments
made in other popular media, was of course an historical one. Did the
history of Paul Kruger and the Boer War not “prove” beyond any doubt that
Great Britain was and always had been a ruthless expansionist state, ready
to violate the independence and freedom of any people or nation that rightfully
owned something Great Britain wished to obtain?
Story and History
Beautifully photographed by Fritz Otto Wagner, who had worked on preNazi
classics such as Friedrich Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), Ohm Krüger has
high production values and features a stunning performance by Jannings.
The film is framed by images of the old and ill Paul Kruger awaiting his death
in a Swiss hotel room and recounting the Boer War to a harassing Jewish
journalist. This story mixes fact with fiction in ways that unfortunately cannot
be discussed in detail here.11
Framed as a flashback, Ohm Krüger recounts
how Cecil Rhodes, portrayed as the very embodiment of evil by Ferdinand
“Jew Süß” Marian, is supported by his government (a manipulative Lord
Chamberlain and an alcoholic Queen Victoria) as well as by British missionaries
in waging war against the Boers, on whose land gold has been found.
The Boers are portrayed as an idealistic people, led by a strong, healthy
Kruger. A true Führer character in the National-Socialist tradition, Kruger
is wiser than the indecisive members of his parliament and realizes that war
with “warmongering England” is inevitable.
When war breaks out, the British decide not to distinguish between civilians
and soldiers. Enter the fictitious Jan Kruger, Paul’s Oxford-educated
son who initially defends the English to his indignant father. However, after
a British soldier attempts to rape his wife, Jan joins the Boer commandos. In
his absence, other soldiers burn his farm and send his wife to a concentration
camp. There Boer women and children are starved to death or killed without
cause. For instance, an officer bearing an uncanny resemblance to Winston
Churchill shoots a Boer woman who dares to complain about having to eat
rotten meat. This scene was obviously inspired by Eisenstein’s Bronenosets Potyomkin
(Battleship Potemkin, 1925), a film long admired by Goebbels.
While Paul Kruger attempts to resolve the situation peacefully and rally
support for the Boer cause by futilely seeking audiences with European
heads of state, Jan manages to locate his wife in the concentration camp.
Talking to her through barbed wire and having just found out that his children
have died, he is captured by a patrol. The next day Jan is hanged while
his wife and all other female prisoners are forced to watch. The commandant
subsequently kills Jan’s wife. This sets off a rebellion that the British troops
end by massacring everyone. Gruesome images of the murdered women
fade into the film’s final scene, in which the frail, exiled Kruger proclaims
that England will one day be punished: “we [Boers] were only a small weak
112 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
nation” but some day “great and powerful nations will rise against the British
tyranny.”
It is noteworthy that the real Paul Kruger was indeed of German descent,
as Jannings pointed out, and that he was not on South African soil for most
of the Boer War.12
Aged seventy-four when the war broke out, Kruger was
too old to take part. Knowing that his capture would bring an immediate
end to the war, Boer generals urged him to leave. The British agreed to let
Kruger depart for Europe on a neutral ship chartered by Queen Wilhelmina
Figure 1 A publicity photo montage published in the Illustrierter Film Kurier. Top: Gisela Uhlen,
as Paul Krüger’s daughter-in-law, in a British concentration camp. Bottom left: concentration
camp commander and Churchill look-alike Otto Wernicke
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 113
of the Netherlands, who felt sympathy for the Boers but wished to maintain
cordial relations with Great Britain. Kruger landed in Marseille in November
1900. He was welcomed by several dignitaries and a crowd of an estimated
60,000 people. By then, Kruger had already become an international hero
and symbol of freedom outside the English-speaking world, where he was
admired by some of the intelligentsia (especially in the United States) but
vilified by popular media.
In exile his popularity grew larger than ever and was reflected in mass
publications (books, newspaper and magazine articles) and all kinds of Krugeriana.
