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Hell on Wheels (2004 film)

2004 German film by Pepe Danquart

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ1644045 ↗
Source-derived summary

Höllentour (literally meaning "Hell Tour") is a 2004 German film. The US release (with English subtitles) was titled Hell on Wheels. The film is a record of the 100th anniversary Tour de France in 2003 from the perspective of Germany's Team Telekom, focusing on riders Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag. The film is directed by Pepe Danquart who won an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 1993 for Black Rider (Schwarzfahrer).

In 2004, Mona Bräuer won a German Film Critics Award for Best Editing (Bester Schnitt).

Subsequent to the making of the documentary, several of the Telekom cyclists involved, including Zabel and Aldag, either confessed to illegal doping to enhance performance or were caught doing so, which drew more interest to the film.

Editorial summary

“Hell on Wheels (2004 film)” enters the record as 2004 German film by Pepe Danquart. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hell, Wheels and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 2003, 1993—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2004-01-01, 2004-06-10—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Hell, Wheels and film.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Hell on Wheels (2004 film)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hell, Wheels and film provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1644045. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2003 and 1993.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hell on Wheels (2004 film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hell on Wheels (2004 film) primary sources, Hell on Wheels (2004 film) archive and Hell research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hell on Wheels (2004 film)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Hell on Wheels (2004 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.