[1] The film features Curd Jürgens as General Harras, Marianne Koch, Viktor de Kowa, Karl John, Eva Ingeborg Scholz, and Harry Meyen.

He backs the sabotage action of his flight engineer, threatens an SS officer at gunpoint and finally crashes his aircraft into the control tower of his airbase.

In December, 1941, he read about the death of a personal friend, Ernst Udet, who was a World War One ace who later became an important figure within the Nazi-era Luftwaffe, but eventually grew disillusioned with the regime and committed suicide.

The film was shot in Hamburg and Berlin using Swedish-built Junkers Ju 86 bombers with license-built Bristol Mercury engines on a local airfield including its offices with Esselte Files on the shelf.

Helmut Kautner’s direction is not imaginative, but for a solid story, well-told, about characters and obstacles, it doesn’t need to be: the film has the necessary pulse and excitement.