Word: boers
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...blackout, Berliners stumbled to their cinemas last week to get a Nazi-eye view of what the unspeakable British have been up to all these years. With noisy and immense satisfaction they saw beefy, aging Emil Jannings play Stephanus Johannes Paulus Krüger, South Africa's famed Boer statesman, in Tobis Film's production Ohm Krüger. This Nazi rewrite of the Boer War for home consumption is pure propaganda-reminiscent of The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, and other thrillers tossed off during World War I to raise the U.S.'s blood to battle...
...jerks along with the customary lack of continuity of the German film. Its Nazi-drawn characters are either snow-white or jet-black. Krüger is a simple, modest, wise Boer elder statesman. Cecil Rhodes (Ferdinand Marian) is a rich, conniving Englishman who behaves like a sinister city slicker out of a Class B Western. His one thought is to rob the hard-working Boers of the gold beneath their peaceful farm lands. Behind him is the might of Britain in the person of a fat, money-lusting Queen Victoria (Hedwig Wangel), sly, oily Minister Chamberlain (Gustav Griindgens). Throughout...
...until Britain traitorously declares war on the Boers does the Nazi propaganda begin to make hay. British troops come to the farm of Krüger's pacifistic, English-educated son, Jan (Werner Hinz), molest his wife, drive him into the Boer forces. In a concentration camp his wife and children are starved, whaled with rifle butts by the sadistic British. Dead prisoners lie in open ditches while bored guards cover them with quicklime. The camp commandant lives the life of Riley with a mistress and a puffy bulldog to whom he feeds juicy steaks. Meantime Lord Kitchener announces...
Actor Jannings, Germany's No. 1 cinema star, spent 1,500,000 marks producing Ohm Krüger. When it opened recently, he explained the new conception of the Boer hero in the light of history as the Nazis now see it. Said he: "In the most difficult hours of his life Krüger clung always to the theory that no individual and no nation shall deviate from the path of duty by withdrawing from its mission of sacrificing itself for the future...
Before the ink was dry on this announcement, hell began to pop. In Johannesburg, British soldiers and bearded Brandwag men tangled in the street after a meeting. Police stopped the fighting, but next evening soldiers on leave were loaded for Boer. They crowded the town, and the sight of a bearded man in a streetcar was enough to touch off a riot. After attacking the car they went for the Brandwag office. Police kept them outside, but they did their best to wreck it with brickbats. To clear rioters from the streets the Government shipped police reinforcements into the city...