User Reviews

The Spanish Civil War (1936-39), though confined to Spain, involved the armed forces of several other nations and volunteers from many more. Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union provided extensive military assistance and men from all over Europe and the United States joined the Loyalist's International Brigades. Most of the movies about the war tend to sympathize with the Republican (i.e., Loyalist) cause, especially those made during or shortly after the war, such as "Blockade" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The Nationalists and their allies also made films but these seldom have been shown outside of Spain, Nazi Germany, or Fascist Italy.

The Germans faced a special problem in the years immediately after the war as their ideological opponents in Spain had become their allies with the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939. Films which criticized the USSR were abruptly withdrawn from circulation or had their production suspended. The radio journalist William L. Shirer observed this trend and made the following entry in his diary on February 4, 1940:

"A big German film company completed last summer at the cost of several million marks a movie based on the exploits of the German Condor Legion in Spain. It was a super-film showing how German blood had been shed in the holy war in Spain against Bolshevism. Hitler, Goring, Goebbels, Himmler, saw it, praised it. Then came the Nazi-Soviet pact last August. The film is now in storage. It was never shown to the public." [excerpt from Shirer's "Berlin Diary"]

Presumably the film he was referring to was "Im Kampf gegen den Weltfeind: Deutsche Freiwillige in Spanien." The picture hardly measures up to Shirer's "super-film" tag. "In Battle Versus the Enemy of the World: German Volunteers in Spain" is a routine war documentary, interesting primarily in that it presents events from the Nationalist perspective, rather than that of the Loyalists.

The entire war is covered, from the initial German commitment in 1936 (flying Franco's troops from Spanish Morocco to the front in Spain) to the fall of Madrid in March 1939. The Legion's triumphant return to Germany is also shown, including excerpts of speeches by Goring in Hamburg and Hitler himself in the Berlin Lustgarten. Some of the combat footage appears to be staged, especially an aerial dogfight sequence, but the majority is authentic.

In one extremely interesting scene International Brigade prisoners are interrogated in English ("Why did you come here to kill us?). The soldiers, from France, Britain, and the United States shrug and then are asked where they're from ("New York", "Ohio"). Who were these men? Did they survive to return home? Are any still alive?

Later, the German liner "Wilhelm Gustloff" is shown steaming into Hamburg, crowded with returning Legionaires. Six years later this ship would be sunk in the Baltic by a Soviet submarine, taking over 7,000 refugees to their deaths. The Condor Legion's own losses in Spain were probably less than one-tenth that figure.

"Im Kampf . ." was directed by Karl Ritter, who specialized in films which glorified Germany's military might. Ritter's work included "Legion Condor" which might have been the movie Shirer was referring to, though the documentary seems the stronger candidate, especially as Rentschler's authoritative "Ministry of Illusion" lists "Condor" as unfinished.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, Franco's Spain, or war documentaries.

Let's get the inevitable joke out of the way: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. So far as I know.

That taken care of, let's discuss the Spanish Civil War, which I studied up on about forty-five years ago. The legitimate government of Spain in 1936 was definitely leftist, with the Communists having a substantial voice. This annoyed the military, always a conservative bunch. They revolted, and received semi-official aid from the Soviet Union, and other communist and allied groups throughout the world. This movie would have you believe that all the western powers were secretly backing the communists, which justified the volunteers' sent by Germany, as well as Italy. This meant that we spent most of the last eighty years referring to the Spanish government as Fascist. In fact it was nationalist and highly conservative, even reactionary. It was so reactionary, it was handed, at Franco's death, back to the Bourbons.

Once your get past the false narrative of the opening, much of this movie is a war documentary that makes the mistake of assuming its audience knows what's going on. As a result, it is slightly incoherent for the first fifty minutes; then, in the Battle of Madrid, it becomes totally incoherent, a series of striking battle footage that does not show any clear sign of showing the progress of the campaign, although they blow stuff up real good. Finally, the last dozen minutes are devoted to the victory parades, particularly the all-volunteer Condor Legion, who are awarded a special medal by Hitler. In three classes. Not bad for something the government didn't require.

The first thing that struck me in the description of this film was the word 'volunteers' in inverted commas. The Communists weren't the only ones who had volunteer units in their ranks and it can be safely said the The Condor Legion was comprised almost exclusively of volunteers.

The film itself is unusual by virtue of the fact that it's not a WW2 documentary for a change and, for once, it gives the winning sides account of the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway et al have monopolised the history of that era for eighty years. Now, at last, we see the other side of the story.

As with most war documentaries, it gets a bit tedious with explosions, men firing rifles at unseen targets and bomb after bomb hitting the ground. Karl Ritter, the director, almost certainly used some recreated scenes to fill in parts of the conflict that were difficult to film, the scene where a German spotter plane gets intercepted by Republican fighters being the most obvious one. Scenes where troops storm strongpoints are equally suspect but every war documentary director has done the same thing since WW1.

I found the most interesting parts of the film to be Condor Legion's return to Germany, disembarking in Hamburg and then on to Berlin for a review in front of Goering and a speech by Hitler. Other interesting sequences include the rapturous reception given to liberating Franco forces in various Spanish towns and cities, so much for Franco being "unpopular".

One unforgettable scene in the film is the questioning of captured members of the Communist 'International Brigade', including black members of the Abraham Lincoln Regiment and a rather chirpy sounding Welshman who basically implied that he came to Spain to fight because he was unemployed! What happened to these men? Neither side showed much mercy in what was a vicious ideological war.

I enjoyed the film. Together with Russell Palmer's 'Defenders Of The Faith' it's one of a handful of cinematic records of the Spanish Civil War from the Falangist perspective.