Edward Dmytryk in his autobiography 'It's a Hell of a Life But Not a Bad Living', states: "A friend of mine, Irving Reis, had prepared and actually started shooting a film called 'Hitler's Children', an exploitation B. Irving was rather headstrong and somewhat touchy - a bad combination in Hollywood. After a few days, he got into a fight with producer Doc Golden [Robert Golden]. Getting his back up, he quit the film, expecting, so he told me later, to win a quick apology and a free hand. Instead, the studio said, 'As you wish,' and asked me to take over the direction. He gave me his blessing, asking only that his name be completely removed from the film's credits. The studio was willing and I went to work. I finished on schedule, cut and dubbed it, and turned it over to the distribution department. None of us at the studio was sure of what we had."
This movie's lead actress Bonita Granville said that this movie was her favorite film because it was one of the rare times that she got top billing and got to play an adult character.
The budget was originally $100,000, but the RKO management liked what they saw early on in the filming and increased the budget. Made for $205,000, the film grossed $3.355 million (topping original studio grosses for King Kong und die weiße Frau (1933), Ich tanz mich in dein Herz hinein (1935) and Vier Schwestern (1933)).
This movie was RKO's second-biggest box-office movie of the 1943-1944 financial year, just behind the Cary Grant film Mr. Lucky (1943). Overall, some reports state that it is the biggest grossing movie of all time for the RKO Studios, grossing more than even Ich tanz mich in dein Herz hinein (1935) and King Kong und die weiße Frau (1933).
According to Edward Dmytryk in his autobiography 'It's a Hell of a Life But Not a Bad Living', "A title with the word 'Hitler' in it was considered box-office poison, and the exhibitors asked [Associate Producer] Doc Golden [See: Robert Golden] and RKO to change ours. Doc was stubborn - and he was right. The film cost a little over $100,000, and, running only in England and the Western Hemisphere...grossed, by some accounts, $7,500,00."