Nazi Germany's most expensive propaganda film — 8,000 soldiers as extras, shot while Berlin burned.
During Napoleon's victorious campaign in Germany, the city of Kolberg gets isolated from the retreating Prussian forces. The population of Kolberg refuses to capitulate and organizes the resistance against the French army, which immediately submits the city to massive bombardments.
Production
Largest budget of Nazi cinema — U-boats denied for this propaganda.
Direction
Harlan's grotesque talent in service of utter moral bankruptcy.
Director
Veit Harlan
Heinrich George
Nettelbeck
Kristina Söderbaum
Maria
Horst Caspar
Gneisenau
Gustav Diessl
Schill
Paul Wegener
Loucadou
Claus Clausen
König Friedrich Wilhelm III.
Irene von Meyendorff
Königin
Paul Bildt
Rektor
Kurt Meisel
Claus Werner
Franz Schafheitlin
Fanselow
Paul Henckels
Major in Königsberg
Otto Wernicke
Bauer Werner
Jakob Tiedtke
Reeder
Hans Hermann Schaufuß
Zaufke
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Premiered January 30, 1945 in bombed-out Berlin; Goebbels noted in his diary that most attendees were SS officers and child soldiers.
Director Veit Harlan was the only Nazi-era filmmaker tried for crimes against humanity — for Jew Süss, not this. He was acquitted and kept working.
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