Die Deutsche Wochenschau is the title of the unified newsreel series released in the cinemas of Nazi Germany from June 1940 until the end of World War II, with the final edition issued on 22 March 1945. The co-ordinated newsreel production was set up as a vital instrument for the mass distribution of Nazi propaganda at war.
In this Die Deutsche Wochenschau video:
This is issue No. 564, released on June 25th, 1941, a few days after the start of "Operation Barbarossa", the German attack on the Soviet Union.
Despite this huge event, the newsreel starts with civilian footage, namely footage of the 1941 German Football Championship Final Game, a visit of Japanese Ambassador Oshima to Hanover,a ceremony in Venice about Croatia joining the Axis, and other footage.
Only in the latter half of the issue is Operation Barbarossa shown, introduced with the proclamation of the Führer read by Goebbels and then first combat footage of advancing German soldier is shown.
The episode concludes with footage of German bombers bombing targets in the Soviet Union.
00:41 The German Football Championship Season 1940/41 was played under very normal circumstances, the Nazis wanted to create the impression that the war was not affecting football. The final game was played on June 22nd, 1941, in Berlin, between SK Rapid Vienna and FC Schalke 04. Despite Schalke initially leading 3:0, Vienna scored four goals in 11 minutes, winning the final 4:3. This was the first and only time an Austrian team won a German football championship.
00:59 The official attendance number was 80,334, not 90,000.
02:56 Hiroshi Oshima (1886-1975) was Japanese Ambassador to Germany between November 1938 and December 1939, and again from February 1941 to the end of the war. He was known to be an admirer of Hitler, and was a strong proponent of a stronger German-Japanese cooperation. Virtually all of his messages he sent back to Japan were intercepted by the Allies, almost 1,500 messages, giving the Allies a lot of information about German military and industrial strength, and a close inside of German-Japanese cooperation. For example, he wrote detailed reports about German defensive networks in Normandy or detailed assessment about Allied bombing damage in Germany, which all were intercepted by the Allies.
03:55 Croatia, a puppet state set up by Germany and Italy after the invasion of Yugoslavia, joined the Axis powers on April 10th, 1941.
04:06 Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) was an Italian nobleman and Fascist politician, being Propaganda Minister of Italy between June 1935 and June 1036, and afterwards, Italian Foreign Minister until February 1943. He voted for removing Mussolini from power in July 1943, and was subsequentially arrested by the Germans, handed over to the Fascists and executed in January 1944.
04:14 Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946) was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany between 1938 and the end of the war, he was convicted as a war criminal in Nuremberg and executed in October 1946.
04:20 Ante Pavelic (1889-1959) was the Dictator of Croatia between 1941 and the end of the war, responsible for massacres and war crimes, especially towards Serbians. After the war, he fled to Spain, was heavily injured during an assassination in 1957, and died of the consequences in 1959.
05:01 Alessandro Pavolini (1903-1945) was an Italian Fascist politician, serving as the Minister of Popular Culture, basically the Italian Propaganda Ministry, between October 1939 and February 1943. Between November 1943 and April 1945 he was also Secretary of the Fascist Party; he was executed by Italian partisans in late April 1945.
05:26 This is the New Guardhouse (Neue Wache), the national memorial place for Germany. Originally built as a guardhouse for the Crown Prince Palace from 1816 to 1818 (hence the name), it was used as a guardhouse until 1919, and then, from 1931, as a memorial for the war dead. It was heavily damaged by air raids in 1945 and was in the Soviet sector. It was restored by East Germany between 1951 and 1957, and a glass cube and eternal flame was added. In 1990, after German reunification, the GDR era cube was removed, and the 1931 granite cube was put there, with a statue from German sculpturer Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), called “Mother with her Dead Son” put on top of the cube. It is still used as the central memorial for Germany today, officially titled “Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Victims of War and Tyranny”
06:25 Italo Gariboldi (1879-1970) was an Italian General, and in 1941, became Italian Governor in Libya, thus also the Supreme Commander of all Axis troops in North Africa and the superior of General Rommel. He later commanded the Italian 8th Army in the Soviet Union.
07:12 This is a light 2cm Flak 30 AA-gun.
07:21 These guns are 15cm sFH 18, Germanys standard division-level heavy artillery during WWII, with 6,756 guns made between 1933 and 1945.
08:49 This is a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, a German liaison and reconnaissance aircraft, introduced in 1937 and built until the end of WWII. Around 2,900 were made.
09:56 In this scene, the characteristic tropical helmets of the Africakorps can be seen.
10.27 As the various Generals in this scene are all named and are relatively well known, simply google their names if you want to know more about them.
