Le président Krüger

I have already seen THE GREAT KING and BISMARCK, so I knew what to expect from these Third Reich "Great Man" historical pictures. Like those, this story of Paul Kruger and the Boer War is well made and epic. You'll find yourself asking how in the world they were able to film some of the massive battle scenes when they were deep into WW2!

Like those other two films, the hero stands in for Hitler. He's incorruptible even when surrounded by dirty politicians. He dedicates his life and soul for the Fatherland, despite what it costs him. Sound like the official picture of any German fuhrers you know from 1941? Emil Jannings gives a superb performance, especially in the scenes at the end when Kruger is forced to go to the various courts in Europe to beg for assistance in the war. (something that did happen as the movie portrays)

The anti-British propaganda flies fast and loose. Queen Victoria is presented as something of an alcoholic. The British officials are dishonest and obsessed with gold (as opposed to Kruger's Boers, who are focused on good National Socialist activities like working the land and raising big families). Of course, the focus on the historically accurate and awful British concentration camps is ironic. But never let a bit of truth get in the way of a good piece of propaganda. It's one more way to see the enemy's evil nature.

Speaking of good little National Socialists, Gisela Uhlen takes Kristina Soderbaum's usual role as the beautiful and strong Aryan wife. Actually, she's stronger than Soderbaum, whose characters had a tendency to commit suicide after being raped or otherwise "dishonored". But the two actresses are certainly similar physically.

And in an inspired bit of casting, Ferdinand Marian plays Cecil Rhodes - Marian's previous role was the title character in JUD SUSS. The real Rhodes was by no means a Jew, but he was definitely obsessed with gold and diamonds and power. And since he did indeed orchestrate the events leading up to the Boer War, it's clever - from a propaganda viewpoint -- to suggest that the Brits and Jews are equally evil. Marian's terrific. He's so convincing in this type of role that it's no wonder he had trouble after the war.

As we know from history, the Boers lost the war. But the film ends with a voice-over from Kruger about how one day a greater power will come along and punish the wickedness of the English.

Wonder what he meant?

Although Ohm Krüger seems to show a realistic account of what happened during the war of the South African 'boers' against the English roughly 100 years ago, it is a good example of how the Nazi propaganda machine worked during World War II. The film is historically not entirely correct, and was mainly meant to have the audience sympathize with the South African 'boers' representing the German people fighting against the English. But with this in mind the film is even more interesting to watch: it clearly shows how the propaganda machine of Nazi-Germany worked under the leadership of Minister of Propaganda Goebbels. Still, for a more realistic account of the boer-wars it is recommended to visit your local library.

Paulus "Oom Paul" Kruger (1825-1904) was president of the Transvaal(1883-1900) and leader of the Boers during the Boer War (1899-1902). Although defeated by the British, Kruger achieved considerable acclaim for his stout fight against the odds.

In the film, a blind and exiled Kruger recounts the war to his young nurse. The British are depicted as clever, duplicitous, and ruthless. The Boers are shown as resolute and valiant, but ultimately as victims. So the film served Nazi audiences as both an inspiration and as a warning - honor the Boer's heroism but don't let their fate befall you!

Jannings is excellent as Kruger and the caricatures of the British villains (Queen Victoria, Lord Kitchener, Winston Churchill - complete with bulldog) are sometimes amusing, but the spectacle scenes (a Boer "off to war" parade and the battle sequences) are much too long and poorly edited. The final massacre of women and children in a British concentration camp is clearly derived from the Odessa Steps sequence in Eisenstein's "Potemkin."

Propaganda pictures are seldom effective and "Ohm Kruger" is no exception. Everything in the film is taken too far, but then the Nazis had a tendency to go too far. In that sense, "Ohm Kruger"reflects their perspective very well.

Watching Ohm Kruger from the somewhat distant perspective of the next century and remembering what kind of ruthless and apartheid state the descendants of the Boer War veterans created after World War II you certainly have a different vision of the film and the time it portrayed and the time and place it was created. Ohm Kruger was a centerpiece propaganda effort for Joseph Goebbels and the German film industry during the Third Reich.

Emil Jannings plays a stout and resolute Kruger who fought at the head of his Boer people for the life of the two Boer Republics, his own Transvaal and the Orange Free State. It's a brilliant performance as good as The Blue Angel or even the films that won him the first Oscar for Best Actor in the American cinema.

