''None Shall Escape'' is a 1944

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

. Even though the film was made during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the setting is a post-war

Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...

-style

war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...

trial.

Alexander Knox Alexander Knox (16 January 1907 – 25 April 1995) was a Canadian actor and writer. He appeared in over 100 film, television, and theatrical productions over a career spanning from the 1920s until the late 1980s. He was nominated for an Oscar ...

plays Wilhelm Grimm, a Nazi officer who is on trial, and the story unfolds through the eyes of several witnesses, including a Catholic priest, Father Warecki (

Henry Travers Travers John Heagerty (5 March 1874 – 18 October 1965), known professionally as Henry Travers, was an English film and stage character actor who specialised in portraying slightly bumbling but amiable and likeable older men. His best known ...

), Grimm's brother Karl (Erik Rolf) and Marja Pacierkowski ( Marsha Hunt), a woman to whom he was once engaged. Alfred Neumann and Joseph Than were nominated for an

Academy Award for Best Story The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1956. This award can be a source of confusion for modern audiences, given its co-existence with the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenpl ...

Plot

The film centers on the trial of Wilhelm Grimm, a

war criminal A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

. Each character witness provides a flashback scene to a previous part of Grimm's life. In the trial, it is revealed that Grimm (Alexander Knox), who fought for Germany in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and lost a leg in battle, returns after the war to the small German village of Lidzbark (now part of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

) where he had been a teacher. Despite the recent hostilities, he is welcomed back into the community and resumes his teaching. He also resumes his relationship with Marja Pacierkowski, a local Polish girl to whom he had become engaged before the war. He is bitter about Germany's losing the war and it is obvious he has been changed by the experience. He treats the villagers with disdain, and his upcoming marriage is cancelled. He calls his fiancée a "peasant" only interested in her wedding

dowry A dowry is a payment such as land, property, money, livestock, or a commercial asset that is paid by the bride's (woman's) family to the groom (man) or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price ...

. Taunted by the school's pupils, who say he is not fit to marry any Polish woman, he molests one of them, Anna, a young girl. The rape is blamed on her young male friend, Jan Stys, but Wilhelm's fiancée accidentally stumbles on the truth from Anna. The girl subsequently drowns herself in the lake. A mob gathers seeking vengeance, but a trial is required. Nevertheless, Jan throws a stone, putting out Wilhelm's left eye. After the trial fails to convict him, Wilhelm returns to Germany, after borrowing money from the priest and the

rabbi A rabbi (; ) is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi—known as ''semikha''—following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of t ...

. In Germany he goes to

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

to the house of his brother Karl, who is married with a young family. Karl clearly despises the Nazis, referring scornfully to "that

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

creature". Karl cannot dissuade Wilhelm, though, and Wilhelm joins the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

and rises through its ranks. In 1929 he is sought by the police after the Nazi Party is made illegal. His nephew keeps the police at bay and Wilhelm rewards him with a

swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

badge. As the Nazis grow in strength, Karl decides he has no option but to leave Germany and go to

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. He threatens to reveal Wilhelm's part in the

Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday, 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Marinus van der Lubbe, ...

unless he joins them but, instead of doing so, Wilhelm turns them over to the authorities, sending his own brother to a

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

. He then arranges that Karl's son enters the

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth ( , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth wing of the German Nazi Party. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. From 1936 until 1945, it was th ...

. When World War II starts, Grimm becomes the commander of the occupying force of the same village where he had previously lived. He treats the villagers brutally. He forces Marja, now a schoolteacher, to burn the children's books, saying they will be replaced by German books. He cruelly says that time has not treated her well and taunts her for rejecting him due to his leg injury. His nephew Willie, whom Wilhelm asserts that he treats as his own son, is now serving under him and pursuing Marja's daughter, Janina. Grimm, who is now a Reich Commissioner, next becomes involved in the large-scale deportation of the

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

and other minority groups. He commands the rabbi to quell dissent among the crowd as they are being placed on a train. The rabbi, knowing that they are going to die, instructs the crowd to rebel instead, upon which the Nazis turn machine guns onto the crowd. Wilhelm kills the rabbi with his pistol. Father Warecki exchanges final words with him as he dies. Willie finds Marja and Janina hiding Jan Stys, who is injured, but he leaves without Jan when Marja rebukes him, and seems to soften in his attitude. Wilhelm sends Janina to work at the "officers' club," the Nazi name for enforced prostitution. Willie begs that she be released, to no avail. When Janina also dies, Grimm's nephew renounces his Nazi allegiance, having realized what an evil path Wilhelm has led him on. While Willie is praying by the side of Janina's body in the church, Wilhelm shoots him in the back. We return to the courtroom. Wilhelm refuses to accept the authority of the court and continues to spout Nazi propaganda. The judge leaves it to the people to decide Grimm's fate.