After his arrival in Marseille, Kruger was received by the French
president, who honored him but did not provide any concrete military or
political support. (According to the German film, however, the French president
refused to see Kruger.) When Kruger subsequently travelled to Germany,
he was welcomed again by large crowds but refused an audience by
Kaiser Wilhelm, who indirectly told him to leave the country. Kruger moved
on to the Netherlands, where his popularity came close to mass hysteria and
the royal family repeatedly received him privately, but paid him no official
honors so as not to break Dutch neutrality. Kruger realized once more, to
paraphrase his biographer, that he had the hearts of the European states,
but not their heads. No government was prepared to take an active stand
with the Boer republics. Boer delegations sent to Europe and the United
States in 1900 also met with failure. Kruger spent the rest of his life in the
Netherlands and France, realizing that his death in exile would be a final act
of publicity benefiting the Boers. In the summer of 1904, while losing his
eyesight, Kruger moved to Clarens, Switzerland, where he died of pneumonia
on 14 July.
What made Ohm Krüger different from most historical propaganda films
produced in the Third Reich was not its foreign setting, but its treatment
of an historical episode that was still fresh in collective memory. The Boer
War, often cited as the first war covered by modern mass media, had been
followed with great interest by the population of many European states,
in particular by the inhabitants of small nations founded in the nineteenth
century. Theoretically, this historical sympathy for Kruger and the Boers,
combined with hatred for the British and their concentration camps, formed
a perfect basis for the international distribution of Ohm Krüger. In reality, as
always, things were more complicated.
Distribution in Germany and“Independent”Countries
On 4 April 1941, Ohm Krüger premiered at Berlin’s most prestigious cinema,
the Ufa-Palast am Zoo. Goebbels attended the premiere, together with Steinhoff,
Jannings, and other members of the cast and production company.
The next day, the propaganda minister gave Jannings the honorary ring
that came with the title “Film of the Nation.” Goebbels noted smugly in his
114 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
diary that everyone was enthusiastic about the film, except for some “senile
bureaucrats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs taking offense.”13
In the
following weeks, Ohm Krüger was distributed all over Germany, including regions
that had been incorporated into the so-called “Greater German Reich,”
such as Austria and the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. The film was supported
by the most lavish publicity campaign launched since the outbreak of war
seven months earlier. It did very well commercially, grossing nearly 6 million
Reich Marks before the end of May. However, the promotional campaign
and the larger-than-usual number of screening copies increased Tobis’
expenses to the extent that the film did not break even.14
According to a secret report by the Reich Security Service (Reichssicherheitsdienst)
of Heinrich Himmler’s SS, the film served its purpose well:
All reports from various areas of the Reich confirm that this film has far exceeded
the great expectations aroused in all sections of the community. […]
There is no doubt that, propagandistically, the film fulfills its task, especially
among the general public. Support for waging war against England was
significantly broadened and deepened. […] The representation of English
Figure 2 Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels (front left) gives Emil Jannings (front right)
the “Honorary Ring of German Cinema” denoting the “Film of the Nation.” Back right: Fritz
Hippler, who tried in vain to export Uncle Krüger to neutral territories. Back left: State Secretary
Leopold Gutterer
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 115
brutality clearly had a resounding effect and, psychologically, the composition
of the plot drew was perfectly in tune with the current mood of the
German people towards England.15
Previous scholarship on the film, none of which looks into reactions outside
the Reich, often cites this document as evidence of Ohm Krüger’s power as
propaganda. However, a careful reading of the report reveals two caveats that
need to be acknowledged. The first is its attribution of the film’s success to preexisting
anti-British sentiment, suggesting that spectators in other countries
not already indoctrinated against England would react less enthusiastically.
Significantly, the report also mentions that there were also some German
cinemagoers who felt that the film was too heavy-handed, for instance
when British missionaries were shown distributing bibles and guns to South
African natives. According to the Security Service, “cinemagoers acquainted
with the subject and Africa specialists” also considered that the Boers had
been portrayed too positively. The report concluded that “the character of
this mixed people [Mischvolk—a reference to the mixed German-FrenchDutch
origins of the Boers] is ambivalent and should, also in view of Greater
Germany’s colonial tasks after the final victory, not be presented as a picture
of the Germanic ideal.”16
It is impossible to determine whether these complaints
were actually expressed by spectators or, following common practice,
added by the SS to serve its own ideological agenda. Whatever the case, they
do point to underlying difficulties that would make exporting Ohm Krüger
problematic.
