THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE
HITLERJUNGE QUEX

Full Title: Hitlerjunge Quex: Ein Film vom Opfergeist der deutschen Jugend
English translation of title: Hitler Youth Quex: A Film about the Spirit of Sacrifice of German Youth
Year of Release: 1933
Director: Hans Steinhoff
Country of Production: Germany
Principal Boy Actors: The principal boy actor is Jürgen Ohlsen in the title role.
Genre: Drama
Length: 1 hr 30 min
Language: German
Availability: A DVD was released in the US, distributed by International Historic Films. However, the picture quality is considerably inferior to a digital file that is also available (Stills below are from the latter).
English subtitles: Both the DVD and the extant digital version have English subtitles. Subtitles are also available from opensubtitles.org
Synopsis
Heini Völker lives in poverty in Berlin with his mother and his Communist father. Invited to a weekend of camping with the Communist Youth Group, Heini finds himself uninterested in their activities, which seem to consist in smoking, drinking and a somewhat bored hedonism. Wandering off from the camp, he stumbles on a camp of Hitler Youth, and is attracted by their more wholesome activities and camaraderie. Back home, Heini joins the local Hitler Youth group and is nicknamed 'Quex' (short for Quecksilber, meaning Quicksilver) for his zeal in carrying out his duties. After various ordeals, he dies by being stabbed to death by a Communist. As he lies dying in his comrades' arms, he just has the strength to say with his last breath "Uns're Fahne flattert uns voran" (literally, "Our flag flutters us forward"), from the rousing chorus of the HJ anthem.
Hitlerjunge Quex is one of very few Nazi-era movies to recreate the Kampfzeit, that is, the Party's "time of struggle" prior to 1933. It succeeds in vividly portraying the Depression-era misery and mounting violence of the Weimar Republic's last days. It is this social realism, along with the charismatic attraction of its lead, that elevates this movie above a mere propaganda film.
Production
The story of the movie was inspired by the case of Nazi martyr Herbert Norkus, who was stabbed to death by Communists in January 1932 whilst distributing Nazi literature in a working class district of Berlin. The day of his assassination, January 24, became an annual day for commemorating fallen Hitler Youth in the Third Reich. Norkus was 15 years old when he was killed, and not nearly as good looking as the more photogenic Jürgen Ohlsen.
Karl Aloys Schenzinger wrote up a heavily fictionalised version of the story on the suggestion of Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach, which was serialised in a Nazi paper before being published as a book in December 1932. By the end of the war, the book had sold more than half a million copies.
The idea of making a movie of the book came not from Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry, but from Germany's leading studio, Ufa (Universum Film AG), who had already shown themselves pro-Nazi by expelling all Jewish employees. The new Ufa production unit was headed by long-standing Nazi Karl Ritter, and Hitlerjunge Quex would be his first production.

The first boy cast as the lead was Hermann Braun (see photo, right), but on the third day of filming he developed a limp, which was diagnosed as due to a severe hip inflammation, which meant that he was unable to continue in the film. Karl Ritter started looking frantically all over Berlin for a replacement, remarking at the time, "A boy - a Kingdom for a boy!" Eventually, Ohlsen was chosen as the new Quex. As Ritter noted in his diary, the boy "was completely foreign to the stage and was discovered by someone at a swimming pool through his striking outward appearance. Negotiate with the parents until they approve."
Besides Ohlsen, one of the finest performances in the film comes from Heinrich George as Heini's father (starring alongside his actual wife Berta Drews as Heini's mother). George had starred in a number of movies, several of which reflected his own left-wing sympathies. Mirroring the political trajectory of the character he plays in Quex, he was shifting gradually to a pro-Nazi position, and in November 1933 publicly declared his allegiance to Hitler.
One of the most memorable scenes in the film is when Heini is repeatedly slapped by his father as the latter tries to get him to sing The Internationale. Anticipating the Ken Loach school of film making (see the caning scene in Kes), Ritter recalled in his diary how they managed to get such a strikingly authentic reaction from Ohlsen: "George first paid for Jürgen's ice cream and took him into the canteen as a godfather would. Jürgen saw nothing to fear from him. So then, when the dreadful ear-slap scene came, the tears shot from his eyes."
The gala premiere of Hitlerjunge Quex was held in Munich in September 1933 before an audience that included several top-ranking Nazis, including Ernst Röhm, Hermann Goering, and Hitler himself. After the screening, the audience, according to one foreign observer, "raved with enthusiasm". Young Ohlsen appeared on stage and saluted Hitler, who was pleased to smile and salute back. The film was popular all over Germany, and was rescreened many times. By the end of the war, an estimated 20 million people had seen it.
(Further information about Jürgen Ohlsen, including rumours of his alleged affair with Baldur von Schirach, will be dealt with in a separate page on the actor.)
Further Information
William Gillespie's Hitler Youth Quex: A Guide for the English-speaking Reader (German Films Dot Net, 2022) is a well-researched volume covering every aspect of the film.
Screenshots
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