The Kaiser of California

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The Kaiser of California is a 1936 film that has the unique distinction of being the first western film made in Nazi Germany, and the only one to be set in the United States. Some exterior scenes were even shot on location in California.

The film follows the life story of John Sutter, or Joahan Suter, the owner of Sutters Mill, famous as the birthplace of the great California Gold Rush of 1848.

While the basic story of Sutters life is retained, there were some notable changes reflecting the political environment of the film's creation: though Sutter was a Swiss-German, the film only identifies him as being German, and though he changed his name to John Sutter when he came to the United States, he keeps the name Johann Suter throughout the film. All this fit in with the concept that all those of German blood thoughout the world formed a single racial volk.

The film also subtly takes aim at the United States, as many of the injustices and bad turns of luck that Sutter endures are portrayed as semi-official acts of the American government. The movie ends with Sutter yelling at the steps of a courthouse. The injustices suffered by volksdeutsch, ethnic Germans outside Germany, at the hands of other peoples was a frequent theme in National Socialist cinema (the 1941 anti-Polish film Heimkehr is another example).

The film won the 1936 Mussolini Cup for best foreign film at the Venice Film Festival.