Some could claim that the film has a Nazi ideological background, nonetheless, form wise Opfergang is one of the most beautiful melodramas of the 1933-1945 period. It is true that the characters are overly characterized: but are not they systematically so in this genre of film? Curiously enough, the theme of adultery is the film’s main argument, even though a subject of this kind was not particularly welcome among Nazi themes. As a result, Harlan goes as far as implicitly accepting this “ménage à trois” when, almost at the end of the film, Octavia goes in her husband’s stead to see Aels. All of this is part of the great mélo tradition, which lacks nothing: opulent homes, the heroine playing the piano in a middle-class interior… Perhaps Harlan, who evades all warlike ideology in this film, should be chastised for certain childish effects; it is, however, a typically Germanic work that adheres to popular themes, which are not necessarily our own. Shot in 1944, in the midst of all the chaos, the film provided a kind of sublimated dream that was a last refuge for the German spectator, who was living a true nightmare for which he was partially responsible.

Daniel Collin, Guide des films, edited by Jean Tulard, Robert Laffont, Paris 1990