11:31 This is referring to the “Proclamation to the German people” by Hitler on June 22nd, 1941, during which he informed the German people about the German attack on the Soviet Union. The proclamation is filled with the usual Nazi propaganda lies about Germany being peaceful, the war waged being the result of a Jewish conspiracy, and that the Soviet Union planned to attack Germany, and that Germany now had to attack the Soviet Union as a preliminary action. The proclamation was read by Propaganda Minister Goebbels and broadcasted on all German radio stations in the early morning and throughout the day.
13:34 These are again sFH 18 heavy artillery guns.
14:13 This gun is a light 3,7 cm PaK 36 AT-gun.
14:40 This is a 7,5cm leIG 18, the standard German infantry gun of WWII. Roughly 12,000 were made between 1932 and 1945. This particular example has wooden wheels, indicating that it is a pre-war gun. leIG 18 made during the war had rubber tires on steel wheels.
14:46 This is a Renault UE Chenillette, a small French tracked armored carrier and artillery mover, built between 1932 and March 1941. Around 5,100 were built, and the Germans captured around 3,000 of them, using them in various roles, mostly as tractor, but also putting guns or rocket artillery launchers on them.
15:33 This is a Flammenwerfer 35, the standard German flamethrower made between 1935 and 1941. It had an effective firing range of up to 25m, and could fire up to 10 consecutive seconds. It was replaced by the slightly re-designed Flammenwerfer 41 in 1941.
16:59 This is again a 3,7cm PaK 36 AT-gun.
17:39 These half-tracks on the right side are Sd. Kfz. 250. Basically a smaller version of the standard 251 half-track, it was mainly used for reconnaissance and as a radio vehicle. 6,628 were made between 1941 and 1945.
18:34 This is again a sFH 18 heavy artillery gun.
19:42 This is an early variant of the StuG III assault gun. At the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans had 377 StuG III, most of them B variants, which were built between July 1940 and March 1941, with 300 vehicles built.
21:50 The planes in this scene are Heinkel He-111, the standard medium bomber of the Wehrmacht. 7,630 planes were built between 1936 and 1944. It was decent plane when it was introduced in 1936, but as the war progressed, the He-111 became more and more obsolete, it lacked in armor, speed, and bomb load, as it could only carry, depending on the variant, between 2000 to 3000 kilos of bombs.
In this Die Deutsche Wochenschau video:
This is issue No. 564, released on June 25th, 1941, a few days after the start of "Operation Barbarossa", the German attack on the Soviet Union.
Despite this huge event, the newsreel starts with civilian footage, namely footage of the 1941 German Football Championship Final Game, a visit of Japanese Ambassador Oshima to Hanover,a ceremony in Venice about Croatia joining the Axis, and other footage.
Only in the latter half of the issue is Operation Barbarossa shown, introduced with the proclamation of the Führer read by Goebbels and then first combat footage of advancing German soldier is shown.
The episode concludes with footage of German bombers bombing targets in the Soviet Union.
00:41 The German Football Championship Season 1940/41 was played under very normal circumstances, the Nazis wanted to create the impression that the war was not affecting football. The final game was played on June 22nd, 1941, in Berlin, between SK Rapid Vienna and FC Schalke 04. Despite Schalke initially leading 3:0, Vienna scored four goals in 11 minutes, winning the final 4:3. This was the first and only time an Austrian team won a German football championship.
00:59 The official attendance number was 80,334, not 90,000.
02:56 Hiroshi Oshima (1886-1975) was Japanese Ambassador to Germany between November 1938 and December 1939, and again from February 1941 to the end of the war. He was known to be an admirer of Hitler, and was a strong proponent of a stronger German-Japanese cooperation. Virtually all of his messages he sent back to Japan were intercepted by the Allies, almost 1,500 messages, giving the Allies a lot of information about German military and industrial strength, and a close inside of German-Japanese cooperation. For example, he wrote detailed reports about German defensive networks in Normandy or detailed assessment about Allied bombing damage in Germany, which all were intercepted by the Allies.
03:55 Croatia, a puppet state set up by Germany and Italy after the invasion of Yugoslavia, joined the Axis powers on April 10th, 1941.
04:06 Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) was an Italian nobleman and Fascist politician, being Propaganda Minister of Italy between June 1935 and June 1036, and afterwards, Italian Foreign Minister until February 1943. He voted for removing Mussolini from power in July 1943, and was subsequentially arrested by the Germans, handed over to the Fascists and executed in January 1944.
