Homecoming (1941 film)

Marie and her fiancé, Dr. Fritz Mutius, drive to the provincial capital, in order to put their protest to the Voivode (governor), but they are not even received there either.

Back home, the acts of violence against the German minority continue to increase: Marie's father too becomes the victim of a Polish attack and is blinded as a result; the wife of innkeeper Ludwig Launhardt, Martha, dies after being struck by stones thrown by Poles.

When during the Invasion of Poland the German villagers meet secretly in a barn, in order to hear Hitler's speech of 1 September 1939 before the Reichstag, they are discovered, arrested and imprisoned.

[3] They are abused by the prison guards, but escape through an underground cellar and, scarcely avoiding a massacre, are saved by invading Wehrmacht soldiers.

After the war, the Polish performers were punished (ranging from official reprimand to prison sentence) for collaboration in an anti-Polish propaganda undertaking.

[7] Alleged massacres of Germans, such as Bloody Sunday were used in such propaganda, and Homecoming drew on such attempts although allowing the Volksdeutsche characters depicted to survive.

[13] Nazi propaganda included using scare tactics about the Soviet Union, and led to tens of thousands leaving.

[18] Gustav Ucicky and Gerhard Menzel were inspired to make Homecoming after receiving accounts of Volhynian Germans coming to Germany from Soviet-occupied Poland.

The picture was submitted to censorship at the Film Review Office on 26 August 1941, it was G-rated and received a top attribute as "political and artistical particularly valuable".

The Austrian author and Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek stated that Homecoming is “the worst propaganda feature of the Nazis ever”.