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Hitler's Children (1943 film)

Hitler's Children
Hitler's Children.jpg
Directed by
Produced by Edward A. Golden
Written by
Based on Education for Death
by Gregor Ziemer
Starring
Music by Roy Webb
Cinematography Russell Metty
Production
company
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • January 6, 1943 (1943-01-06)
Running time
83 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $205,000
Box office $3,550,000 (US rentals)

Hitler's Children is a 1943 American black-and-white propaganda film made by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by the Canadian-American director, Edward Dmytryk, from an adaptation by Emmet Lavery of Gregor Ziemer's book Education For Death.

Hitler's Children stars Tim Holt, Bonita Granville, and Kent Smith. One of the most financially successful films of RKO Studios, the film is known for portrayal of brutalities associated with the Hitler Youth, represented particularly by two young participants. A line from one of the movement's songs is featured in the film: "For Hitler we will live and for Hitler we will die" (translated from German).

In 1933 Berlin, Professor Nichols (Kent Smith) 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 (Tim Holt), a German youth born in the United States, objects when Anna Muller (Bonita Granville), a US citizen born in Germany, smacks him with her baseball bat. The students are attracted to each other despite this beginning. Anna's parents had sent her to Germany to be educated, although they allowed her to go to the American school. Soon, the professor, Anna, and Karl become good friends, though they do not agree politically. After a while though, 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 the "wrong" nationalities from the American School. Anna is taken out although by then she is working as an assistant teacher. As she was born in Germany to German parents, the German government classifies her as German despite her US citizenship.

Nichols tries to find Muller, but the U.S. consulate has no power and Anna's German grandparents are too frightened to help. Nichols' friend Franz Erhart (Lloyd Corrigan) suggests that the professor get permission from the Ministry of Education to inspect a certain labor camp, where Muller is likely being held. Nichols happens to meet Gestapo Colonel Henkel (Otto Kruger) and his aide and protégé Bruner. Henkel approves Nichols' request to visit Muller but, in private, the young Bruner tries to dissuade Nichols. He says that Muller has become "a model German." Nichols cannot believe this and finds he 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.


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