Le Jeune Hitlérien Quex

The short unhappy life of Herbert Norkus, a young member of the Hitler Youth who was killed by Communist street thugs is the basis of this film, entitled in English, Our Flags Lead Us Forward. The martial song you hear vocally and instrumentally throughout the film was the official song of the Hitler Youth and the words were written by Baldur Von Schirath the organizer of the group. Note in the opening credits the producers at UFA give thanks to the members of the Hitler Youth Berlin chapter who appeared as extras in the film.

The film is only the Herbert Norkus story indirectly. A novel that was required reading for the Hitler Youth was the basis for the film and said novel was written K.A. Schenzinger. I'm sure it was quite the potboiler. Of course that allowed the Nazis to take quite a bit of poetic license with the truth and they never passed up an opportunity to do that.

Jurgen Ohlssen plays Heinie Volker who is being apprenticed to the trade of printer and he comes from parents who are Communist in their political sympathies. In the year of 1932 with Germany in the midst of the Depression many competing groups and ideologies were battling to rule the Reich. The neighborhood that the Volkers live in is a working class area that the Communists are dominant.

Heinrich George is Heinie's father who is on relief and is idle, way too idle. He beats on his wife and rags his son to join the Young Communist League. But the kid is attracted to those clean cut, fresh scrubbed teens in their uniforms with their marching songs. They all look quite middle class and he wants to be one of them. If you remember in The Young Lions, Marlon Brando's character discusses how Hitler has promised to do away with the class system so prevalent in Europe. Young Ohlssen is exhibit number one for Brando's contention.

The film is interesting on a number of levels. Other than Henie's long suffering mother played by Berta Drews the only female role of any consequence is that Rotraut Richter who plays Gerda, a teenage temptress who works as a Communist agent, luring the Hitler Youth away from their duty. There is a conspicuous lack of the female gender in the Hitler Youth at least at these gatherings. When the Nazi state was established the Hitler Youth did have a woman's auxiliary of sorts where the girls were taught to be good breeders and mothers to make and raise plenty of good Aryan youth for the Fatherland. Nazi Germany was one of the most patriarchal societies ever created on Earth.

Other Nazi targets most prominently Jews get not a mention in Our Flags Lead Us Forward. The film strictly concerned with the Communist menace. All the Communists in contrast to the Hitler Youth are these plug ugly proletarian types who smoke cheap cigars and get stinking drunk when they're not infecting our workers with Bolshevist ideas. The father Heinrich George is such a man although later in a good scene, George is talking to Ohlssen about how all he wants is the best for his son and society has to change in order for that to happen. A more complex character than you would think would appear in a film that is strictly labeled propaganda. But then again it's what makes it more affective.

The bleakness of Depression Era Berlin plays like one of our noir films and the kids are shown as the hope for Germany's future. As it turned out these kids who were the extras in the film probably 90% of them died during World War II. A truly lost generation.

Our Flags Lead Us Forward is a slick piece of propaganda designed to recruit the impressionable young German minds who did not want to think of themselves as a beaten country from World War I. Viewed with a critical eye about its purposes, it holds up very well for examination today.

I haven't had the opportunity to see this notorious film with English subtitles, and my German is less than fluent. Nevertheless, it's not difficult to see its effectiveness, hence danger, as propaganda.

I was expecting a lot of overt, outrageous political content. I'm told there is some in the dialogue, but I didn't catch it. Rather its strategy seems to be to avoid hectoring directly, and instead to project an idealized vision of a Germany guided by a paternal National Socialist party. Hence the message is conveyed through idyllic campground scenes, for example. This is the goal that young Quex is willing to defend.

One film "Quex" reminded me of somewhat was "Boys Town" (1938) with Mickey Rooney, but, if I really had to draw a comparison, surprisingly enough it would be to Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939). There is a scene of our enterprising Hitler Youths organizing themselves -- a little like Mickey and Judy putting on a show -- to turn out a propaganda newspaper in support of their political dreams and aspirations. Do you recall the scene in "Mr. Smith" where Jimmy Stewart's struggle -- Sein Kampf -- against a corrupt and antiquated political system is vindicated through a grassroots campaign organized by a bunch of boys with wagons and a cheap printing press? We know from the later "Why We Fight" series that Frank Capra was intimately familiar with his Nazi cinema. You are free to draw whatever conclusions you'd like.

It's always refered to as a propaganda movie, and yes, technically it is. But the word propaganda didn't always have this automatic, negative connotation which it has today. Propaganda can educate, inspire, inform - or mislead. This film depicts the chaotic situation in Berlin during the interwar period pretty accurately. The division between patriotic and "international" leaning Germans, the communist agitators exploiting the miserable conditions of the working class to recruit new members, the red violence towards their nationalist adversaries. It's not a totally gloomy movie though and neither is it preachy in its politics. It's rather wholesome and nice to watch. And if you compare this film with the stuff that gets pumped out today, every contemporary movie should be called propaganda and certainly not in any positive sense.

This is a terrific movie! It's very emotional, it contains good acting and shows another side to the Nazis than we're used to. This movie shows an innocent young boy who grew up in an abusive household who later manages to stand up to his demons and do what he dreams of and finally be happy without anyone dragging him down or forcing him to be something he's not.

Definitely one of the better movies I've ever seen in my life, and even for a propaganda movie this one is just star quality! No matter if you're a neo-nationalsocialist, a communist, a democrat a republican or anarchist this movie is great and you'll without a doubt enjoy it.

I've just seen the film in a special showing at Tate Modern (London's modern-art gallery). The print was evidently made for educational purposes, in the 1950s one guesses, with explanatory intertitles written by a film academic in English. (These are actually quite amusing with their po-faced analysis, with some very silly diagrams, but do interrupt the action clumsily. However, the print has no English subtitles, so the crackly soundtrack with thick Berlin accents is tough to follow for non-German natives.) What struck this viewer was, briefly:

1. Utter bewilderment at its propaganda value; the Communists seem to modern eyes to have far the best deal, with beer, food and sex high on their agenda, yet the young Heini - and presumably the 12-year-olds in the audience - are won over totally by the promise of shiny shoes, cups of tea, boy scout uniforms, cold morning dips and strident community singing. Beats me. 2. No comedy or light relief in any way: no town drunk, sly spiv, amusing slapstick with planks, etc. Was 1930s Berlin really that humourless? 3. What a rabble the Nazi youth seemed - gawky and indisciplined, far from the ruthlessly efficient robots of our imagination. 4. The only two decent actors in the whole thing are the two Commie blokes. Heini's dad turns in a convincing performance as the drunken old bully who personifies the Red Menace. 5. Getting short trousers to fit evidently beyond scope of even the well-organised Hitlerjugend. Every pair two sizes too small. 6. Chilling role played by gas. As a film "it's pants", as modern 12-year-olds might say (possibly echoing point 5). But as a grim piece of political history it is indeed quiet fascinating - and mystifying, as well as enlightening.