Carl Peters is a 1941 German anti-British propaganda film, directed by Herbert Selpin and starring Hans Albers.[1]
It depicts Karl Peters, one of the founders of German East Africa.
When addressing a parliamentary commission of inquiry, he openly calls for a Hitlerian policy of territorial conquest, which requires hard-headed men, such as himself.[2] He defends executions without trial as a way to prevent an uprising, which, he insists, the parliamentarians could not have prevented.[3] Parliament does not accept this, demonstrating what happens when the Führerprinzip is not recognized.[4] (The parliamentarians are, in addition, Jews).[5]
This film reflected part of the anger at the terms of peace: all Germany colonies had been lost at the end of World War I.[6]
Its somewhat crude attack on Britain is typical of later films, such as Ohm Krüger, after Hitler came to the conclusion that no separate peace with Britain was possible, although the British colonial administrators are depicted as more intelligent than those of Germany, who suppress Peters.[7]