Legion Condor: Karl Ritter's Lost 1939 Feature Film BOOK

Karl Ritter (1888-1977) produced and directed some of the Third Reich's most famous, popular, and hard-hitting feature films. Whereas the story told in the hugely popular Pour le Mérite (premiered December 1938) ended with the re-birth of a modern German air force in 1935, Legion Condor would show the Luftwaffe in victorious battle in Spain. Ritter drew on his experiences filming the war in Spain and on his extensive personal diaries. The production comprised sixty characters, hundreds of extras, tanks, and Luftwaffe aircraft. General der Flieger Helmuth Wilberg was military advisor, having overseen the deployment of the Condor Legion in Spain and a top strategist behind Blitzkrieg. The lead actors in Pour le Mérite were contracted, and the film script scenes and camera shots promised a major two-hour feature film. However, Hermann Göring and Dr. Joseph Goebbels ordered filming to be abandoned in late August 1939 - collateral damage from the infamous Hitler-Stalin Pact. The script of Legion Condor was presumed lost until this book's author discovered a copy in a used bookstore in Berlin in June 2018. Exclusive access to the film script and to Karl Ritter's unpublished diary, courtesy of Ritter's grandson, told the true story of Legion Condor for the first time. The entire film script is translated into English, as well as twelve never-before-published B&W film press photos that survived.

Australia, 2019, 244 pages, with 42 photographs and illustrations, including 4 color plates. English Language.

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