The WESTMAR poster shown at the bottom of this page is the far lesser known graphic as compared to the famous one by the outstanding poster graphic artist Josef Fenneker showing a solitary Sturmabteilung Man on duty with a flag behind him. This WESTMAR second poster is without doubt one of the very rarest ones in the Collection. It was printed as a lithograph in 1933 and never folded over the decades. It is in fine condition and is of great historic value. We have been advised by German experts that it is the only copy of the poster extant.

Above is a teaser on the film issued for publicity purposes. The film was based on the novel Horst Wessel by Hanns Heinz Ewers.  Of Ewers, Wikipedia states: 

" Ewers was one of the first critics to recognize cinema as a legitimate art form, and wrote the scripts for numerous early examples of the medium, most notably The Student of Prague (1913), a reworking of the Faust legend which also included the first portrayal of a double role by an actor on the screen.

Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, then a member of the same corps (student fraternity) of which Ewers had been a member, acts as an extra in a 1926 version of the movie, also written by Ewers. Ewers was later commissioned by Adolf Hitler to write a biography of Wessel (Einer von vielen), which also was made into a movie. "  – Wikipeida.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels was unenthusiastic about this second film, entitled Horst Wessel, and he demanded changes to the film script, which had to be re–shot, and also another title for it (which became Hans Westmar) to distance the film from the celebrated and venerated Nazi martyr he had helped create.

A newspaper image of the front of the "Arena" cinema in the formerly Communist district of Berlin, Moabit, promoting the film. The irony of the cinema's promoting this film in 1933, just months after Hitler took power, in a former fiercely Red working class neighbourhood of Berlin, would not have been lost on passers–by. The film told of Communist Party members becoming Nazi Party members; with their clenched fists changing into 'Sieg Heil!' outstretched hand salutes to Adolf Hitler.

The iconic film still of actor Emil Lohkamp from the film, in a lobby card in our Collection:

The turbulent funeral scene where the Nazi procession with Westmar's coffin is attacked by Communists and then set on by police on horseback, from a rare film stilll lobby card also from our Collection:

In March 2020 we acquired another rare lobby card from the film when we purchased a bundle of photos of actor Paul Wegener, who plays the Red boss in the film. Wegener is shown on the left, talking with Emil Lohkamp, who plays Hans Westmar in the movie:

We acquired in March 2019 three extremely rare Italian loby cards for the film, which show different scenes than the German lobby cards we have. Here are the three Italian film stills:

The Illustrierter Film–Kurier for the film shown near the top of this page (at the left )  is not to be found in our Collection. Only two known copies of this program exist....as the film title was changed from "Horst Wessel" to "Hans Westmar" by order of Dr. Goebbels, and all printed copies of this original program were destroyed. This image was kindly provided to us by Christian Unucka, who has the Franke & Co. Illustrierte Film– Kurier archives. We do own the censored, replacement Illustrierte Film–Kurier, which has the title changed to "Hans Westmar."

The Ewers book, copyright 1932 – the film Hans Westmar was made the following year – is shown here, along with a typical children's book perpetuating the Wessel legend:

In August 2016, we acquired the extremely rare "Programm von Heute" film programm artist card for this film, shown below. We do not have the "Programm von Heute" booklet itself...and to be honest, we have never see one ever.

In December 2019 we acquired a very rare autographed Rosskarte of Emil Lohkamp. Hans Westmar was his film debut, and he only appeared in four films in his lifetime, three of which were Third Reich films. He was primarily a theatre stage actor.

The film was still being seen by Third Reich audiences years after the 1933 premiere season. Here, for example, from our copy of the Ostmärkisches Film-Jahrbuch 1939 (1939 Film Yearbook for the former Austria) is an advertisement from the Tobis film studio which lists Hans Westmar as "the national film" on offer alongside their 1939 new titles.....

The 30 January 1943 issue of DER FILM newspaper printed on the 10th anniversary of Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor. A still from Hans Westmar used to commemorate the march of the SA through the Brandenburg Gate in their famous torchlight parade.

BELOW; from our newspaper archive, the 2 September 1933 advertisement in the Film-Kurier Tageszeitung in Berlin, using the film's first title, Horst Wessel; which was later changed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, before the cinema release, to Hans Westmar .

In October 1933, the  first version of the film, titled Horst Wessel,was banned by Dr. Goebbels and it had to be reedited and re–titled as Hans Westmar before being allowed into cinemas.  Here the Kinemagraph film newspaper from Berlin with the front–page story on the film's ban:

In October 2020 we acquired this rare cinema 4 page brochure on the film (the 4th page is blank) :

At left, a very rare photograph of the film's Director, Franz Wenzler. It is the only photograph of him we have ever found. He is holding a film script in his hand, for one of the earlier films he directed in the early 1930's. The other propaganda film which he is best known for is Hundert Tage, the story of Napoleon's last 100 days, portrayed by the great actor Werner Krauss in a Fascist Italy and Third Reich Germany 1935 co–production. Hundert Tage is based on a stage play written by none other than Benito Mussolini, and then made into a feature film. Wenzler left Germany after falling out of favour with the National Socialist government, and died under somewhat mysterious circumstances in Rome in 1942. 

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In America, screenings of the film, using its original title of HORST WESSEL were shown in a sold-out three week run at the 96th Street Theater cinema in the German Yorkville section of Manhattan in 1939. Here , an advertisement from an issue of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung Und Herold (New York, N.Y.) newspaper. Note that the film BLUTENDES DEUTSCHLAND is announced as the next film to be presented.

For visitors interested in "Das Programm von Heute" cinema programmes, we show below the DPvH for Hans Westmar. This  is not found in our Collection, but that of an archive, which we were allowed to photograph.