User Reviews

Warning: this film is Nazi propaganda.

'Hans Westmar' is a near contemporary account of the street battles (Strassenkämpfe) between Nazi and Communist militias in Berlin in the late 1920s. As history told by the victors, it recounts mostly real events, altered to fit the 'official truth'. As a result, you need some backstory to understand the film.

In the mid 1920s, Berlin was the epicenter of Communism in Germany, and the Nazi presence in the city was negligible. Then Josef Goebbels, heretofore editor of a regional party newspaper, accepted the position of party leader in Berlin. He organized Brownshirt units (die Sturmabteilung or SA), instigated Strassenkämpfe, and struggled to take over the city.

'History is made in the streets,' the club-footed dwarf ranted to his followers. In this case, he was right. The Nazis came to control Berlin's streets, if not its ballot boxes– a success critical to the victory in the national elections of 1933.

'Hans Westmar' began as a biopic of Horst Wessel. At age 21, Wessel led the SA unit in Friedrichshain, Berlin's toughest slum and the reddest district in the 'Red City'. He recruited from the Communists, with considerable success. The real Wessel was like Sid Vicious– both were musicians of sorts. Both shacked up with ex-prostitutes. Both were charismatic, reckless, obnoxious, and both became unwitting martyrs– Wessel was assassinated by communists in January 1930.

This film was made a few months after the takeover, when the victorious SA had served its purpose. Its hard drinking, hard partying henchmen were unruly, undisciplined, and uncontrollable.

At the same time, the recently elected Nazis wanted to appear 'responsible'. The cinematic result is an uncomfortable compromise– Horst Wessel didn't lend himself to a makeover. 'Hans Westmar' recasts Wessel as a model of virtue, but the 1920s the Nazi appeal lay in its ruthlessness, not its virtue. Imagine the punk rockers of the 1970s, but organized and with a political agenda.

At the same time, the film shows Brownshirts picking fights– which didn't fit the image the party wanted to project once in power. Retitled 'Hans Westmar: one of many– a German destiny from the year 1929' the film saw limited release. Any interest lies in how the Nazis recast history and in a few unique scenes.

'Hans Westmar' takes pains to show that the SA cooperated with police and did not use weapons. Training included 'sport exercises', not martial arts. The SA men in the audience must have been laughing up their sleeves.

Theater audiences thought the funeral scene was newsreel footage. Police limited the funeral train to a few horse drawn wagons, and the swastika was forbidden. Communists attacked, stealing the wreaths from the coffin. Additionally, scenes of SA rallies and Strassenkämpfe give a chilling sense of the Zeitgeist.

The nightclub scene gives you some idea of what a 20s Berlin nightclub might have been like. In the nightclubs, ladies appeared naked on stage, you could get any kind of sex for money, and cocaine was the drug of choice. But the film condemns the nightclubs only for ethnic mixing. Given the openly homosexual SA leadership and the party's amoral tactics, audiences would have seen through any moral condemnation.

A more accurate film might depict civilians caught between two evil movements. Only atrocity would be the victor.

'Hans Westmar' would not have been shown at all after June 1934, when the SA leaders were eliminated and the SA was disbanded. What happened to the stormtroopers? Because of their street fighting experience, many wound up in the battle of Stalingrad. They died miserably.

This is an early Nazi propaganda film, and quite a heavy one. It is set in 1932, mostly in Berlin, where communists, social democrats (SPD) and Nazis were battling in the streets. The hero, Hans Westmar (original working title was "Horst Wessel", the (in)famous SA martyr, but the title had to be changed) is a student, who later gives up his study to work as a taxi driver, "to be nearer to the working class people" (though I suppose they wouldn't ride in a taxi too often).

The bad guys are the communists, depicted gleefully as ugly, speaking with bad accent, and having a feminist woman in their round. They try to organize the workers into resistance against the Nazis, with their apartment buildings decorated with red flags and banners.

In what is supposedly an election campaign, the Nazi SA dares to march through the workers' quarters. Brutal street-fighting ensues, and in the end Hans Westmar is dead, and ceremonially buried.

That's basically all there is to the story, with a lot of more details, of course: showing foreign influences in Berlin's night club scene, for instance.

But more interesting is the reception history: I think Goebbels himself banned the film some years later, as it was just too bad, unconvincing propaganda. In 1945, the film was banned again by the victorious allies - and to this day, 65 years later, in Germany it is still blacklisted by the Murnau Foundation as "Vorbehaltsfilm", only allowed public showing in controlled environment, with a speaker to explain it all.

Then again, there's the internet, archive.org in particular, which offers this film for free download. Low resolution image, bad and spotty sound - but still, one can watch it unsupervised by Murnau, and form one's own opinion. It sure is a bad movie, but still interesting to get a better understanding of the Nazi times.

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!

I looked up the actor who played Hans,Emil Lohkamp. The info I got is that ,unless this is misinformation, He's still alive. Over 100.My guess he did more stage work cause he did less films. Two movies and two t.v.shows.Paul Wegner probably at this time was being naive about the Nazis or he was being mislead.Later he would work against the Nazi's his way.He portrays a political correct head,Commillo, of a political correct commune.Hans is a student on vacation, some where. I don't know what the place, He's drinking and celebrating at Fritzies out door café and beer garden.He just met two American visitors. A business man and his daughter,Maude played by Carla Bartheel, and her Popsy,played by Heinz Salfner.Later he goes to a flop house to sleep.When he comes home and opens his suit case his mother, played by Gertude De Lalsky, sees the picture of Maude.He's a member of the Nazi party and this is before mustache has stolen the vote. The communist and the Nazis are fighting against each other for power in Germany.Every time both starts a debate at a town hall it ends in a fight. When one or the other parades their view points it turns into violence Hans meets his girl friend Maude and her Daddy and decide to take them out to a Wiemar night club.At the club he sees a bunch of Russian visitors asking the orchestra leader to play a Russian waltz. This angers Wes , so he goes up to the orchestra and stops them from playing it. He's fed up with his country controlled by the political correct. He can't enjoy himself at the night club in Berlin. So he leaves her and him. And goes to the cemetery to pay tribute for the Huns who lost the war.He is concerned , with his friend , about Germany being in the depression.Well being a Nazi himself he goes to the meetings and they make more plans against the political correct. He becomes a tax driver. When he is going in to Grettles bar he rescues a fellow Nazi women, I don't know if she's a spy from the correct. As they are talking she's in some kind of trouble,but, he gives he some money.This women is later forced to be a spy for the political correct against Hans. Well The Nazis are winning and the Correct are p-t off. They want to get rid of Hans.With the help of Mrs Salm, played by Ottie Dietz , who tells him that he's at her room. As both S.S Frauens friends Agnes and Klara, one of them was the forced spy, played by Irmgard Willers and Grete Reinwald. The political correct surprise him and shoots him. His friends ends up taking him to the hospital.The Correct find out and attempted to murder him,but his Nazi friends watch him at the hospital.He ends up dead. Well the correct tries to stop his funeral and fails. By this time Hitler is chancellor and the murders begin. Although it's available at Reichs Kino and war films dot com .I.H.f. has a excellent print for original elements ,I think. 09/28/11