Backdrop fallback

The Gleiwitz Case

The Gleiwitz Case

Share

The Gleiwitz Case

1961

1h 4m

6.9(11 votes)

Drama

History

Thriller

Overview

To justify their invasion of Poland at the start of WWII, Nazi high command hatches a secret plan: six Polish men from an SS training camp are sent on a special mission to the town of Gleiwitz, to fake a Polish raid on Germany. The ‘provoked’ Germans will thus launch a ‘counterattack’ on Poland.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Hannjo Hasse

Hannjo Hasse

Alfred Naujocks

Herwart Grosse

Herwart Grosse

Gestapochef Müller

Hilmar Thate

Hilmar Thate

KZ-Häftling

Christoph Beyertt

Christoph Beyertt

Volksdeutscher Franz Sitte

Wolfgang Kalweit

Volksdeutscher Hans-Wilhelm Kraweit

Georg Leopold

Volksdeutscher Franz Wyczorek

Heinz Behrens

Heinz Behrens

Offizier

Rolf Ripperger

Rudolf Woschiek

Manfred Günther

Creative team

Directed by: Gerhard Klein
Written by: Günther Rücker
Wolfgang Kohlhaase

Similar Movies

The Accompanist

The Accompanist

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young accompanist named Sophie Vasseur gets a job with famed singer Irene Brice. As Irene's husband Charles, a businessman collaborating with the Nazis, wrestles with his conscience, Sophie becomes obsessed with Irene, taking on the role of maid as well as accompanist, living life vicariously through Irene's triumphs and affairs.

The Damned

The Damned

In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.

The Gutenberg Enigma

The Gutenberg Enigma

A portrait of the inventor of the letterpress, who was a key figure in the history of mankind, but also an enthusiastic inventor, a daring businessman, a tenacious troublemaker: the life of Johannes Gutenberg (circa 1400-68).

The World Today: The Black Legion - Shadow of Fascism Over America

The World Today: The Black Legion - Shadow of Fascism Over America

“Unhappy with the limited structure of league newsreels, Nykino, a splinter filmmaking collective, produced a MARCH OF TIME-type series under the banner THE WORLD TODAY. Only two episodes were released, the first premiering with Strand’s THE WAVE (1936). This one, like NATIVE LAND, addresses fascism in America.” - Bruce Posner” (via Light Cone). Not to be confused with the similarly titled Black Legion from 1937, directed by Archie Mayo.

Farewell, My Indian Soldier

Farewell, My Indian Soldier

A young woman researches the hidden story of Indian soldiers who came to fight in France and Belgium during the World War I. The presence of these 140,000 soldiers in Europe is a virtually unknown fact of history.

Operation Finale

Operation Finale

In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.

Das Zeugenhaus

Das Zeugenhaus

Witnesses about to testify at the Nuremberg War Trials needed a safe place to wait. All under one roof, each with their own secrets. And the countess assigned to take care of them. What was her secret?

The Gorilla Man

The Gorilla Man

A wounded soldier discovers his hospital is secretly run by the Nazis.

I Betrayed Hitler

I Betrayed Hitler

During the worst days of World War II, the British government asks the mathematician Alan Turing to unravel the mysteries of the German Enigma encryption machine, an impossible task to accomplish without the invaluable information that Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a disenchanted but greedy German citizen, had been handing over to the French secret services since 1931.

Multitude and Minority

Multitude and Minority

A theater troupe is traveling to Kosovo to stage a show there. The theme of a play called "Speech Disorder" is whether we can radically change our own identity? While on a journey, the director, the dramaturg and the actors are discussing who they are actually. They meet their former colleague, an actor, who in the meantime became a monk and lives in a monastery.

What Is It?

What Is It?

The adventures of a young man whose principle interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by a hubristic, racist inner psyche.

The Fifth Day of Peace

The Fifth Day of Peace

Based on a true story. Near the end of World War II, two German deserters are put in an Allied POW camp. When a rigid and militaristic German colonel learns about their desertion, he wants them court-martialed, even if the war is over. The uninterested Allied officers oblige him, and the two men face the firing squad on "the fifth day of peace".

Limonov: The Ballad

Limonov: The Ballad

A revolutionary militant, a thug, an underground writer, a butler to a millionaire in Manhattan. But also a switchblade-waving poet, a lover of beautiful women, a warmonger, a political agitator, and a novelist who wrote of his greatness. Eduard Limonov’s life story is a journey through Russia, America, and Europe during the second half of the 20th century.

Hitler: A Film from Germany

Hitler: A Film from Germany

A structure-free, four-part examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Each part explores a different topic, from Hitler's cult of personality in propaganda to how said propaganda was associated with pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual, and national heritage to the Holocaust and the ideology behind it, particularly from Himmler's point of view.

