In early 1942, a luxury ship called the “Queen of the South Atlantic” was at a German naval base in the Baltic Sea. Commanded by Adolph Hitler’s navy, the ship was later even converted into a barracks.
In this movie, which is the same as the 1997 movie Titanic, with its design and editing, it is seen that the Nazi propaganda deals with it. Moreover, no expense was spared in the making of the film. It is equally strange that so few people know about this movie.
Titanic has a story that still affects us all, as it did in the past.
The scenario, on the other hand, seems to have been handled very differently from the Titanic we know. The film depicts the moment of the ship’s crash as a result of British and American greed. In other words, the subject of the film is actually completely political.
Professor Robert Watson, author of the book The Nazi Titanic, which is also the name of the movie, states that Germany faced serious failures in the war in 1942 and that he thought the movie would have a great impact as a propaganda tool. He adds that the “Naziized” version of the Titanic event was a response to the Allies.
The ships look exactly the same, with only one of the chimneys missing from the ship used in this movie.
The film, which was prepared with very large budgets for its period, was directed by Prof. Judging by Watson’s account, it is estimated that there was a budget of 4 million reichsmarks at that time. This also shows that it is a very costly movie.
Strangely enough, real soldiers were taken from the front and used as extras in the movie. Not only that; Actors such as Sybila Schmidt, one of the famous German movie stars of the period, were also included in the cast.
The shooting phase of the movie took place in a very chaotic environment.
The female actors in the film were subjected to harassment by the soldiers; The lighting of the movie set is also thought to be a target for the Allies in a war environment. The film’s director, Herbert Selpin, was also arrested for criticizing the Nazi authorities’ interference with the filming. He was later found hanging in the prison where he settled. So as you can see, the shooting process of the movie was quite painful.
The basis of The Nazi Titanic is harsh propaganda.
The accident that took place in the movie was based on the greed of the British owners, despite the German crews trying to slow the ship in the North Atlantic on the Titanic. The German epilogue says the deaths of more than 1,500 passengers are “an eternal condemnation of Britain’s unending search for snow.”
German historian Von Lunen mentions that after watching the movie, all the scenes were too realistic and that civilians might be afraid of air strikes and that it was banned from being shown in cinemas: “It also became a problem in the movie that the German officer on the Titanic disobeyed his superiors because he believed he was morally wrong. It wasn’t a message he wanted to send to real-life German officers”.
Despite the political messages, the film is technologically impressive for its time. Sections from this movie can be seen in the movie A Night to Remember, made by the British in 1958, which is also about the Titanic.
The movie failed; but the ship continued to be used for different purposes for a while. This large ship, called the Cap Arcona, became a prison for prisoners transported from their camp in 1945. They gathered people on this ship.
On 3 May, the ship was bombed by the British Air Force. prof. Watson estimates that there were almost 5,000 people on board. It is said that only 300 people have a chance to survive. Even that is a good possibility. To make matters even stranger, other ships like the Cap Arcona were bombed four days after the fall of Germany and the end of the war.
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