Frederick the Great and Otto Gebühr are often remembered as men whose destinies began within the confines of a small Prussia, far from pan-European fame, and of a single theater, far from mass cinema distribution. Yet in our memory they more often appear in their later years, having already achieved fame. Despite all their past successes, and their experience of failure, we increasingly sense in these men a feeling of duty. One that remained for something that had not been realized within the boundaries of the old forms, but that determined a new cultural manner.
So we think, and so the films about Frederick II were perceived in Germany at the beginning of the 1930s. More importantly, despite all the political upheavals still to come, and despite the Nazis’ particular fascination with the Prussian style, we nevertheless have the opportunity today to begin our acquaintance with the figure of King Frederick and the acting talent of Otto Gebühr from a cultural rather than an ideological standpoint.
This opportunity should not be underestimated. After all, many things, from the Roman eagle to the Gothic typeface, continue to carry associations with the times of Hitler’s yoke down to the present day. Whereas the image of Frederick II of Prussia now seems to belong above all to its own historical era.
Strangely enough, this reveals the role of a man who is often described as a “star of the Third Reich”. In portraying Frederick the Great in Veit Harlan’s 1942 film The Great King, Otto Gebühr strengthens the connection between the king’s figure and the aesthetic context of the 18th century. Here, Nazi propaganda built a strategy whose miscalculation would, in the future, save our perception of Otto Gebühr.
In the film, propaganda sought to present the long tradition of Prussian steadfastness, deliberately pushing into the background the most straightforward means of demonstrating continuity, namely by placing Nazi symbols alongside it. In this way, the Nazis attempted to give The Great King a greater historical scope leading toward the present. As a result, the viewer was meant to perceive the era on the screen simultaneously as something profoundly ancient and therefore important, while also resonating with the real problems of duty, war, and the burden of reality.
The miscalculation lay in the inability of the idea to remain viable when perceived from the intended angle without the context of war and Nazi propaganda. After the war, the layer of context surrounding the film collapsed, exposing a vacuum of aesthetics through which it now had to be interpreted. That vacuum was filled by Otto Gebühr. Not only through his talent but also through his tradition of portraying Frederick the Great he gave many generations of Germans the image of a king of duty rather than a king of struggle.
Although Otto Gebühr was never known for anti-Nazi resistance, the peak of his talent, combined with his most beloved role, became for him his own saving “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg”. Today, when studying the history of cinema, among the actors of the Third Reich, Gebühr captures our attention with a remarkable question: “What exactly did Otto Gebühr do that makes the modern viewer feel as though he sought to protect the image of Frederick the Great?”
In this respect, an obituary article dedicated to Otto Gebühr in the 1954 issue of Die Zeit, “The Curse of Resemblance“, may be of interest to us. The author observes that we have no real idea what Frederick II actually looked like. Thus, for many people, Otto Gebühr, together with the reproductions of engravings in school textbooks, became that very Frederick.
For our part, we may point to a similar difficulty. Just as with Frederick’s appearance, we cannot say with certainty what Otto Gebühr’s true motivation was. Perhaps his attachment to the image of Frederick the Great had more selfish roots. In this case, the character was perceived not as a project with temporal limits and equally definite preferences, but as part of the expectations of professional self-realization. Otto Gebühr, of course, did not associate his private identity with Frederick. However, we may suppose that, within the sphere of his professional career, his identity connected political pressure with an attempt to realize his own value not only for his country, his profession, and history, but also for his own hero.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find Otto Gebühr’s published letters or reflections on the Internet today. We cannot even say whether they have survived. Intuition suggests that, to approach the truth of this study, we should turn to another protagonist of this story. We are speaking of the people and their perception of the films about Frederick featuring Gebühr. Testimonies from the contemporary press help us reconstruct a coherent thread of perception and perhaps even answer why certain images outlive regimes, wars, and ideologies.
The newspaper articles of that time were addressed to an audience that had not yet become aware of the historical context of Hitler and his downfall. For that reason, the interests of their readers were oriented toward different poles in determining which moments required explanation and which required demonstration.
The origins of all this arise from a new philosophy of cinema that emerged in the early 1930s. Beside a portrait of the king playing the flute, the following text was printed: “For many years the theatre was deprived of costume; what was called the ‘play of contemporary life’ (Zeitstück) prevailed. It was believed that only the man of today and his concerns were worthy of depiction. But time decided otherwise. As always, whenever the life of the present was thrown into turmoil, the finest minds turned to history and once again revived its figures in drama…”
The new philosophy set itself a task: can we create such a stage that the audience will not analyze and perceive the era separately, receiving what was described as a “cold buffet”, but instead be warmed by the action itself? For actors this might mean “putting on a crinoline”, while for spectators it means feeling “the tangible closeness of this genius.” All this gives us grounds to state with confidence that the attempt to transform legend into atmosphere and to employ meanings surrounding the process of filming and perception was not an invention of Goebbels, but a natural development of cinema.
