Franz Wenzler's Hans Westmar (1933) is based on the activities and death of Horst Wessel, leader of Berlin's S.A. Sturm 5. In actual fact, the film was originally intended to be Wessel's actual political life story but Goebbels intervened and the main character had a slight name change, hence we have Westmar instead of Wessel.
Emil Lohkamp plays the title character with freneticism, probably an accurate portrayal as Wessel virtually wore himself out leading his Sturm. Wessel's story is sanitised here; the rumours of Wessel living off immoral earnings are unfounded, propaganda formulated by the far left to discredit him but he was certainly a violent young man. In Hans Westmar he's depicted as saintly, virtuous and almost virginal, illustrated by his reluctance to become fully emotionally involved with his platonic girlfriend, Maude, at the expense of his activism.
The legendary Paul Wegner, former silent screen actor, plays a Lenin look alike Communist which is probably truer to type than we would like to think because Wegner had leftist leanings. The street scenes of riot and disorder are excellently filmed and are so convincing that they've often been mistaken for actual footage of Weimar era political violence.
The print that's currently available on DVD is a censored version of the original film, the deleted scenes having been removed by a Nazi censor, not a post war Allied one (in any case, the film was banned by the Allied Control Council in 1945). Interestingly, the Italian dubbed version of this film has some of the original censored scenes intact, including the scene where Westmar is lying on the floor in his own blood, after being shot. Ironically, the Nazi censors must have considered this scene too graphic for German audiences!
Emil Lohkamp plays the title character with freneticism, probably an accurate portrayal as Wessel virtually wore himself out leading his Sturm. Wessel's story is sanitised here; the rumours of Wessel living off immoral earnings are unfounded, propaganda formulated by the far left to discredit him but he was certainly a violent young man. In Hans Westmar he's depicted as saintly, virtuous and almost virginal, illustrated by his reluctance to become fully emotionally involved with his platonic girlfriend, Maude, at the expense of his activism.
The legendary Paul Wegner, former silent screen actor, plays a Lenin look alike Communist which is probably truer to type than we would like to think because Wegner had leftist leanings. The street scenes of riot and disorder are excellently filmed and are so convincing that they've often been mistaken for actual footage of Weimar era political violence.
The print that's currently available on DVD is a censored version of the original film, the deleted scenes having been removed by a Nazi censor, not a post war Allied one (in any case, the film was banned by the Allied Control Council in 1945). Interestingly, the Italian dubbed version of this film has some of the original censored scenes intact, including the scene where Westmar is lying on the floor in his own blood, after being shot. Ironically, the Nazi censors must have considered this scene too graphic for German audiences!