Paulus "Oom Paul" Kruger (1825-1904) was president of the Transvaal(1883-1900) and leader of the Boers during the Boer War (1899-1902). Although defeated by the British, Kruger achieved considerable acclaim for his stout fight against the odds.
In the film, a blind and exiled Kruger recounts the war to his young nurse. The British are depicted as clever, duplicitous, and ruthless. The Boers are shown as resolute and valiant, but ultimately as victims. So the film served Nazi audiences as both an inspiration and as a warning - honor the Boer's heroism but don't let their fate befall you!
Jannings is excellent as Kruger and the caricatures of the British villains (Queen Victoria, Lord Kitchener, Winston Churchill - complete with bulldog) are sometimes amusing, but the spectacle scenes (a Boer "off to war" parade and the battle sequences) are much too long and poorly edited. The final massacre of women and children in a British concentration camp is clearly derived from the Odessa Steps sequence in Eisenstein's "Potemkin."
Propaganda pictures are seldom effective and "Ohm Kruger" is no exception. Everything in the film is taken too far, but then the Nazis had a tendency to go too far. In that sense, "Ohm Kruger"reflects their perspective very well.
