" Every Father, every Mother must see this film, to feel what is happening in the soul of your child. " - Duisburger General-Anzeiger, Oktober 20, 1933

We are proud to announce here our latest German Films Dot Net book in our continuing series on German film man Karl Ritter, in an expanded and definitive 2nd revised edition:

Hitler Youth Quex, the story of a fifteen-year-old working-class boy who defied his father to join the Hitlerjugend in 1932 and died a martyr, was a best-selling novel that became a box office hit when it was released as a motion picture by the famous Ufa film studio in September 1933.  It was the first feature film in history devoted to those under the age of twenty, and critics worldwide came to the film’s premieres in Munich and Berlin. Adolf Hitler attended both gala premieres. The film’s song became the anthem of the HJ, and over eleven million youngsters saw the film in the Third Reich. Hitlerjunge Quex became the cult film of  the new German youth.  

This Guide provides a wealth of information about the film – from the evolution of the story as a novel to its newspaper serialization to the silver screen. The fascinating careers of the critical men involved  – the book’s author Klaus Schenzinger, the film’s producer Karl Ritter, and the film’s director Hans Steinhoff –are presented. The pivotal role of the Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach is explored, with additional commentary from his oldest son, Klaus. The unpublished diaries of Karl Ritter found in Argentina provide new insight into the film's production. A chapter on Jürgen Ohlsen, who played the title role, offers information heretofore overlooked. All of the comprehensive Ufa studio marketing and publicity materials are translated into English for the first time. The movie's success before 1945, not just in German cinemas but in Europe, North America, and Japan between 1934 and 1944, is documented with rare advertising and reviews. The fate of the film post–WWII and how it is dealt with in today’s Germany is examined. Post-war critical analysis is also surveyed.  Author is William Gillespie.

In the summers of 2023 and 2024, Gillespie spent further months in Europe and discovered obscure primary source material that had not been found in time for the initial first edition. This material included Greater Berlin weekly radio program magazines for 1933 and early 1934, which also listed movies in all cinemas each week. This allowed a comprehensive understanding of where the film was screened in the Berlin metropolis and for how long. Astoundingly, the film was screened in 116 different Greater Berlin cinemas over a period of five months. A private photograph of Jürgen Ohlsen was unearthed, standing in uniform with Reichsjugendführer Baldur von Schirach taken after the Bonn premiere of the film. A fantastic newspaper archive from the Nordrhein-Westfalen area of Germany contained over one thousand mentions of the film in articles, reviews, and background material published between June 1933 and December 1934 in fifty local and regional newspapers. The very best excerpts from those articles make up a new 18-page chapter, “Germany flocks to Quex” inserted after the chapter on the two film premieres and before the Gaufilmstelle chapter on how the film was shown in towns and villages in the German countryside. Newly discovered facts were added to four other chapters and a few errors corrected. This new edition is forty-four pages longer than the first version and also has two new photographs.  The printing process for the latest edition also allowed eight previous B&W illustrations to be printed in full colour.

Sales of the first edition have now been suspended, at the cost of about US$4200 in remaining unsold inventory foregone. The new, final, definitive edition is now available in both Australia (from this website) and in America (from International Historic Films).

This defintive 2nd revised edition is a massive piece of research, with some 432 + -x- pages, 67 B&W  photos/illustrations, 13 colour plates. AVAILABLE to Australian residents via our Book & Poster Store listing.

The price is AUD$49.95 / €32 to Australian postal addresses. Orders from other countries please see BELOW:

International ordering

Book orders outside of Australia must be via International Historic Films in Chicago, USA. Their website is linked here.  Their new 2024/25 print catalogue has this advertisement for the book:

IHF is also offering a COMBO of the book plus their DVD of the film at a savings of US$10.00.

February 2024 update:

The prestigious academic journal The Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television reviewed the book and summarised it as follows:

[T]he greatest merit of Gillespie’s book is that he not only brings together many sources that are – if at all – difficult to access, but also that he makes them accessible to an English-speaking audience.

Hitler Youth Quex: A Guide for the English-speaking Reader’s unique selling point … is the way it presents and discusses a range of different primary sources and embeds them in the historical context.

"Gillespie's book is a treasure trove for scholars of history, film history and propaganda more generally. This includes graduate and postgraduate students, early career researchers and more established academics. As such it is recommended for the essential classroom reading lists on any course dealing with film propaganda." - The Historical Journal of Film, Radio & Television, 2024.

Likewise, a review is anticipated in Germany's ranking film journal, Filmblatt  (CineGraph, Hamburg) later this northern Spring.

Back in Berlin......

Our roving reporter found the old Gemeinde Schule 1999-2005 shown in the film when Heini comes out his trade school and takes a handbill from HJ Fritz Dörries and then is invited to come to the Dörries home for dinner, where he meets Fritz's charming sister, BDM girl Ulla.

The school as shown in the film:

The school today, under renovation, located on Levetzowstraße, corner of Gotzkowskystraße, in Alt–Moabit. Gotzkowskzstraße and its bridge over the Spress River is where Red Leader Stoppel tells Heini to report for the anti-HJ attack being planned.  That bridge today looks like this.

BELOW: A 1939 contemporary book illustration form a Third Reich children's book, depicting the assault on Herbert Norkus by Communist thugs; which was the basis of the novel Hitlerjunge Quex by Schenzinger.