Hitler's Children (1943 film)

In 1933 Berlin, Professor Nichols runs the American Colony School. It is next to the Horst Wessel School, where young Germans are indoctrinated into Nazism. During a brawl between the student bodies, Karl Bruner, a German youth born in the United States, objects when Anna Muller, an American citizen born in Germany, smacks him with her baseball bat. However, the two are attracted to each other. The professor, Anna, and Karl become good friends, though they do not agree politically. After a while, they lose touch with each other.

Six years later, as war looms in Europe, Karl Bruner, now a lieutenant in the Gestapo, removes students of foreign nationalities from the American school. Anna is also removed even though she is working there as an assistant teacher. Because she was born in Germany to German parents, the German government classifies her as German despite her American citizenship.

Nichols tries to find Muller, but the American consulate has no power and Anna's German grandparents are too frightened to help. Nichols' friend Franz Erhart suggests that the professor seek permission from the Ministry of Education to inspect a labor camp where Muller is likely being held. Nichols meets Gestapo Colonel Henkel and his aide and protégé Bruner. Henkel approves Nichols' request to visit Muller but, in private, Bruner tries to dissuade Nichols. He says that Muller has become "a model German." Nichols cannot believe this but finds that Bruner is right when he speaks privately with Muller at the camp. She discourages Nichols from trying to rescue her, as it would be too dangerous and stands little chance of success.

Bruner recommends Muller for an advanced geopolitik course at a German university but, when interviewed by Henkel and Dr. Graf of the education department, Anna declines the opportunity, fearing that they intend her to become a spy against the U.S. She is sent back to the camp and demoted from the staff to a laborer position. Learning that she has engaged in anti-Nazi behavior, Henkel orders her to be sterilized. When Bruner learns of this, he tries to persuade Anna to pretend to be a good Nazi and bear his child to prove her usefulness to Germany, but she refuses.

Anna flees the camp and reaches Berlin, where she hides in a church. A search party finds her and takes her away over the protests of the bishop. Henkel orders her to receive ten lashes and sends Bruner to witness her punishment. After she is whipped the second time, Bruner stops the action, although he knows that he has doomed himself and Anna.

Bruner pretends to have realized his mistake and recants. However, Henkel arranges for a national radio broadcast of the trial of Bruner and Muller and promises Karl full honors at his funeral. Professor Nichols is ordered to leave Germany immediately; if he does not, he will be arrested as an accessory to treason. At the airport, Nichols hears Karl's opening statement denouncing Hitler's Germany before the young man is shot and killed. Anna is shot and killed as she rushes to Karl.

Tim Holt was offered the lead role, but when it seemed that he would be unavailable, Kent Smith was assigned.[4] However, Holt did play the lead role and Smith moved to a supporting role.

Originally Hitler's Children was directed by Irving Reis, but he fought with producer Edward A. Golden and was replaced by Edward Dmytryk.[5][6]

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther considered the melodrama to be "obvious, conventional" and noted: "Edward Dmytryk, who directed, has set the whole thing in an oratorical style and has given it the quality of a philippic rather than a credible story from life."[3]

Despite lukewarm critical reviews, Hitler's Children was a great financial success, earning RKO a profit of $1.21 million.[1][7] It was the fourth-highest grossing film of the year and RKO's most successful film of the year. Dmytryk and writer Emmet Lavery were awarded $5,000 bonuses for their work.[8]

The film's great success led RKO to hire Dmytryk to direct other war films. He directed Back to Bataan, The Young Lions and the smash hit The Caine Mutiny. The last war film that he made was Anzio (1968).[5]

• Education for Death, the Disney cartoon based on Ziemer's book
• Hitler – Dead or Alive
• The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (film)
• The Hitler Gang

• Hitler's Children at the TCM Movie Database
• Hitler's Children at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Hitler's Children at IMDb