This is the 16th and last time when Otto Gebühr is portraying King Frederic II. of Prussia. Earlier he portrayed him in Pretty Miss Schragg (1937) Fridericus (1937) Heiteres und Ernstes um den großen König (1936) Der Choral von Leuthen (1933) Die Tänzerin von Sanssouci (1932), The Flute Concert of Sans-Souci (1930) Der alte Fritz - 2. Ausklang (1928), Waterloo (1929), Der alte Fritz - 1. Friede (1928), Die Mühle von Sanssouci (1926), Die Tänzerin Barberina (1920) as well as in the Fredericus-movie series by Arzen von Cserepy including Fridericus Rex - 1. Teil: Sturm und Drang (1922), Fridericus Rex - 2. Teil: Vater und Sohn (1922), Fridericus Rex - 3. Teil: Sanssouci (1923) and Fridericus Rex - 4. Teil: Schicksalswende (1923).
In the movie Frederic the Great shares similarities with Adolf Hitler, like Outrages, big speeches etc. Joseph Goebbels requested to avoid any similarities with Hitler, which was ignored by director Veit Harlan. Hitler himself enjoyed the movie very much.
The movie contains a scene about a plan of the Habsburgers to poison King Frederic with hot chocolate. This is a not proven event. According to a legend his servant Christian Friedrich Glasow (not a french cook as in the movie) offered the king chocolate. Also unlike in the movie this event didn't kill anyone as Glasow warned the king in the last moment. It is also unknown if he actually wanted to poison him or if he was ordered to. Glasow himself died in 1757 in Spandau due to misuse of the government seal for private reasons.
The filming of the movie started in 1940, still during the Hitler-Stalin-contract. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 the portrayal of the Russian army was reworked and the scene had to be reworked to make them more negative. Especially the character of Sachar Tchernyshov was changed to more negative cliches, being portrayed as a greedy but simple-minded Russian while the actual Tchernyshov was the leader of a corp with 15000 men, which Czar Peter III of Russia gave to the Prussian King.
Final film of Leonore Ehn.