In principle, the foreign film market could be divided into three main sectors:
occupied territories, independent countries that Germany befriended or
influenced, and independent states that wished to remain absolutely neutral
in the ongoing war. Obviously, a virulent anti-British film like Ohm Krüger
was unlikely to be imported by neutral countries. Just as German ambassadors
themselves had a fairly long tradition of protesting the international
distribution of films they considered anti-German (All Quiet on the Western
Front, 1930; The Road Back, 1937; Confessions of a Nazi Spy, 1939, and The Great
Dictator, 1940, among others), neutral countries easily found reasons to refuse
Ohm Krüger. An attempted release in Sweden prompted local censors to request
so many cuts and changes that the whole idea was abandoned, much
to the dismay of Fritz Hippler, at the time Goebbels’ closest collaborator in
the field of cinema.17
Ohm Krüger was apparently not released in any other
neutral state, not even in Franco’s Spain, where a German version of the
film was screened once, for invited guests only.18
Germany’s allies, especially the countries that had also declared war on
Great Britain, of course had no objection to importing Ohm Krüger. In the
first week of June 1941, the film was released in Italy.19
The Germans went
to great lengths—and apparently with success—to make the film a box-office
hit. Ohm Krüger was dubbed in Italian and Jannings personally attended the
premiere in Rome on 6 June 1941, as well as a preview showing in Milan.
116 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
In Rome, the premiere was also attended by Steinhoff, the German ambassador,
and several German and Italian officials. Mussolini did not attend, but
did receive Jannings personally. Naturally, the Italian press expressed great
enthusiasm for the film. Later that year, in September 1941, Ohm Krüger was
awarded the Coppa Mussolini (Mussolini Cup) for the best foreign film at the
Venice Film Festival, a prize Jannings and Steinhoff had previously received
for Robert Koch (1939), another historical drama with overtly propagandistic
tendencies.
Germany’s other main partner, Japan, also imported Ohm Krüger, but not
until the summer of 1943.20
It remains unclear why it took two years before
Ohm Krüger was seen in Japan, which declared war against Great Britain in
December 1941 and imported a relatively high number of German productions
each year.21
In 1943, the Japanese Ministry of Education gave the film
multiple awards and enthusiastically supported its distribution, for Great
Britain was an important adversary to Japan’s expansionist policy in Southeast
Asia. As one publicity flyer put it, Ohm Krüger exposed “the real British
empire that hides behind a mask of chivalry.”22
All archival evidence suggests that Ohm Krüger did not, with the exception
of Italy, play outside the so-called “Greater German Reich” until the fall
of 1941 after the Venice Film Festival. It is possible that the delay was caused
by the production of an Auslandsfassung (special foreign version) discussed
below that has to date escaped scholars’ attention. Unfortunately, it remains
unclear exactly how such a specially modified version of Ohm Krüger might
have differed from the German original.
Apart from Italy and Japan, Ohm Krüger was exported to only six independent
states: Slovakia (2 October 1941), Croatia (17 October 1941), Ro-
mania(28October1941),Hungary(19December1941),Bulgaria(lateJanuary
or early February 1942) and Finland (14 March 1942).23
It is no coincidence
that each of these states was closely linked to Nazi Germany. Economically,
Finland was totally dependent on Germany and had, under president Risto
Ryti, allied with the Reich by declaring war on the Soviet Union in June
1941. The other five countries, two of which (Croatia and Slovakia) were
Nazi puppet states, were the same states that between November 1940 and
June 1941 had joined the Tripartite Pact with Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Denying Ohm Krüger access to their cinemas was therefore unthinkable.
