BESATZUNG DORA  (1943) amazing

photo/press-book/cinema program

Lot !!

Ultra–rare Lot of promotional materials for this banned 1943 Luftwaffe war feature film!

This offer includes:

1. two ultra-rare original Ufa lobby cards for the film -- see description below.

2. the impossible-to-find original Ufa 20 page press-book for the film.

3. the rare "Das Programm von Heute" 2-sided tri-fold cinema program for the film, with many film images.

4. the  rare 24 page "Aktuelle Filmbücher" booklet on Karl Ritter published in 1939 in Nazi Germany.

5. the 319 page English language book The Making of The Crew of the Dora, which includes translations of press materials on the film.  See description below.

6. postage paid, worldwide.

  +++++++  S O L D ! ! +++++++

Description: 2 ultra–rare lobby cards for Karl Ritter's banned 1943 Luftwaffe Air Reconnaissance film.

These two high-resolution, high quality, double-weight photographic paper film lobby cards issued by the famous Ufa film studio in 1943 were meant to promote the latest Karl Ritter war film. (On this webpage their resolution has been severely compromised. They are razor-sharp photos printed from sheet film negatives.)

The Crew of the Dora (1943) was the Third Reich’s last contemporary major combat feature film, written, produced and directed by the highly successful Ufa film studio’s Karl Ritter (1888–1977). From producing Hitlerjunge Quex to his own Pour le Mérite, Ritter’s hard–hitting propaganda films had broken box office records and generated huge profits for Ufa. His anti–Communist films about the Spanish Civil War and the Soviet GPU earned him charges of war crimes by the USSR in 1945.

Besatzung Dora was Ritter’s most ambitious and challenging effort. The script called for a story line on all three German war fronts simultaneously: the Western Front in France, on the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union, as well as on the North African Front. If that was not complicated enough, the film uniquely was to be filmed entirely on location with no studio shots. This meant putting the cast and crew in harm’s way on active war fronts in the middle of World War II for weeks at a time – a danger no other feature film took on, and one limited otherwise to the Deutsche Wochenschau cameramen and their Propaganda Companies.

Original photographs promoting this film are exceedingly rare. The film was banned in mid–1943 and never shown in the Third Reich. 

These two lobby cards are slightly trimmed, so that their white borders were carefully cut back (we presume to allow them to be slipped into standard photo album leafs...). But the photos are fully intact otherwise, and both have the swastika censorship office (Reichsfilmprüfstelle) rubber stamping printed on them, as was obligatory for each and every lobby card publicly circulated in the Reich.

The two scenes are key scenes in the film. The first shows the characters Mathilda Krusche and her fiancé Unteroffizier Fritz Mott seated at the roof-top restaurant of the famed Berolina on Alexanderplatz, Berlin. It was this scene which helped force the film's ban, because the lovers discuss relocating to an estate "in the East"  after final victory (i.e.the former USSR).  Such a hope was of course impossible after the Battle of Stalingrad.  The second scene is that of the character Hauptmann Kurt Gillhausen ( Captain of the Dora's crew) being visited bedside in the Wannsee Military Hospital by Dr. Marianne Güldner – they fall in love whilst Krane is convalescing after a crash landing of his Ju88-D  Air Reconn plane.

The 319 page book, THE MAKING OF THE CREW OF THE DORA by William Gillespie, is included in the price of this eBay listing.  This is the perfect complement to the two lobby cards! The Index to the book is shown in the last two images in this listing.

This book provides 120 pages of Ritter’s heretofore unpublished diaries, following the conception, writing, production, filming and censorship of the film between May 1942 and March 1943. For the first time in Third Reich Cinema literature, a book brings an insider’s perspective to working within the dictatorship for Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Ministry, the Reichsfilmintendanz, the OKW, and others who approved, then rejected, re–approved, supported, and in the end, banned the film from cinemas altogether.  With over 60 photographs, maps, sketches, and illustrations – many previously unpublished – The Making of The Crew of the Dora is an essential read for anyone interested in Nazi film-making.

ISBN # 0–9808612–3–3.  / German Films Dot Net   

NOTE: The two lobby cards, the press-book, the "Das Programm von Heute" tri-fold cinema brochure, and the Karl Ritter biographical film booklet will be shipped in a sturdy cardboard mailer as Registered Airmail from Australia.

The book shall be shipped separately, from the USA.  The shipments will undoubtedly arrive at different times, never mind with the on-going international postal disruptions.  The book weighs over 1 lb. / 520 grams so will be sent by the prevailing postal service available to your country. Any import duties are your responsibility.  The book has a RRP of US$29.95 plus postage. The postage of the book internationally and the photos posted from Australia will exceed $50, plus eBay listing fees and Paypal fees.  This combo offer is therefore a good value for any collector of materials about this film.

For the true Collector, this is a ready–made BESATZUNG DORA Lot of extremely rare original Ufa studio materials published weeks before the film was suddenly banned from cinemas in mid–1943.  The Karl Ritter biographical booklet (Aktuelle Filmbücher) was printed four years earlier, in 1939, and provides a detailed account of his life as a WWI soldier who survived the horrors of Verdun and other major battles and the chaos and despair of the Weimar years until Germany emerged into a new era. Ritter's film-making was immensely aided by his personal experiences as a WWI soldier, and  as a pilot, and in the Second World War, as a Luftwaffe Major.

Postage paid - worldwide.