Hotel Berlin (1945)

Interesting facts

Hotel Berlin is an American drama film made by Warner Bros. Pictures in late 1944 to early 1945 starring Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey and Andrea King. Directed by Peter Godfrey, it is set in Berlin near the close of World War II, and is based on the novel Hotel Berlin by Vicki Baum.

Production

The picture was in production between November 15, 1944, and January 15, 1945. According to TCM and AFI, the end date is uncertain.

Warner Bros. rushed the release of the picture to coincide with the Russian and Allied drives on Berlin. The story was updated to include late war events during the spring of 1945.

The film ends with a statement over the signatures of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin: "Our purpose is not to destroy the German people—but we are determined to disband all German armed forces-break up the German General Staff—eliminate all German industry used for military production--bring all war criminals to just and swift punishment—wipe out the Nazi Party and Nazi laws from the life of the German people—Germany mu…

Film critic Michael Atkinson observes: "for most of the world in early 1945 the concentration camps were still just a rumor, but here characters talk in ominous terms about Dachau and Birkenau, whose gas chambers were claimed in the picture to kill '6,000 people in 24 hours!', in a movie that hit theaters one month before Auschwitz and Dachau were liberated and exposed to the world."

According to a press release, Andrea King and Faye Emerson were coached in their German accents by Trude Berliner, a refugee who had been imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.