Kolberg (Film 1945)

Kolberg is a 1945 Nazi historical film written and directed by Veit Harlan. Audio in German with English subtitles.

Harlan and Alfred Braun, who also worked on the screenplay, based the film on the autobiography of Joachim Nettelbeck, mayor of Kolberg in Pomerania, and on Paul Heyse's later play adapted from the book. (Joseph Goebbels participated in writing the screenplay but was not credited. He insisted that a romantic interest be added; this is the figure of Maria.)

The film recounts the defence of the besieged fortress town of Kolberg against French troops between April and July 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. In fact, the city's defence, led by then-Lieutenant Colonel August von Gneisenau, held out until the war was ended by the Treaty of Tilsit. But the film portrays the French abandoning the siege.

The film was premiered for German forces in the defense zone in occupied La Rochelle, France on 30 January 1945. The city was liberated by Allied forces two months later. It opened in a temporary cinema (U.T. Alexanderplatz) and at Tauentzien-Palast in Berlin. It ran under constant threat of air raids until the fall of Berlin to Soviet forces in May 1945. It was also screened in the Reich Chancellery after the broadcast of Hitler's last radio address on 30 January. One of the last films of the Third Reich, it never went into general release. The film was theatrically released by Atlas Films in West Germany in 1966.

The city of Kolberg was declared a Festung ("fortress town") as Soviet forces neared it on 24 February 1945. Within a month of the film's opening Kolberg was under full siege (sometimes called the "Second Siege" or "Second Battle" of Kolberg), with around 70,000 trapped German civilians and military personnel. House-to-house fighting caused devastation. Kolberg fell to Soviet and Polish forces on 18 March 1945. Many civilians escaped by sea. The Soviet Union permanently expelled all who survived the siege, along with all Germans in east Pomerania. The ruined city of Kolberg became part of the postwar socialist republic of Poland. The city is now known as Kołobrzeg.

Cast & Characters:
Kristina Söderbaum as Maria, a farmer's daughter who gains audience with the Queen
Heinrich George as Joachim Nettelbeck
Paul Wegener as General Ludwig Moritz von Loucadou
Horst Caspar as August Neidhardt von Gneisenau
Gustav Diessl as Ferdinand von Schill
Otto Wernicke as Farmer Werner
Kurt Meisel as Claus
Claus Clausen as Frederick William III of Prussia
Irene von Meyendorff as Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
Greta Schröder as Sophie Marie von Voß
Franz Herterich as Emperor Francis II
Jakob Tiedtke as Shipowner
Paul Bildt as Rector
Charles Schauten as Napoléon
Theo Shall as Louis Henri Loison
Werner Scharf as Pietro Teulié