Conversely, welcoming the film into their countries was a useful political
gesture, an official confirmation of their pro-German policy. This explains
why the successive premieres of Ohm Krüger were not just gala screenings,
but “state premieres” attended by German officers and diplomats, members
of the diplomatic corps (mostly from other member-states of the Tripartite
Pact) and, last but not least, by some of the highest local authorities.
In Hungary the premiere was attended by members of Admiral Miklós
Horthy’s government and the Hungarian branch of the Habsburg royal family;
in Romania by head of state Marshal Ion Antonescu; in Slovakia by President
Josef Tiso and Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka; in Bulgaria by the minister
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 117
of foreign affairs and the minister of war; in Finland by President Risto Ryti
and Prime Minister Johan Rangell. German film journals such as Film-Kurier
covered these events extensively and never failed to mention how well the
film was received and how popular it turned out to be with audiences in the
ensuing weeks. How successful Ohm Krüger really was in those territories
cannot be established with precision, but it was apparently not successful
enough to make the film profitable.
Distribution in Occupied Territories
Nazi-occupied territories, where films from former competitors such as Great
Britain and the United States had been banned since the summer of 1940,
constituted an equally important outlet for the German film industry.24
In
several of these countries, cinemagoers had reconciled themselves relatively
quickly to the realities of occupation. Although this did not typically lead,
as the Propaganda Ministry liked to believe, to a real affinity with Nazi Germany
and its politics, film audiences in many occupied territories did respond
well to German film stars such as Kristina Söderbaum, Zarah Leander,
Marika Rökk, and Heinz Rühmann. Attendance figures for German films
were high, even for films that weaved propagandistic messages into classical
story lines.25
Theoretically, Ohm Krüger could therefore have enjoyed the
same box-office success in German-occupied regions as it had within the
Reich. However, there were some considerable logistical problems to overcome.
This was already clear in June 1941 when the film was released in
Luxemburg, a region that in the National-Socialist view was not occupied, but
had simply been “brought back” into the Reich. The authorities, hoping for
the same enthusiastic reception that Ohm Krüger had received “elsewhere”
in the Reich, were bewildered to note that many Luxemburgers refused to
see the film. Moreover, according to a Security Service report, some of those
who did go to see the film started stomping their feet and making noise to
protest the concentration camp scenes, among others.26
If the film was badly received in Luxemburg, which had been conquered
without any real battle or internment of soldiers as prisoners of war, how
would audiences react in countries that had been conquered less easily?
How could cinemagoers in, for instance, Norway and Poland, not draw parallels
between the German invasion of 1940 and the on-screen representation
of Britain invading Boer territories? How could the idealization of Boer
resistance not be read as an encouragement for local resistance against German
occupying forces? It was probably such logic that eventually convinced
the German propaganda ministry or local German occupation authorities
not to release Ohm Krüger in most occupied countries.
However, a notable exception was made for the French market. As far
as the German propaganda ministry was concerned, it was of crucial importance
that Ohm Krüger be released in France as soon as possible. This ardent
118 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
wish, fuelled by the need to alienate Frenchmen from their former British
allies and justified by the long history of Franco-British conflict, manifested
itself in April 1941. Within two weeks following its German premiere,
Goebbels had a print of Ohm Krüger sent to the Referat Film (Film Service)
of the German Propaganda-Abteilung (Propaganda Department) in Paris and
personally requested advice on its usability there.27
The exact response is
unknown, but was probably negative, as the Parisian branch of Tobis was
informed shortly thereafter that a specially modified “foreign version” of
the film would instead be produced in Berlin.28
In June 1941, Fritz Hippler
informed the Referat Film that this special version had been ordered by the
propaganda minister but not yet approved by Jannings or Steinhoff.29
Sometime
between June and September 1941, the edited version of Ohm Krüger
arrived in Paris and was dubbed in French.