The best propaganda will contain just enough truth to make it believable and Ohm Kruger does have some uncomfortable truths in it. Cecil Rhodes was indeed a scheming rogue with big ambitions which were fueled exponentially with the discovery of gold in the Transvaal. Like oil today its discovery excited the British who had already pushed the Boers out of the Cape Colony. Not that his Boers were the simple yeoman farmers. In fact they liked the idea of gold on their turf as much as any British people. The film shows Rhodes and his company looking to buy Boer land, but Kruger wants a law passed forbidding sale of land to foreigners.

What they can't buy they take. Which in a nutshell is the key to the Boer War. Kruger and his Boers fought back, but in the end lost mainly because of a method of war that was introduced by Lord Kitchener the British commander. Round up the civilian Boer farmers, destroy the farms and put them into camps to concentrate them. Hence the term concentration camps, invented by the British in that war.

All this was of course to justify the Nazi use of the same. Those camps for the Boers were no fun, they were not properly sanitized, people did die in them for lack of food and proper care. But what they weren't were systematic death machines used for the eradication of whole different kinds of people. That the Nazis perfected on their own.

In fact like good little Nazis the horrific climax of the film is the wholesale massacre of women and children in one of the camps that was commanded by an actor looking much like Winston Churchill, smoking a cigar with an English bulldog. Churchill was in the Boer War, but as a correspondant and he was captured by the Boers and later escaped to write an exciting book about it. He never was commandant of the camps, in fact was a new Tory Minister in Parliament when this was going on.

We also see a scotch swilling Queen Victoria always supplied with a flask by her faithful retainer John Brown who was already dead by the time of the Boer War. The Germans even when they had a parliament had a strong man minister in Bismarck and a succession of tools after him reporting to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Parliamentary democracy was not a concept grasped by the Germans so they were shown a ruling as well as a reigning Queen Victoria played by Hedwig Wangel. In fact she summons the Prince of Wales from the Folies Bergere in Paris to her deathbed to give her the charge of keep all the nations quarreling else they unite and finish us. And of course that's what Hitler was trying to do unite the nations against the only countries left in the fight against him at the point that Ohm Kruger was released, Great Britain and her Commonwealth partners and former colonies.

In all this very little mention is made of those who made up the vast majority of the population the natives of South Africa. British missionaries come in for their share of dissing when they're shown in one scene dispensing Bibles on one side and rifles on the other while teaching the natives to sing God Save The Queen. Later on Kruger confronts a native chief who has a British rifle. Just how many American westerns were made with the plot of evil white men arming the Indians for some nefarious purpose? But again it's good to remember these are the folks whose descendants instituted apartheid in the true Aryan racial tradition. Speaking of America, it gets barely a mention here, we were not in the war and the Nazis had hopes still of keeping it that way.

Ohm Kruger as a piece of propaganda fulfilled its mission. One will most certainly be reinforced in Anglophobia if one sees it. It's battle scenes and the scenes of the Boers mobilizing as a nation to fight tyranny from outside are impressive technically. It's a brilliant piece of film making, but the source has to be carefully considered.

Although Hans Steinhoff is credited as director, this is actually co-directed by Karl Anton and Herbert Maisch and produced by Emil Jannings who also takes the title role.

It is highly debatable whether the propoganda films of the Third Reich, with the possible exception of 'Jud Suss', actually produced the effect for which they were intended. Although it won the Mussolini Cup, no surprise there(!) it did not even begin to recoup its massive cost.

The concentration camp scenes are highly visceral and designed to shock which would no doubt have deterred those Germans who desired only to be entertained during the war years.

All those representing perfidious Albion are shown to be despicable and devoid of any of the finer qualities, from Queen Victoria down to the ordinary soldier.

The cast is superlative. Gustaf Grundgens as Joseph Chamberlain (a dead ringer for Bertie Wooster) Ferdinand Marian as a sinister, white-suited Cecil Rhodes and Otto Wernicke as the camp commandment. Ironically Wernicke had initially to be granted permission to work as his wife was Jewish! There is a very touching performance by Gisela Uhlen as Kruger's daughter-in-law. Needless to say Jannings' performance is monumental as indeed it is intended to be. The scene where he resists being bribed by Rhodes is especially effective.

Crowd and battle scenes are stupendous.

Fritz Arno Wagner is behind the camera and the powerful score is by Theo Mackeben.

Double standards abound here of course as the English soldiery are seen to behave like Nazis.

Apparently Goebbels himself wrote Kruger's final speech. Earlier in the film Kruger says that if a lie is repeated often enough it will be believed. A sentiment with which the Minister for Propoganda would have wholeheartedly concurred!

This film represents the classic dilemma for cinephiles. Egregious it may be but one cannot deny how well made. Keep your moral compass handy!