"Music by Hanfstaengl"

No Nazi is closer to psychic, intuitive Chancellor Adolf Hitler than tall, brooding Dr. Ernst Hanfstaengl whose eyebrows are two great black beetles. Often at night Ernst distracts Adolf, weary from cares of state, by playing soulfully on the piano. Ernst, scion of Munich's famed art-print publishing House of Hanfstaengl, is a Harvard man, once kept a smart Manhattan art shop. Because Hitler and Hanfstaengl are inseparable, constantly flying about the Fatherland together in the Chancellor's private plane, all Germany was flabbergasted last autumn when the Party's first super-film, Horst Wessel "with music by Dr. Ernst Hanfstaengl" was abruptly withdrawn on the day of its scheduled premiere. Nazi critics present at previews had hailed it as "the German screen's greatest masterpiece," and "a glorious tribute to our Nazi Martyr Horst Wessel." Last week Dr. Hanfstaengl emerged triumphant when the Horst Wessel film, renamed Hans Westmar, One of Many and extensively retaken, but still "with music by Dr. Ernst Hanfstaengl" was released before a Berlin audience which included former Crown Prince Wilhelm.

Jews in Berlin's ghetto were forced to act in Horst Wessel last August by Storm Troopers who gave them "stones" (made of cork), ordered them to stone Nazi heroes. Overzealous, the Storm Troops pressed into service an especially hook-nosed rabbi. He turned out to be a citizen of Poland, thus creating a diplomatic incident. In a night club scene, according to the Horst Wessel script, "proud Jews behave overbearingly." A greedy Jew was made to wolf a fat goose in a restaurant scene, while at the next table a lean Nazi couple divided a herring. These features of the original film caused cool heads in the Nazi hierarchy to fear that, if released throughout Germany, it would incite a nation-wide pogrom. Besides, who was young Horst Wessel anyway?

All Germany knows him as "the Nazi Martyr." He wrote the words of the Nazi anthem, now called "The Horst Wessel Song." But in life Horst Wessel was merely "one of many" original brownshirts. Because Horst Wessel wrote a song and happened to be one of the Browns killed by the Reds he has grown great in Death. But his life scarcely makes good enough cinema material to endow with the mighty name HORST WESSEL. As released last week Hans Westmar, One of Many goes lighter on the Jews, heavier on the Communists than did Horst Wessel. It is definitely militaristic -- at a time when all Chancellor Hitler's words are of Peace. "You must be Good Europeans ! '' a pacifist teacher tells his class. "Down with arms !" "To arms!" shouts Student Hans Westmar. In order to fight, bleed and make themselves "true Germans" Hans and his classmates stage a dueling match with sabres. They thus break the antidueling law of the German Republic, one of the first laws canceled by Adolf Hitler when he became Chancellor. To tempt Hero Hans a beauteous U. S. heiress appears, but Hans scorns a life of ease in the U. S., rushes to do Nazi battle in the streets of Berlin and dies, as did Horst, assassinated by Reds. In the final scene Nazis march triumphant under Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to celebrate Hitler's rise to Chancellor. While this closing episode was being filmed excited Storm Troopers beat up a U. S. spectator who failed to salute the Nazi banner. To salute it as it flashed on the screen up popped last week's entire audience, including former Crown Prince Wilhelm.

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