The differences between this version, re-titled Le Président Kruger, and
its German original cannot be reconstructed in detail because of a lack of
production records or a viewable copy of the film.30
Contemporary sources
do indicate that the French version had a new introduction consisting of a
montage of French newspaper headlines and political caricatures from the
turn of the century condemning the British concentration camps. Naturally,
these documents were to remind French audiences of their historical sympathy
toward the Boers and their opposition to British imperialism. In the
words of the German magazine Film-Kurier: “This way, the objectivity of the
film’s historical view is so to speak corroborated by French voices of the time
while the objective impartiality of the viewers is assured.”31
Despite the addition of a new introduction, the film’s overall length was
reduced. Whereas the German original ran 3,620 meters, or 123 minutes, the
French version lasted only 115 minutes.32
Taking into account the new introduction,
it is clear that over 8 minutes of the German original were removed.
A summary published in the Paris-based (but German-owned) trade journal
Le Film makes clear that the main storyline remained unchanged, suggesting
that only smaller scenes, such as those showing British missionaries handing
out guns and Krüger not being received by the French president, were
deleted or shortened. It is also likely that the sequence of the British crown
prince attending a risqué French variety evening in Paris was deleted.33
Four days after the Parisian premiere on 1 October 1941, the leader of
the Referat Film anonymously attended a screening of Le Président Kruger at
the Normandie theater on the Champs-Elysées. According to a report he sent
to Berlin, the cinema was sold out and most viewers responded enthusiastically.
During its first week, the film caused no protests or demonstrations
and French cinemagoers seemed “not to draw parallels between the fate of
the Boers and that of their own”—thereby allaying fears expressed by the
intelligence service of the German ministry of foreign affairs.34
The film did
well at the box office, drawing 34,000 visitors in fourteen days, and continued
at the Normandie for three weeks before moving to the Olympia and César
cinemas for second-tier exclusive contracts.35
Before the end of the year,
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 119
the film reached other major cities throughout the occupied zone, including
Bordeaux, Le Havre, and Nancy.36
First-week box-office figures reported
for the Apollo theater in Bordeaux show that the film ranked second among
German-made productions there, well behind Willy Forst’s dubbed adaptation
of Guy de Maupassant’s novella Bel Ami (1941), but slightly ahead of
L’Assassinat du Père Noël (Who Killed Santa Claus?, 1941), a French-language
murder mystery made by a Tobis-owned production company in Paris known
Figure 3 Façade of the Normandie theater on the Champs-Elysées, late 1941
120 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
as Continental Films.37
Just as Le Président Kruger was about to be exported
to Vichy France, censors there banned Bel Ami on grounds of moral decadence
and, in an additional punitive measure, also forbade the distribution
of Le Président Kruger and Jew Süss in French North Africa.38
This ongoing
censorship battle with Vichy appears to have limited Krüger’s distribution
in the unoccupied zone as well. Trade magazines attest to showings in Toulouse
in March and April 1942 with excellent box-office results, but the
film was conspicuously absent from other major markets such as Marseille,
Lyon, Montpellier, and Nice.39
Timing probably also played a factor, for by
early 1942 Nazi priorities had shifted away from anti-British propaganda to
denouncing Bolshevism in support of the war on the Eastern Front.
This shift perhaps helps explain why there are no traces of Ohm Krüger’s
being exported commercially to other occupied territories. However, keeping
with standard Nazi practices, private screenings were organized for German
subjects (soldiers and civilians) as well as sympathetic local collaborationist
movements. For instance, Ohm Krüger was not distributed in Nazi-occupied
Poland, but the Ufa theatre of Łódz´ organized a screening for German soldiers,
dignitaries, and party members. Here too, prestige was added by the
presence of prominent officials such as Government President (Regierungspräsident)
Friedrich Uebelhoer.40
In Belgium as well, the film was shown at
special screenings organized for local collaborationists.41
Significantly, Ohm Krüger was also slated for general release in Belgium
and in the Netherlands, where German film interests were represented by
Alfred Greven, the same man charged with reorganizing the French film sector,
but Greven failed to export the Kruger film to either of the former countries.
