''Attack on Baku'' (german: Anschlag auf Baku) is a 1942 German
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
directed by
Fritz Kirchhoff
Fritz Kirchhoff (1901–1953) was a German screenwriter, film producer and director. He was a noted director during the Nazi era, directing film such as the anti-British propaganda thriller ''Attack on Baku'' (1942). His 1942 film ''5 June'', sho ...
and starring
Willy Fritsch
Willy Fritsch (27 January 1901 – 13 July 1973) was a German theater and film actor, a popular leading man and character actor from the silent-film era to the early 1960s.
Biography Early life
He was born Wilhelm Egon Fritz Fritsch, the only s ...
,
René Deltgen
Renatus Heinrich Deltgen born 30 April 1909 in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg; died 29 January 1979 in Cologne, West Germany) was a Luxembourgian stage and film actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance ...
, and
Fritz Kampers
Fritz Kampers (14 July 1891 – 1 September 1950) was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 250 films between 1913 and 1950.
Early life
Fritz Kampers was the son of a Munich hotel owner, spent his early childhood in Garmisch-Partenk ...
. The film was intended as
anti-British
Anti-British sentiment is prejudice, persecution, discrimination, fear or hatred against the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government, British people, or the Culture of the United Kingdom, culture of the United Kingdom.
Argen ...
propaganda during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. It is noted for its
set design
Scenic design (also known as scenography, stage design, or set design) is the creation of theatrical, as well as film or television scenery. Scenic designers come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, but in recent years, are mostly trained ...
s by
Otto Hunte
Otto Hunte (9 January 1881 – 28 December 1960) was a German production designer, art director and set decorator. Hunte is considered one of the most important artists in the history of early German cinema, mainly for his set designs on the ea ...
, who showed a fascination for modern technology in his depiction of the oil town. The film was shot
on location in German-allied
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
, and at
Babelsberg Studio
Babelsberg Film Studio (german: Filmstudio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the second oldest large-scale film studio in the world only preceded by the Danish Nordisk Film (est. 1906), producing films since ...
in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
.
Synopsis
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
, 1919. The British hope to secure control of the vast
oil fields
A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations.
Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...
around
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
by launching a series of
terrorist
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
attacks on them. Hans Romberg, a German who is working as a security officer, battles with the British chief agent Captain Forbes and his associates.
Cast
References
Bibliography
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External links
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1942 films
Films of Nazi Germany
1940s thriller films
German thriller films
1940s German-language films
Films directed by Fritz Kirchhoff
Films set in Baku
Films set in 1919
Nazi propaganda films
Russian Civil War films
Works about petroleum
German black-and-white films
Films shot at Babelsberg Studios
UFA GmbH films
Films shot in Romania
1940s German films
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