Your king abandons you. Your brother betrays you. Then everything flips.
King Frederick II and his leading advisors hesitate too long in the eyes of some officers, so Major von Schill decides to strike out on his own. He hoped that his brave move would be the catalyst for the great war of liberation. But von Schill's troops were soon defeated by a superior force of Dutch-Danish troops. The king takes a public stand against von Schill's actions and eleven of his officers are shot by summary execution on Napoleon's orders. However, one of them, Lieutenant Heinrich von Wedell, escapes death and is sentenced to forced labor for life. When Wedell's brother Karl, who opposed von Schill's unauthorized actions, learns of Heinrich's fate, he decides to help him in a risky way...
Acting
Birgel's tortured stillness as loyalty curdles into action.
Writing
The cruel symmetry of brothers on opposite sides of disaster.
Direction
Schweikart makes Prussian restraint feel explosive.
Director
Hans Schweikart
Willy Birgel
Major Karl von Wedell
Karin Hardt
Christine von Krusemarck
Rudolf Fernau
Graf Kerski
Paul Dahlke
Rappel, Bursche
Alexander Golling
Marschall Davout
Carl Wery
General von York
Peter Martin Urtel
Leutnant Heinrich von Wedell
Herbert Hübner
Oberst Dupont
Friedrich Ulmer
Major von Brockdorff
Charles Willy Kayser
Premierleutnant von Hasse
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Ferdinand von Schill was executed in 1809 after a similarly doomed anti-Napoleonic uprising; his skull was kept as a relic until 2018.
Made in 1941 Nazi Germany, the film's celebration of Prussian military resistance carried uncomfortable contemporary echoes the censors somehow missed—or strategically ignored.
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