None Shall Escape

Dir: André De Toth

1944

*****

It is fascinating watching None Shall Escape all these years later, knowing everything about World War II that we do now. The film was completed eighteen months before the war ended, and yet it depicted the Nuremberg Trials way before they ever happened. 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 declare in August 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. He gathered Burt Kelly on to help produce and Lester Cole to write the script, both frequent partners in previous films. To ensure the war crimes depicted in the film conformed to actual Nazi atrocities, the script was submitted to the U.S. State Department's Office of Information and the United Nations for review. 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. Director Andre DeToth had seen the war up close already in 1939. He was filming newsreels in Hungary when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, and was immediately sent to cover the fighting on the German-Polish front. Their film is considered to be the first feature to deal with Nazi atrocities against the Jews. The film centers on the trial of Wilhelm Grimm (played by Alexander Knox), a war criminal. Each character witness provides a flashback scene to a previous part of Grimm's life. In the trial, it is revealed that Grimm, who fought for Germany in the World War I and lost a leg in battle, returns after the war to the small German village of Lidzbark (now part of Poland) 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. 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. In Germany he goes to Munich to the house of his brother Karl, who is married with a young family. Karl clearly despises the Nazis, referring scornfully to "that Hitler creature". Karl cannot dissuade Wilhelm and his brother joins the Nazi Party 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 badge. As the Nazis grow in strength, Karl decides he has no option but to leave Germany and go to Vienna. He threatens to reveal Wilhelm's part in the Reichstag fire unless he joins them but, instead of doing so, Wilhelm turns them over to the authorities, sending his own brother to a concentration camp. He then arranges that Karl's son enters the Hitler Youth. 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 Willi, 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, becomes involved in the large-scale deportation of the Jews 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. Willi 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. Willi 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 Willi is praying by the side of Janina's body in the church, Wilhelm shoots him in the back. The story ends back at the courtroom. Wilhelm refuses to accept the authority of the court and continues to spout Nazi propaganda. With all the evidence heard, the judge leaves it to the people to decide Grimm's fate. It’s a chillingly accurate account of many an atrocity happening at the very time across Germany and occupied Europe. Most films made during this period were tools of propaganda but None Shall Escape was extremely honest about what was happening and was without any heroes. It wasn't a call for action to get young men to sign up, it was a call to the public to think and understand what was happening, who these people were and it asked the important question, what shall be done with them once the war is over. It’s a fascinating historical piece which is often overlooked.