When Joseph Goebbels became Hitler’s minister of propaganda, he initiated a program of Nazi films, beginning with this adaptation of a novel based on the real-life murder in 1932 of a twelve-year-old Hitler schoolboy by Communists in Berlin—an event already exploited by Goebbels. In the film, young Heini rejects the rowdiness of the Communist Youth for the discipline of the Hitler Youth, and is soon nicknamed Quex—quicksilver—for his tireless enthusiasm.