The Mortal Storm was the first MGM production that dramatized the persecution of Jews under the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II, without explicitly using the word “Jew.”[3] In the mountains of Germany near the Austrian border on January 30, 1933, Professor Viktor Roth, a distinguished "non-Aryan" professor who is adored by his students, celebrates his 60th birthday.

His family consists of his wife Amelie, his daughter Freya, his young son Rudi and his adult stepsons Erich and Otto von Rohn.

Martin, Fritz, and Freya meet at an inn, where Professor Werner is bullied by a gang for not singing along with the "Horst Wessel Song."

That night, Martin takes him on skis through a secret pass to Austria while the women successfully resist police attempts to intimidate them.

The film is based on the 1937 novel The Mortal Storm[6] by the British writer Phyllis Bottome, who had moved to Austria in 1924 when her husband Alban Ernan Forbes Dennis was posted there.

However, Bottome wrote: "What it is to be a Nazi has been shown with unequivocal sincerity and life-likeness, but in the scene between the Jewish professor and his son, Rudi, there was a watering down of courage.

Those familiar with the father’s definition of a good Jew will miss its full significance in the film because the central idea has been overlaid by insignificant words.

"[7] The Mortal Storm was the only MGM movie to explicitly criticize the Nazi regime before America’s entry into World War II in December 1941.

However, in the scene where professor Roth is visited by his wife in the concentration camp, the sleeves of his shirt bear the large letter J (possibly to represent the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear on their clothing).

[10] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, was aware that Warner Bros. studio pictures had been banned in Germany after their release of the anti-Hitler Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939).

[11][12] Mountain snow scenes were filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah and Sun Valley, Idaho.

However, with the World War II underway in 1940, the German publisher demanded script approval in return for usage of the song.

[14] MGM ignored the request, and had Zador simply arrange the "Horst Wessel Lied" with English lyrics by Earl Brent.

[15] The film concludes with an excerpt from the poem "The Gate of the Year," which King George VI made famous when he quoted it during his Christmas 1939 radio broadcast.

"[17] A review in Variety states: "It is not the first of the anti-Nazi pictures, but it is the most effective film exposé to date of the totalitarian idea, a slugging indictment of the political and social theories advanced by Hitler.

"[18] John Mosher of The New Yorker praises the film's story for being presented "without any theatrical nonsense" and adds, "What is outstanding about Frank Borzage's direction is its restraint.