Pastor Hall

Wilfrid Lawson - Pastor Frederick Hall
Nova Pilbeam - Christine Hall
Seymour Hicks - General von Grotjahn
Marius Goring - Fritz Gerte
Brian Worth - Werner von Grotjahn
Percy Walsh - Herr Veit
Lina Barrie - Lina Veit
Eliot Makeham - Piippermann
Peter Cotes - Erwin Kohn
Edmund Willard - Freundlich
Hay Petrie - Nazi Pastor
Bernard Miles - Heinrich Degan

Stirring wartime drama based on a real incident from the Boulting brothers. In the remote German village of Altdorf in 1934, oppression by the Nazi regime causes Line (Lina Barrie) to commit suicide. The pastor, Frederick Hall (Wilfred Lawson), denounces the Nazis and urges the village to resist. He is arrested and sent to a concentration camp where he is humiliated, beaten, and tortured. A former villager, Heinrich (Bernard Miles), helps him to escape, but the pastor returns to his church to preach a last sermon to his congregation. As the pastor leaves storm troopers shoot him – for allegedly trying to ‘escape’.

This film is based on Ernst Toller’s 1937 play Pastor Hall, the true story of Protestant minister Martin Niemuller, who was interned at Dachau concentration camp for criticising the Nazi party. When originally released in an isolationist America the controversial film was heavily criticized and censored.