A Film Unfinished

A Film Unfinished

Yael Hersonski's powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film-the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these "everyday" scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.

En nous

En nous

Ten years ago, the paths of Abou, Laura, Cadiatou and Jacques have crossed Emmanuelle’s. She was their French teacher at a high school in Marseille. Together they took part in a film, Children of the Princess of Cleves, in which, while analyzing the classic text, they expressed their hopes, dreams, and fears. In En Nous, the director re-connects with the protagonists : memories blend with stories of their lives and the daily obstacles they must overcome whilst trying not to lose hope. Now, the sentence of the Princess of Cleves rings poignantly true: “I know nothing can be more difficult than what I undertake”.

This Land Is Mine

This Land Is Mine

Somewhere in Europe, in a city occupied by the Nazis, a gentle school teacher finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance, cowardice and courage.

Bloodlines

Bloodlines

A moving meditation on guilt and reconciliation, Bloodlines explores the unwritten cost of war and genocide on future generations - of both victims and perpetrators. As Bettina Goering, grandniece of Nazi war criminal Herman Goering, searches for a way to come to terms with her heritage, she meets Ruth Rich, a painter and daughter of Holocaust survivors. At a time when seemingly irreconcilable divisions between groups are tearing the world apart, this deeply hopeful film is a beautiful testament to the power of dialogue and post-conflict reconciliation.

Aux

Aux

When two young boys playing in the woods discover a military bunker they unintentionally release the ghost of a World War II auxiliary soldier who mistakenly believes the Nazis have landed.

Stolen Children

Stolen Children

June 1941, during World War II. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler orders the mass abduction of particularly well-bred young children from Poland and the occupied territories of the Soviet Union in order to be educated in German culture, by both state schools and German families…

Recommended Movies

Truth & Treason

Truth & Treason

When loyalty to country becomes loyalty to a lie, one teen risks everything to expose the truth. With the Gestapo closing in, he must decide what it really means to be a good German.

The Grey Zone

The Grey Zone

The story of Auschwitz's twelfth Sonderkommando — one of the thirteen consecutive "Special Squads" of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of assisting in the extermination of fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin

Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin

As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.

Operation Crossbow

Operation Crossbow

Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant. The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.

Nuremberg

Nuremberg

In postwar Germany, an American psychiatrist must determine whether Nazi prisoners are fit to go on trial for war crimes, and finds himself in a complex battle of intellect and ethics with Hermann Göring, Hitler's right-hand man.

The Last Rifleman

The Last Rifleman

A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.

Walking with the Enemy

Walking with the Enemy

Regent Horthy is the leader of Hungary and a German ally, but his favorable standing with Hitler changes as the war comes to an end. Forced to cede Hungary’s power or else witness the execution of his son, Regent Horthy gives up control of his country to the Nazis, who quickly move Hungarians to ghettos and death camps, with no hope in sight. But the despair changes when a young man named Elek emerges. Separated from his family during the relocations and aided by the woman he loves , Elek defies the enemy by becoming one of them. In a race against time, disguised as a Nazi Officer he embarks on a mission to save his family and thousands of his countrymen.

Firebrand

Firebrand

Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII, is named regent while the tyrant battles abroad. When the king returns, increasingly ill and paranoid, Katherine finds herself fighting for her own survival.

Operation Finale

Operation Finale

In 1960, a team of Israeli secret agents is deployed to find Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi architect of the Holocaust, supposedly hidden in Argentina, and get him to Israel to be judged.

The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?

The Fox

The Fox

At the dawn of World War II, a young motorcycle courier in the Austrian army encounters a wounded fox cub and takes it with him to occupied France. The soldier and the fox develop an unlikely bond. Based on the true story of Franz Streitberger, director Adrian Goiginger’s great-grandfather.

Chess Story

Chess Story

1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.

Mother Night

Mother Night

An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.

Goebbels and the Führer

Goebbels and the Führer

As Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels creates films and pictures used to prepare the Germans for Total War and the Holocaust. When the war is lost, he conceives his last staging, the most radical propaganda act still possible to him.

Munich - The Edge of War

Munich - The Edge of War

At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.

Escape from Sobibor

Escape from Sobibor

The true story of WWII's notorious Sobibor Nazi death camp, where a courageous inmate orchestrates and leads the escape of over 300 prisoners.

The Caveman's Valentine

The Caveman's Valentine

Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?

Outlaws - For Greater Glory

Outlaws - For Greater Glory

A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.

The Secrets We Keep

The Secrets We Keep

In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.

Schindler's List

Schindler's List

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.