Even though the film was repeatedly advertised in the Belgian trade
press42
and covered in the German-owned Dutch fan magazine Cinema &
Theater,43
an official release date was never set. In Belgium, where Frenchspeaking
audiences were to see the French version and “Germanic” Dutchspeaking
audiences were to see the original version, the local Tobis branch
came close to setting a release date. Contrary to standard practice, in December
1941 the local German propaganda department (Propaganda-Abteilung
Belgien) organized a test screening of Le Président Kruger for Walloon and
Flemish journalists.
Around that time, an original version with sparse Dutch subtitles was
also being prepared. This version, a print of which has survived in the collections
of the Belgian Royal Film Archive, is almost twenty minutes shorter
than the German original. Many scenes were cut out, from the distribution
of guns to African natives by British missionaries to most of the concentration
camp sequences. It remains unknown whether these cuts were made
before or after the test screening. According to a tactfully worded report the
Propaganda-Abteilung Belgien sent to Berlin, the test screening was not very
successful: “Even though the film made a lasting impression, it was agreed
by almost everyone attending the screening that, by the nature of its entire
concept, the film is unfit for the local circumstances, or that at least the time
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 121
for its screening has not yet come.”44
Plans to release the film were apparently
postponed until the summer of 1942, when trade journal CINEMA announced
the film again. But this never came to pass. The main problem was
probably that, unlike French audiences, Flemish and Dutch cinemagoers did
not have a long tradition of Anglophobia and had a demonstrated tendency
to draw parallels between their situation and the situation of the Boers, with
whom they shared a language.
Conclusion
At the end of October 1944, as the military situation overshadowed the production
of new films, the German propaganda ministry ordered that a selected
body of films “with military or national content” be re-released, in
part to inspire the Volkssturm civilian militia that Goebbels had recently created.
One of these films was Ohm Krüger. However, on 31 January 1945, the
film’s screening was banned for fear that the morale of German audiences
would be harmed by images of Boer refugees whose houses had been destroyed
by the British—images that by that time replicated the harsh realities
of everyday life in Germany.45
Ironically, this incident mirrored a problem German propagandists had
encountered over three years before in Nazi-occupied territories. The parallels
between the “imperialist” British invasion and occupation of Boer land
and the German invasion and occupation of many European countries were
so striking that Ohm Krüger could be allowed to run only in countries that
had remained “independent.” In retrospect, officials at the German Ministry
of Foreign Affairs had not been as “senile” as Goebbels liked to believe. It is
noteworthy that attempts were made to solve this problem by making special
foreign versions of Ohm Krüger. The “solution” appears to have worked fairly
well in a country with a long tradition of anti-British sentiment (France), but
not for other regions (Belgium and the Netherlands) with different cultural
and historical backgrounds. Like its namesake, the film traveled much of
Europe futilely searching for a sympathetic audience. This new information
underscores the need to revise traditional views of Ohm Krüger’s propaganda
value and will perhaps encourage more research into the foreign versions of
other Nazi films and the reactions of local audiences to them.
Notes
1. This article could not have been written without financial aid from the Research
Foundation—Flanders (Belgium) and without substantial support from Cinegraph
(Hamburg), the Royal Film Archive (Brussels) and the National Film Archive
(Zagreb). Also thanks to Brett Bowles for guiding me to crucial sources in
the US National Archives.
122 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
2. The spelling of Paul Kruger’s name (with or without umlaut) has been disputed.
The “Kruger” version is now generally accepted as the right one, but Germanlanguage
sources often spell it “Krüger.” Throughout this article the name will
only be spelled with an umlaut when referring to the title of the film.
3. Ohm Krüger: Die Lebenserinnerungen des Buren-Präsidenten (Neue berechtigte deutsche
Ausgabe mit 16 Aufnahmen und einer Karte), ed. A. Schowalter (Berlin, 1941).
4. Renata Helker, “Kunst-Ausschus: Emil Jannings als Schauspieler und als Produzent,”
in Tonfilmfrieden/Tonfilmkrieg: Die Geschichte der Tobis vom Technik-Syndikat
zum Staatskonzern, ed. Jan Distelmeyer (Munich, 2003), 150–58.