It is enough merely to look at a parallel article by actress Renate Müller, which recounts an amusing incident from the filming: “Do you know how a tricorne hat should be worn? Well, I did not know either. I turned it this way and that, and when it stubbornly refused to sit dashing and elegant upon my head, I decisively took a pair of scissors and ripped open several seams that held its corners together… <…> And secretly I resolved to wear tricorne hats as often as possible. But then I approached the director. At the very sight of me, genuine tears of laughter rolled down his cheeks…”
The newspaper also formulates the motivation behind the making of the 1930 film The Flute Concert of Sanssouci with remarkable precision, addressing it on every level. As an explanation for the film industry, it states: “Yet the king’s mature years themselves had until now been absent from the cinema. In celebrating his victories, people too often forgot that his personality also possessed an extraordinarily great cultural significance…” By contrast, the Nazi account of the Venice Biennale, where the 1942 film was screened, narrows its focus to two closely bound levels: support for the contemporary struggle and the portrayal of past greatness.
“Despite the severity of the war, which demands the exertion of all strength for victory, the German leadership recognized in good time the necessity of preserving cultural and artistic achievements wherever circumstances permitted, so that we might be well prepared for the new tasks arising from the political consolidation of the Axis powers…” (1942). The principal difference from the 1930s film lies in the narrowing of the breadth of motivation. Whereas earlier film critics discussed philosophy, hats, and school textbooks, the Nazis simply no longer considered such matters worthy of mention.
Nothing confirms the above more convincingly than the professional mentioned anecdote by Renate Müller mentioned, in which the actress reflects not on history or greatness, but on how an era reveals itself through costume: “If every era has a fashion that suits it, then I now understand why our ancestors in the time of Frederick the Great were still somewhat restrained and reserved: they were sufficiently occupied with keeping an eye on their skirts…”
Reading a newspaper from the 1930s, one notices how the image of Frederick the Great is cultivated as the figure of a man who reminds us of our duty to continue living and to overcome the present crises. “Therefore, the time has come for the great King of Prussia to appear on the screen once again, whose life, filled with a sense of duty, may serve as an example precisely in our own day…”
We then open a Nazi newspaper, already carrying in our minds an understanding of what they meant by duty. In the film commissioned by Goebbels, Frederick indeed wages war and achieves victory. Both the Nazi newspaper of 1942 and the newspaper of 1930 present Frederick the Great as a man of duty and historical action. Yet whereas in the early films of the 1930s this was meant to inspire people with a sense of support during the economic crisis, placing the emphasis not on the goal but on the state of mind, in the Nazi film the idea of support is reduced to victory alone. “In The Great King, before people who themselves are living through and shaping historic days, glorious history rises once again. The greatness of that era captivates contemporaries, and not only their own nation but other nations as well, because then, as now, all people face the same human trials that must be endured…” (Deutsche Filme newspaper).
In the pre-war film Fridericus (1937), there is a scene in which King Frederick sincerely weeps over the sudden death of his sister Wilhelmine, yet finds within himself the strength to continue the struggle. By contrast, the later wartime film of 1942 places Frederick more in a posture of reflection than of openly expressed emotion. It seems that Otto Gebühr’s role in this entire story was that, beginning with the silent films and continuing through the previously mentioned masterpieces of the 1930s, he succeeded in establishing himself in audiences’ minds as the “deeply human Frederick.”
Decades of portraying the king as a cultural figure rather than a warrior worked toward this image. Thus, when the Nazis eventually sought to depict Frederick’s sense of duty in a wartime film, that very manner of duty softened the militaristic character of the propaganda. We can sense this only by watching these films not in random order, but in the order of their release. Then, together with an understanding of the historical context, there emerges that very illusion of Otto Gebühr as the defender of Frederick the Great.
Works Cited
Anderson, Matthew Smith. “Frederick II”. Encyclopedia Britannica.9 June. 2026.
“Deutsche Filme”. Die Filmwelt. 16 September 1942.
“Ein tönender”. Die Filmwelt. 30 November 1930.
“Der Fluch der Ähnlichkeit”. DIE ZEIT. 18 March 1954.
Gondorf, Ulrike. “Zeitstücke” Deutschlandfunk Kultur. 9 November 2008.
“Kostümfilm”. Die Filmwelt. 30 November 1930.
“Krinoline und Dreispitz”. Die Filmwelt. 28 December 1930.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. “Nazi Propaganda”. Holocaust Encyclopedia.
“von Renate Müller”. Die Filmwelt. 28 December 1930.