Karl Ritter

Moreover he also directed numerous movies, often he also wrote the screenplay for them.

When WWI finished he looked for a new goal and he first studied architecture before he turned to the painting and art design. Afterwards he was engaged as an illustrator for the magazine "Der Orchideengarten".

As an early member of the NSDAP since 1925 he also shot several propaganda movies.

He returned to Germany in the same years where he realised his last movies as a director with "Staatsanwltin Corda" (53) and "Ball der Nationen" (54). When it became apparent that his film career came to an end in Germany too he went back to Argentina where he spent the rest of his life.

When Karl Ritter finished his education he joined the Bavarian army. There he became an enthusiast for flying and he got first flying hours. Because he got married at this time and the Bavarian announced a new role shortly afterwards that married men are no longer allowed to fly Karl Ritter had to remain at his origin troop. Privately he indulged his passion furthermore.

The director, producer and writer Karl Ritter grew up in an artistic environment. His mother was an opera singer, his father a professor at the conservatory.

He came in touch with the film business as a commercial illustrator and only few years later he already wrote his first screenplays for movies like "Das Spreewaldmdel" , "Kehre zurck! Alles vergeben!" and "Frulein Lausbub" (1930).

After the war he was no longer able to work for the film because he was regarded as a follower of the National Socialism. Therefore he went to Argentina where he realised the movie "El paraiso" (53) as a director and screenwriter. But the movie was no success.

Before the end of World War II, when all available persons were sent to the war, Karl Ritter came to the air force. He was captured by the Russians but was able to escape.

Karl Ritter took over the responsibility of a producer from 1933, among them for the productions "Hitlerjunge Quex" , "Stukas" , "Besatzung Dora" and "Sommernchte".

Ritter himself clearly outlined his purpose as a film maker in terms of Nazi ideology: "The path of German films will lead without any compromise to the conclusion that every movie must stay in the service of our community, of nation and our Fhrer." "My movies deal with the unimportance of the individual-all that is personal must be given up for our cause.".

In 1943, he was ordered to cease directing films.

When events overtook them, one of his films, Kadetten (completed 1939, released 1941) had to be shelved for two years and three either had to be abandoned or could not be released: Legion Condor when the war began, Besatzung Dora when the promise of land in the East for German settlers became hollow (and when the German forces had to withdraw from North Africa, a major setting of the film), and Narvik when the project was opposed by the military and then transferred to Veit Harlan.

The Soviet Union demanded in 1945 that he be tried for war crimes because of his propaganda and militarist pictures.

More of his films are still banned today in Germany, Austria and France than those of any of his then colleagues.

Beginning with Pour le Mrite, Ritters films are characteristically fast-moving and episodic. He prepared them in detail using storyboards.

Ritter was a committed National Socialist. His wifes father was distantly related to Richard Wagner; he came into contact with Hitler through this connection and joined the party in the mid-1920s.

At the time, however, most of Ritters films were successful. He was "one of the best known and best paid directors in the Third Reich".

After the end of World War II, Ritter was declared a Mitlufer (fellow traveler) at his de-Nazification trial. In 1947, he emigrated to Argentina via Portugal; there, thanks to Winifred Wagner ( the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner), he was able to make El Paraiso. In the 1950s he returned to West Germany and ran his own production company there, declaring a wish "to restore the strength of the German cinema", but his project of remaking Pandoras Box fell through, and he went back to Argentina and died in 1977 in Buenos Aires.

After WWI he studied architecture, worked as a graphic artist and then entered the film industry in 1926 as a public relations manager at Sdfilm, where he edited a book of Disney cartoons.

After the Nazis came to power, he moved from head of production at Reichsliga-Film in Munich to become a company director and chief of production at Universum Film AG (UFA).

Karsten Witte summed him up in his overview, first published in 1993, as someone who "directed bad action films on a conveyor belt".

He was rewarded by Joseph Goebbels with membership in the governing body of the Reichsfilmkammer, the chamber governing the film industry, a position as a cultural senator and, in honor of Hitlers 50th birthday in 1939, a professorship.

He was on Goerings list of party members exempt from the military call-up, but returned to the Luftwaffe and was taken prisoner by the Russians. He escaped to Bavaria.

Goebbels wrote that Ritter "makes nationalistic points with a lack of inhibition that would make others blush" but also noted his heavy touch, writing of Bal par : "Ritter is not suited to subtle psychological portrayal. He is more for hearty things." As a result, he is not highly regarded today.

David Stewart Hull, in his 1969 overview of Nazi films, characterized Ritters work as "heavy-handed and extremely talky", described Pour le Mrite as "a crushing bore" and Stukas as "having all his worst vices: blatant propaganda, slapdash production values, crude editing, and a terrible script", while paying GPU the compliment that: "The technical work is less slap-dash than usual and the acting considerably above Ritters usual low level.".

After the war Ritter emigrated along with many former Nazis to Argentina, where he was head of Eos-Film Mendoza.

His directorial work for the regime includes entertainment films imitating Hollywood productions, such as Hochszeitsreise and Bal par , but he is best known for his propaganda films: anti-Communist films such as The Red Terror as a Nazi counter to the Russian revolutionary film, and can be seen as beginning with Verrter , which for the first time brought the German spy film home to Germany.

John Altmann estimated that 6 million young boys had seen and been influenced by his films between 1936 and 1939. His Zeitfilme such as Stukas have been provocatively seen as forerunners of modern military thrillers such as Roland Emmerichs 1996 Independence Day.

When officers in the military queried the wisdom of the strategy depicted in Unternehmen Michael-an entire infantry column chooses a heroic death in order to take the enemy with them in a hail of artillery fire-he responded, "I want to show the German youth that senseless, sacrificial death has its moral value." The Propaganda Ministry dismissed the radio play with which the military attempted to rebut Ritters film.