Kolberg (1945)

Strong and Moving!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

During the waning years of WWII, it was obvious to just about everyone that ultimately the Germans would lose the war. However, the Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels insisted that a rousing German epic about war MUST be created in order to inspire their people in the defense of the nation. And so, while the country was being incinerated from the air and troops were being slaughtered by the 100s of 1000s on the Eastern Front, HUGE resources were rather inexplicably being diverted to the creation of "Kolberg". 10s of 1000s of soldiers were cast as extras and the great power of the sleeping German movie industry was mustered. And seeing that it was a full-color film with all this money being thrown into it, it's not surprising that this is a great film--though also one most would probably want to forget simply because of who made it and why it was created in the first place.The film is set during the Napoleonic Wars--back around 1807. Town after Prussian town have surrendered to the oncoming French juggernaut. Yet, inexplicably, the town of Kolberg isn't ready to welcome the invaders. Despite a very weak commander of the Prussian army in the region, the Mayor isn't about to surrender and he's encouraging his people to fight to the death, as by slowing down the enemy, ultimate victory may result. But, he must contend with the wimpy commander and send a rather ordinary lady on a mission to have the King replace the commander and support the defense of the city. What follows are some exceptional battle scenes and the only ones which I have seen which are better are from the insanely large Russian version of "War and Peace" (a film you just have to see at least once in your life).Overall, the film is very rousing and inspiring. It's obvious that the purpose of the film is to get the German people to be very willing to lay down their lives as well as convince them that this is not a sacrifice in vain (which is was). As a result, the film probably contributed to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people--when there was no possible way to stop the inevitable. Plus, unlike the Prussians during the time of Napoleon, they were NOT fighting for what was right. Sad...but amazingly effective...provided the local movie houses had not been blown up so the folks could see it in the first place! By the way, the scene where the peasant girl meets the queen was exceptionally well done--even brilliant. See this and you'll understand what I mean.

First of all, this one will not be out in the stores or at your local rent-a-flick...The movie is the last effort of 1945´s german movie propaganda to strengthen the people´s will to fight on. Therefore, this - as many other propaganda pictures - is not offered to the public. Still, you might get it in universities with an interest in history of the third reich.The story of the movie is not all that important... What matters is the great heinrich george, the rich colours, the hateful atmosphere of the movie - and the tragedy of reality as a background: Shortly after the making of "kolberg" was finished, germany was finished either:The movie has a romantic perspective on a reactionary, aggressive, irrational and leader-oriented ideology... Not too far away from John Wayne, though I find him very entertaining as a green beret, either.

This film, the pride and joy of Goebbel's propaganda machine, was filmed during the last year of the war. Lavish financial and materièl resources were expended to make the film and it premiered just ahead of the advancing allied armies. Reportedly, Goebbels and company diverted precious rolling stock from a hard pressed Reich to bring in loads of salt to use as "snow" in one wintry scene. Munitions factories were ordered to produce the dummy ammunition expended in the fighting scenes. And Wehrmacht troops were drawn from the battle fronts to serve as extras. For the Nazi hierarchy propaganda had BECOME reality.

Some legends rank around this last big budget nazi movie. Well, the battle scenes with more than 180.000 extras, the flood-sequence and the destruction of Kolberg are filmed with some enthusiasm. But as an instrument of propaganda it's not convincing anymore. It seems even director Veit Harlan didn't believe the plot he was ordered to tell (and which is historically wrong). There's a lot of shrill and loud shouting and the typical glorification of Prussian militarism that seems so ridiculous and pervert when you consider what has happened at the same time in real life when the movie was released (30 January 1945). An evil but nevertheless perfectly done picture which was fortunately released too late for maintaining the resistance of German citizens against Allied forces.