Über alles in der Welt (1941)

Above All Else in the World

 

Directed by: Karl Ritter

Written by: Felix Lützkendorf and Karl Ritter

Produced by: Karl Ritter

Cinematography: Werner Krien

Edited by: Gottfried Ritter

Music by: Herbert Windt

Production company: UFA

Distributed by: UFA

Release date: 21 March 1941

Running time: 85 minutes

Country: National Socialist Germany

Language: German

 

Starring:

 

Paul Hartmann: Otl. Steinhart

Hannes Stelzer: Hans Wiegand

Fritz Kampers: Fritz Möbius

Carl Raddatz: Carl Wiegand

Oskar Sima: Leo Samek

Maria Bard: Madeleine LaRoche

Berta Drews: Anna Möbius

Carsta Löck: Erika Möbius

Marina von Ditmar: Brigitte

Joachim Brennecke: Willy Möbius

Karl John: Olt. Hassencamp

Josef Dahmen: Uffz. Weber

Georg Thomalla: Uffz. Krause

Herbert A.E. Böhme: Kapitän Hansen

Wilhelm König: Funker Boysen

Karl Haubenreißer: Sally Nürnberg

Andrews Engelmann: Capt. John Stanley

Hans Baumann: Robert Brown

Ernst Sattler: Rainthaler

Lutz Götz: Hofer

Albert Janscheck: Reindl

Marianne Straub: Walburga

Peter Elsholtz: Dr. v. Krisis

Kunibert Gensichen: Reg.-Ass. Glockenburg

Eva Tinschmann: Oberschwester Isolde

Oscar Sabo: Friedrich Wilhelm Hoppe

Gerhard Dammann: Siemens-Werkmeister

Beppo Brem: Putzenlechner

Hermann Gunther: Elsässischer Bürgermeister

Günther Polensen: Flieger-Leutnant Nacke

 

Plot:

 

Various episodes show the fate of Germans abroad who are imprisoned after the outbreak of World War II. One is Fritz Möbius, a German employed in the Siemens factories, who is arrested in Paris. The journalist Hans Wiegand, who is arrested at the border, as well as an entire Tyrolean folk music ensemble, which is deported to London despite the declaration of its director “we are not Germans, we are Tyroleans”. On the high seas, the German tanker “Elmshorn” receives orders to call at a neutral port because of the outbreak of war. As this does not succeed, the crew sinks their own ship so that it does not fall into the hands of the enemy. The film is supplemented with newsreel-style depictions of the German advance on land and in the air. The resistance of Germans living abroad in so-called “emigrant legions” is also thematized.