''Die goldene Stadt'' ( en, The Golden City), is a 1942 German color film directed by

Veit Harlan Veit Harlan (22 September 1899 – 13 April 1964) was a German film director and actor. Harlan reached the highpoint of his career as a director in the Nazi era; most notably his antisemitic film ''Jud Süß'' (1940) makes him controversial ...

, starring

Kristina Söderbaum Beata Margareta Kristina Söderbaum (5 September 1912 – 12 February 2001) was a Swedish-born German film actress, producer, and photographer. She performed in Nazi-era films made by a German state-controlled production company. Early life S� ...

, who won the

Volpi Cup The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

for Best Actress.

Plot

Anna, a young, innocent country girl (a

Sudeten German German Bohemians (german: Deutschböhmen und Deutschmährer, i.e. German Bohemians and German Moravians), later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part ...

), whose mother drowned in the swamp, dreams of visiting the golden city of

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

. After she falls in love with a surveyor, she runs away from the countryside near

České Budějovice České Budějovice (; german: Budweis ) is a city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 93,000 inhabitants. It is located in the valley of the Vltava River, at its confluence with the Malše. České Budějovice is t ...

to Prague to find him. She is instead seduced and later abandoned by her cousin (a Czech). She attempts to return home, but her father rejects her, so she drowns herself in the same swamp where her mother died.

Cast

Sources

The movie is based on drama ''Der Gigant'' by Austrian writer . In the novel, however, it is the heart-broken father who commits suicide; the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, in particular

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

, insisted that it be the daughter rather than the father who dies.

Motifs

Anna's fate and drowning are clearly represented as the natural consequence of her failure to appreciate the countryside and her longings for the city. This harmonizes with the preference for the countryside of the Blood and Soil doctrine.

Citations

References

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External links

* 1941 drama films 1942 drama films 1941 films 1942 films German black-and-white films German drama films 1940s German-language films Films directed by Veit Harlan Films of Nazi Germany Films set in Prague Nazi propaganda films UFA GmbH films Films set in Czechoslovakia 1940s German films {{1940s-Germany-film-stub