Working my way through the fabulous podcast series "We have ways of making you talk!" by James Holland and Al Murray ...
https://play.acast.com/s/wehaveways
I came to this one ...
It's a discussion about the recently discovered home movies by Germans living in the Nazi regime, cine reels left in attics and suitcases and now rediscovered and brought to life again by grandchildren and great grandchildren, which were put together into a 2 episode series by the BBC and aired late last year.
The two episodes on iPlayer are linked below ...
Recently discovered home movie footage from 1936 offers a unique and novel insight into what people in Germany were thinking and experiencing. In these prewar days, Germany was on a high and the Hitler Youth seemed like fun and games, but Nazi control was soon to become an all-pervading force, militarising the nation. The rise of anti-Semitism is explicit and grotesque, shocking even though we now have the knowledge of what happens next.
The film follows an infantry division during the invasion of France, fighting their way to Dunkirk, and reveals a new perspective on what the evacuation meant for the average German soldier. On the Eastern Front, a far darker and more visceral journey across the endless Russian steppe and the almost unimaginable horrors unleashed during Operation Barbarossa is captured by a soldier.
As well as amateur movie footage, the film charts the progress of the war through the diaries of ordinary Germans, some dizzy with excitement at what Hitler had achieved, others horrified by the effect it was having on their friends and families.
Christmas in Germany 1941 is an unsettling time. Food is scarce, the weather is freezing and news from the front line in Russia is causing Germans to realise the war is a very long way from over. The stage is set for the second half of the conflict.
Through the home movies and diaries of ordinary Germans, this film charts Hitler’s dreams crumbling and the moral reckoning the German people must now face. It reveals the stories of people battling to save their families from deportation to the death camps, while others endure the horrors of ever more deadly bombing raids, all set against a backdrop of propaganda and false hope pouring forth from Nazi high command.
In Russia we meet a doctor who throws himself into the firing line at every opportunity, not to win glory but to save his wife and three young children from deportation to the death camps in the east, while in Dresden a Jewish diary writer struggles to deal with ever-mounting restrictions and deportations.
We also meet some of those forced to live under German rule, including extraordinary footage of a group of Jews living in hiding just a mile from Anne Frank, and a family in Normandy enjoying a bucolic summer before they find themselves on the front line when the Allies take on the German troops on the Atlantic Wall.
The film then moves to the endgame of the war, the choices faced as the net tightened and the crazy efforts to fight to the bitter end even as all hope is gone.
Much of this sort of thing you've probably already seen in the professional filming by media and propaganda authorities of the times. But there's something more deeply affecting and thought provoking when the camera is in the hands of the ordinaries, not the least of which is the title of this post.
So, obviously not safe space viewing.
"Safe space", now there's a phrase. What an horrendous woke appropriation and diminishing of its true meaning.
SoD
Looks fascinating! I must remember to give this a look this weekend.
Posted by: missred | Friday, 14 August 2020 at 17:00
Is this available NOT on I player ?
Posted by: djm | Friday, 14 August 2020 at 21:14
Some others on this list, like DailyMotion ...
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-hmd-rev2&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ALeKk00xusQ1OPn8Zkjs3CQnbukToPNwsQ:1597446205818&q=nazi+home+movies&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjR2ZTt5pvrAhWVSxUIHTA6BVAQ8ccDKAR6BAgJEA4&biw=360&bih=560#ip=1
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Saturday, 15 August 2020 at 00:09