5. For Jannings, these “misconceptions” were his hopes that European governments
would support his battle against Great Britain.
6. Emil Jannings, “Paul Krüger,” in Schowalter, Ohm Krüger.
7. Goebbels’ diary entries regarding Ohm Krüger are analyzed in Felix Moeller, Der
Filmminister: Goebbels und der Film im Dritten Reich (Berlin, 1998), 479.
8. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, 1923–1941, ed. Elke Fröhlich, 9 vols. (Munich,
1998), 9:56.
9. Ulrich J. Klaus, Deutsche Tonfilme. Bd 11. 11. Jahrgang 1940/41 (Berlin, 2001), 248–
52. Only Münchhausen (1943) and Kolberg (1944–1945) were more expensive.
10. Fröhlich, Die Tagebücher, 9:220 and 227.
11. Lengthy summaries of the film can be found in Ohm Krüger. Arbeitsmaterialien
zum nationalsozialistischen Propagandafilm, ed. Gerd Albrecht, 5 CD-ROMS (Wiesbaden,
2007); Christian Hallstein, “Ohm Krüger: The Genesis of a Nazi Propaganda
Film,” Literature-Film Quarterly 30 (2002): 133–38; David Welch, Propaganda and
the German Cinema 1933–1945, 2nd
ed. (London, 2001), 229–36; Richard Taylor,
Film propaganda. Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, 2nd
ed. (London, 1998), 187–95.
12. The International Impact of the Boer War, ed. Keith Wilson (New York, 2001); Johannes
Meintjes, President Paul Kruger (London, 1974).
13. Fröhlich, Die Tagebücher, 9:56.
14. Moeller, Der Filmminister, 237 and 250–51; Boguslaw Drewniak, Der deutsche Film
1938–1945 (Düsseldorf, 1987), 339.
15. Report from 12 May 1941, reprinted in Gerd Albrecht, ed., Der Film im 3. Reich:
Eine Dokumentation (Karlsruhe, 1979), 195–97.
16. For an analysis that overlaps partially with my own, see Welch, Propaganda and
the German cinema, 235.
17. Fritz Hippler, “Die Filmzensur der Neutralen,” Der deutsche Film 6, no. 4–5 (1941):
2–3; for details on Hippler, see Roel Vande Winkel, “Nazi Germany’s Fritz Hippler
(1909–2002),” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 23 (2003): 91–99.
18. “Ohm Krüger in Madrid,” Film-Kurier, 8 November 1941.
19. “Jannings und Steinhoff in Rom,” Film-Kurier, 3 June 1941; “Ohm Krüger in Mailand,”
Film-Kurier, 6 June 1941; “Ohm Krüger in Rom,” Film-Kurier, 7 June 1941;
“Die italienische Presse über Ohm Krüger,” Film-Kurier, 10 June 1941; “Der Mussolini-Pokal
für Ohm Krüger,” Film-Kurier, 16 September 1941.
20. “Erfolg des Ohm Krüger-Filkms in Japan,” Film-Kurier, 30 August 1943.
21. Janine Hansen, “Cellulloid Competition: German-Japanese Film Relations, 1929–
45,” in Cinema and the Swastika. The International Expansion of Third Reich Cinema,
ed. Roel Vande Winkel and David Welch (New York, 2007), 187–97.
22. Japanese advertisement cited in Michael Baskett, The Attractive Empire: Transnational
Film Culture in Imperial Japan (Honolulu, 2008), 124–25.
