Fritz Bauer Institut · Cinematography of the Holocaust
ID |
FBW000013 Fiction |
Country / Year |
USA, 1939 |
Original Title |
Beasts of Berlin / Hitler - Beast of Berlin |
Other Title(s) |
Goose Step / Goose Step and Hitler / Hell's Devils [ab 1940] |
Directed by |
Sam Newfield (als: Sherman Scott) |
Produced by |
Producers Pictures Corporation, Los Angeles, CA |
Staff |
Producer: Ben Judell, Sigmund Neufeld; Production manager: Bert Sternbach; Assistent director: Melville De Lay; Script: Shepard Traube; Based on: Shepard Traube ("Goose Step"); Camera: Eugen Schüfftan (uncredited), Jack Greenhalgh; Editing: Robert O. Crandell, Holbrook N. Todd; Art direction: Fred Preble; Technical direction: Fred Giermann; Costumes: Waldron Johnson; Makeup: Harry Ross; Music: David Chudnow |
Cast |
Roland Drew (Hans Memling); Steffi Duna (Elsa Memling); Greta Granstedt (Anna Wahl); Alan Ladd (als: Allan Ladd) (Karl Bach); Lucien Prival (Sachs); Vernon Dent (Lustig, Beer Garden Bartender); John Ellis (Gustav Schulz); George Rosener (Wunderlich); Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (Storm Trooper Albert Stalhelm); Willy Kaufman (Herr Kohler); Crane Whitley (als: Clem Wilencick) (Klee); Walter O. Stahl (Col. Hess); Josef Forte (Berkley); Frank Moran (als: Francisco Morán) (Jouvet); Frederick Vogeding (Wolff); John Peters (Kruger); Bodil Rosing (Frau Kohler); Hans Schumm (Schaefer); Wolfgang Zilzer (als: John Voight) (Kleswig, road gang guard); Hans Joby (Herman Lippert, crooked Attorney); Fred Giermann (Father Pommer); Hans von Morhart (Braun); Frederic Mellinger (Ratig); Dick Wessel (Storm Trooper Buchmann); Alex Palasthy (Ruchtbein); Walter Thiele (Kalmeit); Paul Panzer (Brahm); Abe Dinovitch (Kopke); Bob Stevenson (Romholtz); Anna Lisa (Bertha); Henry Zynda (Erlich); Ernest Roberts |
Length |
2380 m / 87' |
Format |
35mm/sw/1:1,37 |
Dates |
- 15 Oct 1939: Premiere |
Remarks |
1. Der Film wird nach der Uraufführung unter dem Titel "Hitler - Beast of Berlin" als politisch zu provokant eingestuft, neugeschnitten und ca. einen Monat später unter dem Titel "Beasts of Berlin" neugestartet. |
Abstract |
Activities of a resistance group against Hitler and the Nazis. Hans Memling, a young intellectual, patriotic German, is secretly opposed to the Nazi regime. With the aid of Gustav Schultz, Father Pommer, Anna Wahl and others, he is gleaming accurate information from foreign radio broadcasts and distributing it through Germany with an underground-press operation. Hans convinces Karl Bach, the brother of his wife Elsa, that Hitler is leading Germany toward a second world war. Bach, in love with Anna, joins the movement, determined to restore German culture and save the people from the brutality of the SS and the Gestapo. The group has an inside link through Albert Stalhelm, a Storm Trooper and one of Hitler's Elite Guards. Stalhelm is sickened by the brutalities he sees and wants to resign and flee Germany, but Hans persuades him to remain until they can find a replacement. He agrees, but warns the group that he is forced to join in the Nazi orgies and liquor loosens his tongue. Elsa is about to have a baby and lives in terror that her husband's activities will be discovered, and she tries to persuade Hans to immigrate to the US as she does not want their child to grow up in Nazi-Germany. He decides to stay because his duty to his country and civilization can not be put aside, and Elsa refuses to leave without him. Warned by Lustig, a beer garden bartender, that the Gestapo is watching them, Hans and Erlich, another active anti-Nazi, escape. Lustig is jailed and tortured but can not be made to talk. Hans is later captured and turned over to Stalhelm and two other SS men to be tortured, and Stalhelm does not dare move to save his friend. Sickened by the brutality, Stalhelm tries to go home, but is forced to join a party, where he gets drunk and says he has to go warn his friends. The SS men listen to him reveal the names of the group members, then shoot him. Hans, Lustig, Schultz, Bach and Father Pommer are thrown into a concentration camp, where the commandant is Hans' friend from WW1, Colonel Hess, who orders that Hans be treated decently, but the others do not fare well, as they are beaten, humiliated and forced to praise Hitler. Erlich, who has escaped the dragnet, tells Elsa and Anna that Herman Lippert, a crooked Nazi lawyer, can secure Hans' release for a thousand marks. Hans and the others are sold out as slave labor by the camp guards who only see the oppressed prisoners as a means of personal profit. Hans bitterly tells Hess that he will never submit to the rule of a lunatic. Hess orders him beaten and refuses to release him when Lippert's order comes through. Through the help of a guard, Braun, Hans escapes and he and Elsa reach the border, but Hans decides he can not leave Germany while the Nazis rule and he returns to help Erlich rebuild the anti-Nazi organization. Elsa stays with him. |
Subject Terms |
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Bibliography |
- , in: The Hollywood Reporter, 30.09.1939 |