Bismarck (1940)

Blood and Iron may have been Otto Von Bismarck's trademark slogan in forging a united German nation, but as the film Bismarck shows he could be quite subtle when he had to be. The film is a propaganda homage from the Third Reich to the founding of the Second Reich.

As such we don't quite get the picture of the real Bismarck who was every inch part of the Prussian aristocracy. The domestic scenes with Paul Hartmann and Kathe Haack as the missus shows them almost middle class, a kind of Mr.&Mrs. Germany with the wife and three kids. All that was needed was a dog.

Freidrich Klaybler plays Wilhelm I the Prussian King who when Bismarck is finished is the Emperor of Germany, their first out of 3 Hohenzollern Kaisers. Klaybler doesn't always understand Bismarck's reasons, but he's real satisfied with the results.

The Nazi authoritarian state is very justified in Bismarck. The parliamentary politicians are shown as naive quibblers, it's Bismarck with his blood and iron that is building the German nation. With scenes of German military might just overrunning everything due to the policies of the far seeing Bismarck, what more could Joe Goebbels want for a propaganda justification for some of the current German military activities?

For a German audience schooled in this view of the world this was great stuff. Unless you've studied 19th century European and German histories a lot of this you won't understand.

Not one of Herr Goebbals better efforts, but I'm sure audiences in 1940 in the Third Reich ate this one up.