The film depicts the life of the South African politician Paul Kruger and his eventual defeat by the British during the Boer War.

The film opens with a dying Paul Kruger (Emil Jannings) speaking about his life to his nurse in a Geneva hotel.

Cecil Rhodes (Ferdinand Marian) has a great desire to acquire land in the Transvaal region of the Boers for its gold deposits.

He sends Dr Jameson (Karl Haubenreißer) there to provoke border disturbances and secures support from Joseph Chamberlain (Gustaf Gründgens).

When Chamberlain seeks the support of Queen Victoria (Hedwig Wangel) and her son Edward, Prince of Wales (Alfred Bernau), she initially refuses but changes her mind when she is informed of the gold in the region.

Kitchener launches an attack on the civilian population by destroying its homes, using human shields and placing the women and children in concentration camps in an attempt to damage the morale of the Boer Army.

Ohm Krüger was one of a number of anti-British propaganda feature films produced by the Nazis during the war, most of which focused on countries with troubled relations with Britain to show the "true British character" such as in South Africa and Ireland.

[7] It depicts the British as seeking gold, symbolic of barrenness and evil, in contrast to the Boers, who raised crops and animals.

[8] Publicity material which accompanied the film particularly drew attention to the role of Winston Churchill in the Boer War during which he served as a journalist.

Queen Victoria is presented as a drunkard, and the British concentration camp commandant, responsible for the killing of female inmates, resembles Churchill.

[13] At the time, Joseph Goebbels had been encouraging film-makers to have lower production costs, but he made an exception for Ohm Krüger, declaring it to be reichswichtig (important for the State) due to its propagandistic and artistic value; in his Diaries Goebbels - at the "first showing of the completed Ohm Krüger" at his house - wrote: "Great excitement.

[4] It was well-received, attracting a quarter of a million viewers in four days upon its initial release, largely as a result of the high expectations generated by the propaganda press campaign, with word-of-mouth recommendations also being important in the film's popularity.

[19] The Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Nazi intelligence service) reported that the film exceeded expectations, with audiences particularly praising the 'unity of political conviction, artistic expression and acting performances'.

[26] On 31 January 1945, the film was banned, for fear that the morale of German audiences would be harmed by images of Boer refugees whose houses had been destroyed - 'images that by the time replicated the harsh realities of everyday life in Germany'.