Vande Winkel • Ohm Krüger’s Travels 123
23. “Ohm Krüger in Preßburg,” Film-Kurier, 1 October 1941; “Ohm Krüger in Preßburg,”
Film-Kurier, 4 October 1941. “Festlicher Start von Ohm Krüger in Preßburgn,”
Film-Kurier, 6 October 1941. “Ohm Krüger in Agram,” Film-Kurier, 20
October 1941; “Ohm Krüger in Anwesenheit von Marschall Antonescu gestartet,”
Film-Kurier, 30 October 1941; “Erfolgreicher Start von Ohm Krüger in Budapest,”
Film-Kurier, 22 December 1941; “Ohm Krüger begeistert Budapest,” Film-Kurier, 9
January 1942; “Ohm Krüger in Sofia,” Film-Kurier, 3 February 1942; “Neues aus
Sofia,” Film-Kurier, 17 February 1942; “Ohm Krüger in Finnland,” Film-Kurier, 17
March 1942; “Ohm Krüger in Helsinki,” Film-Kurier, 10 April 1942; “Der festliche
Start von Ohm Krüger in Helsinki,” Film-Kurier, 13 April 1942.
24. David Welch and Roel Vande Winkel, “Europe’s New Hollywood? The German
Film Industry under Nazi Rule, 1933–1945,” in Cinema and the Swastika, 6–24.
25. For detailed case studies of twenty different territories, see Vande Winkel and
Welch, Cinema and the Swastika.
26. Paul Lesch, Heim ins Ufa-Reich? NS-Filmpolitik und die Rezeption deutscher Filme in
Luxemburg 1933–1944 (Trier, 2002), 84–86.
27. Referat Film, Aussenstelle Paris, report of 17 April 1941, United States National
Archives (hereafter USNA), microfilm T501 / 141 / frame 446.
28. Referat Film, Aussenstelle Paris, report of 25 April 1941, USNA, microfilm T501
/ 141 / frame 483.
29. Referat Film, Aussenstelle Paris, report of 19 June 1941, USNA, microfilm T501
/ 141 / frame 672.
30. The Archives Françaises du Film in Bois d’Arcy hold original nitrate prints in
poor condition which await transfer to safety film for viewing by researchers.
31. “Deutsche Filme in Paris,” Film-Kurier, 11 November 1941.
32. Albrecht, Ohm Krüger, 24. “Les nouveaux films—Le Président Krüger,” Le Film, 11
October 1941.
33. The Bibliothèque du Film in Paris has a French publicity still of the scene, but it
was not unusual for such promotional materials to be prepared before a film was
actually censored. The deletion of such references to “decadent” French behavior
would have been essential for securing the film’s approval by Vichy censors
in the unoccupied zone.
34. Referat Film, Aussenstelle Paris, report of 17 October 1941, USNA, microfilm
T501 / 142 / frames 002 and 0047.
35. “Deutsche Filme in Paris,” Film-Kurier, 11 November 1941. “Programme des cinémas
de Paris,” Le Film, 11 October, 25 October, 22 November 1941.
36. “L’exploitation à Bordeaux,” Le Film, 11 October 1941; “Deux semaines du Président
Kruger à l’Empire,” Le Film, 8 November 1941; “L’exploitation dans le région
de l’Ouest,” Le Film, 2 January 1942.
37. Referat Film, Aussenstelle Paris, report of 30 January 1942, USNA, microfilm
T501 / 142 / frame 360.
38. Referat Film, Aussenstelle Paris, report of 2 January 1942, USNA, microfilm
T501/142, frame 331.
39. “Toulouse: les nouveaux tarifs sont bien accueillis,” Le Film, 11 April 1942.
40. H. Schiller, “Ohm Krüger in Litzmannstadt,” Film-Kurier, 28 May 1941.
41. “Oom Krüger: een film van haat en offers,” De Balming, 12 February 1944.
42. Belgian Royal Film Archive, file ‘Ohm Krüger.’ This file contains a small color
poster advertising the film. Tobis advertisements announcing the film appeared
124 Historical Reflections • Summer 2009
in several issues of the trade journal CINEMA (July 1941, August 1941, December
1941 and May 1942).
43. “Een regisseur in actie,” Cinema & Theater, 15 February 1941. The cover of this
issue also features Jannings and explicitly refers to Ohm Krüger, which was subsequently
expected to play in Dutch cinemas.
44. Propaganda-Abteilung Belgien, report of 15–31 December 1941, USNA, microfilm
T 77 / 982.
45. Albrecht, Ohm Krüger, 24 and 32.