Review of Himmelhunde

This seemed to be a sort of propaganda recruiting film for the Hitler Youth and for critical review needs to be considered in comparison with other youth propaganda films of the time. Here, the scene is a Hitler Youth summer camp in the hills of southern Germany. The boys are all making or maintaining gliders under the paternalistic eyes of there officers. It is all very friendly, healthy and challenging, with scenes of camp life and camaraderie, and not a little tweaking of authority's tale. The boys and their gliders attend a competition, and so far as I could make out, one of the boys disobeys orders in taking part and although flying well, crashes his glider. He is disciplined for this, takes umbrage, gets cross with his parents and goes off in a huff. He spurns the help of a friend, but eventually listens to the wise words of one of his officers, returns to his team, is re-admitted without fuss, and plays his full role in the next competition. Lots of shots of gliders, bucolic towns and villages, beer drinking, children at play, and not a sign of war, but plenty of swastika arm bands. Sadly the Internet Archive copy is a poor one; nevertheless, one can see some decent acting and camera-work going on to make a slight story interesting. The problem with a film like this is we all know that Götterdämmerung is round the corner. However, on there own, the messages of the film are reasonable: the importance of giving one's best; teamwork involves acceptance of authority, comradeship means accepting one will not always get one's own way.

The film is notable for lots of footage of a Horten Ho I flying wing glider. Germany of course developed a talent for gliders to counter the Versailles restrictions on any air force.