''March of Millions'', also titled ''Die Flucht'' (''The Escape''), is a German television war drama film. The film stars

Maria Furtwängler Maria Furtwängler-Burda (short version: ; born 13 September 1966) is a German physician and television actress. Early life Maria Furtwängler-Burda is a daughter of architect Bernhard Furtwängler and actress Kathrin Ackermann, great-niece and ...

in the role of Lena Gräfin von Mahlenberg, the leader of a small convoy of

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s from

East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...

(including French and Russian prisoners of war and forced labourers) fleeing the advancing

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

in the winter of 1944–1945, and trying to survive uprooted in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

in the aftermath of

World War II 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 ...

. When first broadcast by ARD in two parts, on 4 and 5 March 2007, it drew 13.5 million viewers. The production was reported to have cost €9m and to have employed over 2,000 extras. The film was controversial for portraying German war-time suffering during the

evacuation of East Prussia The evacuation of East Prussia was the movement of German civilian population and military personnel from East Prussia between 20 January and March 1945, that was initially organized and carried out by state authorities but quickly turned into ...

(although a number of German atrocities were also shown or mentioned), and led to adverse comments from Marek Cichocki, the foreign policy advisor to Polish President

Lech Kaczyński Lech Aleksander Kaczyński (; 18 June 194910 April 2010) was a Polish politician who served as the city mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005, and as President of Poland from 2005 until his death in 2010. Before his tenure as president, he prev ...

at the time, fearful of potential German claims to lands or property in East Prussia lost after the World War II. There have been multiple reactions from the Polish side on occasion of other films about the war.

Awards

* 2007

Bambi ''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten. ...

award as "TV Event of the Year" * 2007

Bavarian TV Award Bayerischer Fernsehpreis (the Bavarian TV award) is an award presented by the government of Bavaria, Germany since 1989. The prize symbol is the "Blue Panther", a figure from the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory. The prize money is €10,000 (Spec ...

to Holly Fink (cinematographer) * 2007

Romy Romy is a given name, often a diminutive form of names such as Rosemary (given name), Rosemary or Roman (given name), Roman or Romeo (given name), Romeo. https://nameberry.com/babyname/romy/boy People with the name include: Men *Romy Cachola, n ...

award to

Nico Hofmann Naftiran Intertrade Company Société à responsabilité limitée#In Switzerland, limited (NICO) is a Switzerland, Swiss-based subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). NICO is a general contractor for the oil and gas industry. NIOC bu ...

(producer) * 2007

Deutscher Fernsehpreis The Deutscher Fernsehpreis (''German Television Award'') is an annual German award for television programming, created in 1999 by German television channels Das Erste, ZDF, RTL and Sat.1. It was created to be an equivalent to the Emmy Awards, t ...

to Knut Loewe and Wiebke Kratz for Best Design * 2007 Deutscher Fernsehpreis to

Enjott Schneider Enjott Schneider (born Norbert Jürgen Schneider 25 May 1950 in Weil am Rhein) is a German businessman, composer, musicologist, and music educator. He is best known as the chairman of the board of the German collecting society GEMA. As a compo ...

for Best Music * 2007 Deutscher Fernsehpreis to

Gabriela Maria Schmeide Gabriela may refer to: * Gabriela (given name), a Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian feminine given name * ''Gabriela'' (1942 film), a Czech film * ''Gabriela'' (1950 film), a German film * ''Gabriela'' (1983 film), a Brazilian film * ''Gabriela' ...

as Best Supporting Actress

Cast

as Magdalena von Mahlenberg *

Jürgen Hentsch Jürgen Hentsch (March 17, 1936 in Görlitz – December 21, 2011 in Berlin) was a German actor. He was known for several movies and TV shows such as ''The Deathmaker'' (1995), ''In the Shadow of Power'' (2003) and ''Der Mann mit der Maske'' (1994 ...

as Berthold von Mahlenberg *

Jean-Yves Berteloot Jean-Yves Berteloot (born 27 August 1958) is a French actor. Theater Filmography References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Berteloot, Jean-Yves 1958 births Living people People from Saint-Omer French male film actors French ma ...

as François Beauvais *Frédéric Vonhof as Louis *

Tonio Arango Tonio Arango (born 31 January 1963) is a German actor. Born in Berlin, Arango is the son of a German mother and a Colombian father and grew up in Wilmersdorf, then part of West Berlin, surrounded by East Germany, with his brother Sascha Arang ...

as Heinrich von Gernstorff *

Angela Winkler Angela Winkler (born 22 January 1944) is a German actress. Life and career Born in Templin, Winkler trained to be a medical technologist in Stuttgart. Interested in theater, she went to Munich, where she took acting classes with Ernst Fritz F ...

as Sophie von Gernstorff *

Hanns Zischler Hanns Zischler (born 18 June 1947) is a German actor known for his portrayal of Hans in Steven Spielberg's film ''Munich''. According to the Internet Movie Database, Zischler has appeared in 171 movies since 1968. He is known in Sweden for his r ...

as Rüdiger von Gernstorff *

Max von Thun Maximilian Romedio Johann-Ernst Graf von Thun und Hohenstein (born 21 February 1977 in Munich, Germany), commonly known as Max von Thun, is an Austrian actor and television presenter. He is the son of actor, Count Friedrich von Thun und Hohenstein ...

as Ferdinand von Gernstorff *Adrian Wahlen as Benno Stuber *Adrian Goessel as Wilhelm Stuber *Gabriela Maria Schmeide as Babette * Stella Kunkat as Viktoria von Mahlenberg *

Fritz Karl Fritz Karl (born 21 December 1967) is an Austrian film, television and stage actor born in Gmunden, Upper Austria. He is one of the busiest Austrian actors. Private life Karl lives in both Munich and Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code ...

as Gauleiter Herrmann *

Winfried Glatzeder Winfried Glatzeder (born 26 April 1945) is a German television actor and playwright. He began his acting career in East Germany in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, he made his breakthrough by starring in films such as '' Zeit der Störche'' and ' ...

as Dietrich (servant) *Ralf Dittrich as Major Metzger

References

External links

* 2007 films 2007 television films 2000s German television series German television films 2000s German-language films German-language television shows Eastern Front of World War II films German World War II films German war drama films Das Erste original programming {{Germany-tv-film-stub Films set in 1945 Films set in Prussia Films about nobility