Cast

* Marsha Hunt as Marja Pacierkowski, Grimm's fiancée *

as Wilhelm Grimm *

as Father Warecki, the village priest in Litzbark * Erik Rolf as Karl Grimm * Richard Crane as Willie as a young man * Dorothy Morris as Janina *

Richard Hale Richard Hale (born James Richards Hale; November 16, 1892 – May 18, 1981) was an American opera and concert singer and later a character actor of film, stage and television. Hale's appearance usually landed him roles as either Middle E ...

as Rabbi David Levin * Ruth Nelson as Alice Grimm *

Kurt Kreuger Kurt Kreuger (July 23, 1916 – July 12, 2006) was a Swiss-reared Germany, German actor. Kreuger once was the third-most-requested male actor at 20th Century Fox. He starred with, among others, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart. Life and career ...

as Lt. Gersdorf * Billy Dawson as Willie, Wilhelm's young nephew *

Trevor Bardette Trevor Bardette (born Terva Gaston Hubbard; November 19, 1902 – November 28, 1977) was an American film and television actor. Among many other roles in his long and prolific career, Bardette appeared in several episodes of ''Adventures of Su ...

as Jan Stys as a man (uncredited) * Elvin Field as the young Jan Stys (uncredited) * Frank Jaquet as Dr Matek, mayor of Lizbark (uncredited) * Shirley Mills as Anna Oremska, the raped girl (uncredited) * Art Smith as Jan's father (uncredited) *

Ray Teal Ray Elgin Teal (January 12, 1902The book ''Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries: A Directory'' gives Teal's birth date as January 12, 1908. – April 2, 1976) was an American actor. His most famous role was as Sheriff Roy Coffee on the televis ...

as Oremski, Anna's father (uncredited)

Production

Columbia Pictures' in-house producer Sam Bischoff got the idea to make a film about a war crime trial after having heard President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

declare on August 21, 1942 that the Allies were collecting information about the Nazi leaders responsible for war atrocities, in order to bring them to court after the war.AFI Catalog of Feature Films: ''None Shall Escape''
accessed 2015-06-05. (The prosecution of war criminals was ratified by the Allies in the Moscow Declarations in 1943). He brought on his former partner Burt Kelly to associate produce, who suggested ''

The House of the Seven Gables ''The House of the Seven Gables: A Romance'' is a Gothic fiction, Gothic novel written beginning in mid-1850 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston. The novel follows a New England fam ...

'' screenwriter

Lester Cole Lester Cole (June 19, 1904 – August 15, 1985) was an American screenwriter. He was one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and directors who were cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted for their refusal to testify regarding t ...

to adapt the original story by Joseph Than and Alfred Neumann. During production it was known as both "The Day Will Come" and "Lebensraum". To ensure the film be exhibited it had to conform to the usual Production Code Administration (PCA) for morality and be submitted for review with the U.S. State Department's Office of Information (OWI) for wartime values. The PCA passed the film and the OWI gave it an enthusiastic greenlight stating: The film wanted to represent the Tribunal of the Warsaw District accurately during all stages as it was some of the first ever seen of humanity held accountable for its acts. Production began August 31, 1943 and finished October 26, 1943 (i.e. more than eighteen months before the war in Europe ended.) Director Andre de Toth had seen the war up close already in 1939. He was filming newsreels in Hungary when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and was immediately sent to cover the fighting on the German-Polish front.

Reception

Alfred Neumann and Joseph Than were nominated for an

, and the film is considered to be the first feature film to deal with Nazi atrocities against the Jews.

References

External links

* * * {{André de Toth 1944 films American black-and-white films World War II films made in wartime World War II war crimes trials films Films scored by Ernst Toch Films directed by Andre de Toth Films produced by Samuel Bischoff Columbia Pictures films 1940s war drama films American war drama films 1944 drama films 1940s English-language films English-language war drama films