I love watching old American and British WWII propaganda films. Sure, they were often rather one-dimensional or at times ridiculous and some people tend to think that the word "propaganda" is a bad thing, but in this case these films were positive in that they helped to unify the country and get us behind the war effort. Yes, it's true some of them had horrible stereotypes and images of the enemy (particularly how the Japanese were portrayed as almost subhuman), but this was war and, unfortunately, some of the worst images these films showed were BETTER than the real enemy! The film HITLER'S CHILDREN was a very well-made film from RKO that told a fictional story about some young people--in particular, Bonita Granville and Tim Holt, who were caught up in the hysteria and evil of the Hitler youth and other organizations targeting children. At first, the story is told from the viewpoint of the fine character actor Kent Smith. Then, later in the film it switches to Granville, as she is forced into a German indoctrination camp and wants desperately to escape. Otto Kruger enters the story as a pretty dumb Nazi officer who has high hopes for Granville and Holt in the party. However, his hopes are dashed when Granville escapes. What happens next, I'll leave to you so I won't spoil the film. However, the weakest aspect of the film involves the ending with young Holt--this just never would have or could have happened--but it's very entertaining nevertheless.While this film is much truer in its depiction of the Germans than most contemporary films, the film actually in some ways makes the Nazis look a little dumber and less evil than they actually were. The excellent acting of H. B. Warner as the Bishop is great, except we found out after the war that any clergy speaking out against the regime would have been sent to a concentration camp or killed--the Bishop's comments to the Nazi officers or his sermon denouncing the party never would have gone unpunished.Still an effective and captivating film.

I was flipping through the channels last night and once I read that the title was "Hitler's Children" I had to watch it. I missed the first bit of it and the ending but what I did see I loved. ************* POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD********There was a love triangle , illegitimate children, and to throw Nazis in there just made it all the more better. The works for a good movie. Plus I found it somewhat funny that almost every sentence started and ended with "Hail Hitler". Although I did find it pretty funny, it was very dramatic, and I now completely get what my history teacher was talking about. Great movie to watch if you just took world history.

Call me too cynical, but it just seems incredibly naive to present the idea that the love of a young American girl by a Hitler Youth can defeat Nazi propaganda.Oh, well. Whatever worked in 1942. Of course, the REAL horrors of Nazi Germany were far worse than we thought when this and similar movies were made.

While a not too subtle approach to the problem of Hitler's menace in wartime Germany, this is an interesting glimpse of what was happening to young Germans before and during World War II.It was very popular at the time although it now seems dated and the propaganda is a bit heavy handed. A nice B-movie cast is headed by Bonita Granville, Kent Smith and Tim Holt and the tense direction is by Edward Dmytrik. Bonita shows that her child star status was no fluke, evolving into an adult role with smooth proficiency. Equally up to the task is Tim Holt as a German Nazi who has known her since their early school days and is still smitten with the strong-willed lass. As a kindly sort of father figure to the two is Kent Smith, a teacher at the American school who tries to save both of them from the ultimate tragedy that claims them.Roy Webb's background music makes the proceedings even more tense. One of the final scenes (where Granville is about to be whipped until Holt intervenes) seems a Hollywood touch that is more than a bit contrived--but evidently audiences in the '40s had no reservations about the overall urgency and dramatic effectiveness of the film. Well worth watching.