Friesennot (1935)

Frisians in Peril

 

 

Directed by: Peter Hagen

Produced by: Alfred Bittins

Hermann Schmidt

Written by: Werner Kortwich

Music by: Walter Gronostay

Cinematography: Sepp Allgeier

Edited by: Wolfgang Becker

Production company: Delta-Film

Release date: 19 November 1935

Running time: 97 minutes

Country: National-Socialist German Reich

Language: German

 

Starring:

 

Friedrich Kayßler: Jürgen Wagner

Helene Fehdmer: Kathrin Wagner

Valéry Inkijinoff: Commissioner Tschernoff

Jessie Vihrog: The girl Mette

Hermann Schomberg: Klaus Niegebüll

Ilse Fürstenberg: Dörte Niegebüll

Kai Möller: Hauke Peters

Fritz Hoopts: Ontje Ibs

Martha Ziegler: Wiebke Detlevsen

Gertrud Boll: Telse Detlevsen

Maria Koppenhöfer: Frau Winkler

Marianne Simson: Hilde Winkler

Franz Stein: Christian Kröger

Aribert Grimmer: Commissioner Krappien

 

Background

 

Frisians in Peril (German: Friesennot) is a 1935 German drama film directed by Peter Hagen and starring Friedrich Kayßler, Jessie Vihrog and Valéry Inkijinoff. Made for Nazi propaganda purposes, it concerns a village of ethnic Frisians in Russia.

 

The film’s sets were designed by the art directors Robert A. Dietrich and Bernhard Schwidewski. Location shooting took place around Bispingen. It premiered at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo.

 

The film has also been known as Dorf im roten Sturm (Germany; reissue title) and Frisions [sic] in Distress (USA).

 

Plot

 

Soviet authorities are making life as difficult as possible for a village of Volga Germans, most of whose ancestors originated in the Frisian Islands, with taxes and other oppression.

 

After Mette, a half-Russian, half-Frisian woman, becomes the girlfriend of Kommissar Tschernoff, the Frisians murder her and throw her body in a swamp.

 

Open violence breaks out and all of the Red Army soldiers stationed nearby are killed by the villagers. They then set fire to their village and flee.