Des Teufels General

Curd Juergens, Germany´s famous actor of the fifties and sixties, here playing a part that made him a star: The Devil´s General is an airforce general with extraordinary success in building new warplanes for the luftwaffe in ww2. At the same time, he is definitely not a nazi, not a bureaucrat but a party animal and a human being with a certain sense that everybody should be treated as human beings. This makes him an enemy to the high ranks of the SS and at the same a potential partner for people of the german resistance. In the end, he pays the bill for being part of a system, he never really said "no" to. A great movie with one great actor.

This is a tranquil but disturbing film about a disputatious general trying to get along with the Nazi system. And even though the film does not live on action but on good dialogues, its appeal is quite different to that of the theatrical play. The movie is a classic.

The epic of Goethe's "Faust" replayed in real life (Ernst Udet, Generalluftzeugmeister, was the source for Zuckmayer's General Harras), and in a play by Carl Zuckmayer. Displays excellently how Germans were suckered into following the modern day "Pied Piper from Austria": Adolf Hitler; and how you have to pay the piper if you follow him. "Denn wer auf Erden des Teufels General gewesen ist und ihm die Bahn gebombt hat, der muss ihm auch in der Hoelle Quartier machen!" - "For whoever was the Devil's General on this Earth, and who bombed the path for him, also has to be his quartermaster in hell!"

A movie that I saw for the first time decades ago and numerous times since! Every time I watch it, I discover new facets in Harras'personality. On one hand he is the tough guy, the party animal, the womanizer; however, he shows his softer, almost romantic side when he meets Diddo Geiss. I think that the movie could be a wonderful teaching tool, because it illustrates how "non-political", even rebellious Germans were drawn into the Nazi ideology and paid the ultimate price! Udo Jürgens and Marianne Koch were fabulous together! I would recommend this film for upper level German classes in the US. It is a good addition to "Die weisse Rose" or "Sophie Scholl".

German audiences in the 1930's thrilled to see the astonishing aerial acrobatics of Ernst Udet in the mountain films of Arnold Fanck. The highest-ranking air ace to survive WWI, he was to become Colonel-General of the Luftwaffe but the unbearable pressures of the job, his sense of being betrayed by Goering and his despair at Hitler's invasion of Russia led to his taking his own life.

It is generally accepted that the character of General Harras in Carl Zuckmayer's hugely successful post war play is loosely based on Udets and is a fictionalised account of his final days.

The title role in this excellent film adaptation made an international star of the charismatic Curd Juergens and deservedly won him a Best Actor award at Cannes. It is undeniably his finest role and arguably his best performance.

The cast is uniformly excellent and the characters well drawn, not least Eva-Ingerborg-Scholz as the loathsome Putzchen and Viktor de Kowa as rabid Nazi Schmidt-Lausen. The career of de Kowa, despite his being on Goebbel's 'Important Artists exempt list' and his membership of the Nazi party, continued unabated after the war and his marvellously menacing portrayal is riveting. Marianne Koch plays Harras' young love and their mutual attraction is convincing despite the age gap.

This piece cannot but betray its theatrical roots but under Helmut Kautner's customarily expert direction and with Klaus Dudenhofer's editing it never drags and builds to a stupendous climax.

The intelligent and artistic Helmut Kautner not only navigated the shark infested waters of the Third Reich but also gave us one of its greatest films, 'Romanze in Moll' and managed to rise above the crass commercialism of 1950's German cinema.