Friesennot
Encyclopedia
Friesennot is a 1935 German film directed by Peter Hagen.

The film is also known as Dorf im roten Sturm (German reissue title) and Frisions in Distress (USA).

Plot

Communists authorities are making life as difficult as possible for a village of Volga German
Volga German
The Volga Germans were ethnic Germans living along the River Volga in the region of southern European Russia around Saratov and to the south. Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain German culture, language, traditions and churches: Lutherans, Reformed,...

s in the Soviet Union, with taxes and other oppression. When Mette, a half-Russian, half-Frisian woman, becomes the girlfriend of Kommissar Tschernoff, the Frisians murder her and throw her body in the swamp. Open violence breaks out, and the Red Army soldiers are all killed; the villagers set fire to their village and flee.

Cast

  • Friedrich Kayßler
    Friedrich Kayßler
    Friedrich Kayßler was a German theatre and film actor. He appeared in 56 films between 1913 and 1945.-Biography:...

     as Jürgen Wagner
  • Helene Fehdmer as Kathrin Wagner
  • Valéry Inkijinoff as Kommissar Tschernoff
  • Jessie Vihrog as Das Mädchen Mette
  • Hermann Schomberg as Klaus Niegebüll
  • Ilse Fürstenberg as Dörte Niegebüll
  • Kai Möller as Hauke Peters
  • Fritz Hoopts as Ontje Ibs
  • Martha Ziegler as Wiebke Detlevsen
  • Gertrud Boll as Telse Detlevsen
  • Maria Koppenhöfer
    Maria Koppenhöfer
    -Selected filmography:* Unheimliche Geschichten * Joan of Arc * The Mountain Calls * Kora Terry * Bismarck * The Heart of a Queen -External links:...

     as Frau Winkler
  • Marianne Simson as Hilde Winkler
  • Franz Stein as Christian Kröger
  • Aribert Grimmer as Kommissar Krappien

Motifs

Despite Nazi hostility to religion, a cynical piece of anti-Communist propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 depicts the Communists as posting obscene anti-religious posters, and the Friesans as piously declaring that all authority comes from God.

The portrayal of Cherkov does not conform to the heavy-hand depiction of Communist as brutal and murderous in such films as Flüchtlinge
Flüchtlinge
Flüchtlinge is a 1933 German film depicting Volga German refugees persecuted by the Bolsheviks on the Sino-Russian border in Manchuria in 1928.The film was directed by Gustav Ucicky and starred Hans Albers, Käthe von Nagy and Eugen Klopfer...

; he is truly and passionately in love with Mette, and only with her death does he unleash his soldiers. A villager objects to the affair on the grounds that even though her mother was Russian, her father's Friesan blood "outweighs" foreign blood, and therefore she must not throw herself at a foreigner. Her murder is presented as in accordance with ancient Germanic custom for "race pollution
Rassenschande
Rassenschande or Blutschande was the Nazi term for sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans, which was punishable by law...

."

Ban

After the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in 1939, the film was banned; in 1941, after the invasion of Russia, it was reissued under its new title.
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