Legion Condor (film)

Legion Condor is a 1939 German war film directed by Karl Ritter and starring Paul Hartmann, Albert Hehn and Fritz Kampers. The film portrays the German Condor Legion which fought in the Spanish Civil War. Because of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the production was halted after 15 days of film-shooting, on 25 August 1939, to avoid offending the Soviets who had supported the other side in Spain and who were negatively portrayed in the film.

The film is often confuised with the full-length documentary film by Karl Ritter, IM KAMPF GEGEN DEN WELTFEIND (In the Battle against World Enemy #1) , released on June 16,1939, on the same subject. LEGION CONDOR was planned as a sequel to Ritter‘s highly successful 1938 film, POUR LE MERITE, also starring Paul Hartmann, Albert Hehn, Fritz Kampers, Carsta Löck, amongst others.

In August 2018 the long-lost Ufa film script was found in a used bookstore in Berlin. No copy of the script is found in any German film archive or institution. A monograph on the film is being authored by William Gillespie for publication in Autumn 2019.

Cast

• Paul Hartmann as Kommandant der Jagdflieger
• Albert Hehn as Jagdflieger
• Fritz Kampers as Oberfeldwebel Moebius
• Josef Dahmen as Unteroffizier
• Willi Rose as Unteroffizier
• Otto Graf
• Karl John
• Wolfgang Staudte
• Heinz Welzel
• Herbert A.E. Bohme
• Carsta Löck
• Marina von Ditmar
• Ernst Bader
• Dima Detoor
• Andrews Engelmann
• Irene Fischer
• Friedrich Gnaß
• Lutz Götz
• Malte Jäger
• Karl Klüsner
• Franz Kossak
• Lothar Körner
• Lea Niako
• Ruth Nimbach
• Lili Schoenborn-Anspach
• Ursula Ulrich
• Ernst von Klipstein

References

Bibliography

• Kreimeier, Klaus. The Ufa Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company, 1918-1945. University of California Press, 1999.
• Gillespie, William. Karl Ritter – His Life and 'Zeitfilms' under National Socialism. German Films Dot Net, Australia, 2nd edition, 2014.

External links

• Legion Condor on IMDb