The Morgenrot Mine (German: Grube Morgenrot) is a 1948 German drama film directed by Erich Freund and Wolfgang Schleif and starring Claus Holm, Maria Rouvel and Gisela Trowe. It was produced in the Soviet Zone which would become East Germany the following year by DEFA. Interiors were filmed at the Johannisthal Studios in East Berlin while location shooting took place at mines in Oelsnitz and Zwickau. The film's sets were designed by the art director Franz F. Fürst.
After the Second World War, the Morgenrot coal mine has been closed but a worker's collective receives permission to reopen it from the Allied occupiers. The older miners recall the events of 1931 during the Great Depression when the pit was faced with closure due to being unprofitable. With the agreement of the foreman Ernst Rothkegel, against his Socialist instincts, a dangerous new working process was adopted by the owners. This led ultimately to a huge disaster in which many miners lost their lives and the mine was closed anyway. Rothkegel returns, having been imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis for his beliefs, and throws his support behind the new worker's iniative.