04:14 Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893-1946) was Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany between 1938 and the end of the war, he was convicted as a war criminal in Nuremberg and executed in October 1946.
04:20 Ante Pavelic (1889-1959) was the Dictator of Croatia between 1941 and the end of the war, responsible for massacres and war crimes, especially towards Serbians. After the war, he fled to Spain, was heavily injured during an assassination in 1957, and died of the consequences in 1959.
05:01 Alessandro Pavolini (1903-1945) was an Italian Fascist politician, serving as the Minister of Popular Culture, basically the Italian Propaganda Ministry, between October 1939 and February 1943. Between November 1943 and April 1945 he was also Secretary of the Fascist Party; he was executed by Italian partisans in late April 1945.
05:26 This is the New Guardhouse (Neue Wache), the national memorial place for Germany. Originally built as a guardhouse for the Crown Prince Palace from 1816 to 1818 (hence the name), it was used as a guardhouse until 1919, and then, from 1931, as a memorial for the war dead. It was heavily damaged by air raids in 1945 and was in the Soviet sector. It was restored by East Germany between 1951 and 1957, and a glass cube and eternal flame was added. In 1990, after German reunification, the GDR era cube was removed, and the 1931 granite cube was put there, with a statue from German sculpturer Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), called “Mother with her Dead Son” put on top of the cube. It is still used as the central memorial for Germany today, officially titled “Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Victims of War and Tyranny”
06:25 Italo Gariboldi (1879-1970) was an Italian General, and in 1941, became Italian Governor in Libya, thus also the Supreme Commander of all Axis troops in North Africa and the superior of General Rommel. He later commanded the Italian 8th Army in the Soviet Union.
07:12 This is a light 2cm Flak 30 AA-gun.
07:21 These guns are 15cm sFH 18, Germanys standard division-level heavy artillery during WWII, with 6,756 guns made between 1933 and 1945.
08:49 This is a Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, a German liaison and reconnaissance aircraft, introduced in 1937 and built until the end of WWII. Around 2,900 were made.
09:56 In this scene, the characteristic tropical helmets of the Africakorps can be seen.
10.27 As the various Generals in this scene are all named and are relatively well known, simply google their names if you want to know more about them.
11:31 This is referring to the “Proclamation to the German people” by Hitler on June 22nd, 1941, during which he informed the German people about the German attack on the Soviet Union. The proclamation is filled with the usual Nazi propaganda lies about Germany being peaceful, the war waged being the result of a Jewish conspiracy, and that the Soviet Union planned to attack Germany, and that Germany now had to attack the Soviet Union as a preliminary action. The proclamation was read by Propaganda Minister Goebbels and broadcasted on all German radio stations in the early morning and throughout the day.
13:34 These are again sFH 18 heavy artillery guns.
14:13 This gun is a light 3,7 cm PaK 36 AT-gun.
14:40 This is a 7,5cm leIG 18, the standard German infantry gun of WWII. Roughly 12,000 were made between 1932 and 1945. This particular example has wooden wheels, indicating that it is a pre-war gun. leIG 18 made during the war had rubber tires on steel wheels.
14:46 This is a Renault UE Chenillette, a small French tracked armored carrier and artillery mover, built between 1932 and March 1941. Around 5,100 were built, and the Germans captured around 3,000 of them, using them in various roles, mostly as tractor, but also putting guns or rocket artillery launchers on them.
15:33 This is a Flammenwerfer 35, the standard German flamethrower made between 1935 and 1941. It had an effective firing range of up to 25m, and could fire up to 10 consecutive seconds. It was replaced by the slightly re-designed Flammenwerfer 41 in 1941.
16:59 This is again a 3,7cm PaK 36 AT-gun.
17:39 These half-tracks on the right side are Sd. Kfz. 250. Basically a smaller version of the standard 251 half-track, it was mainly used for reconnaissance and as a radio vehicle. 6,628 were made between 1941 and 1945.
18:34 This is again a sFH 18 heavy artillery gun.
19:42 This is an early variant of the StuG III assault gun. At the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans had 377 StuG III, most of them B variants, which were built between July 1940 and March 1941, with 300 vehicles built.
21:50 The planes in this scene are Heinkel He-111, the standard medium bomber of the Wehrmacht. 7,630 planes were built between 1936 and 1944. It was decent plane when it was introduced in 1936, but as the war progressed, the He-111 became more and more obsolete, it lacked in armor, speed, and bomb load, as it could only carry, depending on the variant, between 2000 to 3000 kilos of bombs.
Source :
https://digitaler-lesesaal.bundesarchiv.de/en/video/5346/660981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR2iW7qNkpY
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