Hitler intervened on 16 August 1938 and rebuked his minister, stating that in view of his "perfect marriage" as well as the coming annexation of the Sudetenland, his affair with a Czech actress was an impossibility. Baarová was told by the Berlin chief of police Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff that she had to quit her relationship with Goebbels immediately and was prohibited from performing on Hitler's direct order. Her recently completed film "A Prussian Love Story", which depicted the love affair between Wilhelm I and the Polish princess Elisa Radziwill, and was a thinly-veiled reference to Goebbels and Baarová, was banned, and not shown in theatres until 1950 as "Liebeslegende" ("Story of Love"). Paid shills yelled out "Get out, minister's whore" when Baarovà's character appeared on the screen at the premiere of "Der Spieler" ("The Gambler"), and did not stop until the showing was halted. The film's run was ended and the actress had a nervous breakdown. She tried to contact friends in Hollywood, with an eye to going there, but Hitler told her that she could not leave the country. Followed by the Gestapo wherever she went, ordered by Helldorf to stop making public appearances, and pressed by her friends, in the winter of 1938–39 Baarová fled back to Prague. There, she was temporarily allowed to perform under German occupation and, in 1942, moved to Italy, where she starred in such films as "Grazia" (1943), "La Fornarina" (1944), "Vivere ancora" (1945) and others.