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:
Being produced shortly after the victory over France, this is one of the main topics of this episode. Footage of captured French war material and raw resources, footage from German soldiers returning home and holding parades, and footage from German tank crews being awarded the Iron Cross are the main point of this episode. The second part features a lenghty section of a German U-Boat from the famous captain Günther Prien returning to its harbor, and footage from other U-Boats attacking British ships.
00:38 Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) was a Fascist politician and diplomat. He was the son of Costanzo Ciano, an Italian Admiral and founding member of the Italian Fascist Party. In 1930, he married Mussolinis daughter Edda. He held various positions in the Fascist government, prominently being Italys foreign minister between June 1936 and February 1943. He voted for Mussolinis ousting in July 1943; he was then arrested by the Germans and handed over to the Italians, Mussolini had him executed in January 1944.
01:31 Pál Teleki (1879-1941) was a Hungarian professor and later Prime Minister; he ruled the country between February 1939 and April 1941. He tried to keep Hungary neutral in WWII, when he learned that German troops entered Hungary to invade Yugoslavia, using Hungary as a staging ground, he committed suicide in early April 1941. He was also infamous for enacting far-reaching anti-Semitic laws.
01:32 István Csáky (1894-1941) was a Hungarian nobleman and politician. Between December 1938 and January 1941, he served as Hungarian foreign minister; he tried to cooperate with Germany, but also keeping Hungary out of the war. He died of a heart attack in late January 1941.
02:17 The small “AA” badge on the fender of the car stands for “Auswärtiges Amt”, indicating that this car belongs to the German Foreign Ministry.
02:40 Egypt was occupied by British troops after the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882; despite Egypt declaring its independence in 1922, it remained a British puppet state. Officially, Egypt remained neutral until 1945, but the Egyptian territory became a battleground between Axis and Allied troops, and many famous battles of the North African campaign, especially the Battle of El-Alamein, were fought on Egyptian territory.
02:50 This gun is a Bofors 37mm anti-tank gun. Designed by the Swedish Bofors company in 1934, it was exported to numerous countries in the 1930s, most notably Poland, who bought 300 pieces and locally produced around 800 more untill WWII started. Britain aquired a few of these guns from Sweden, and used them in Egypt.
02:57 These guns are most likely QF 18-pounder guns, the standard British field gun during WWI. Introduced in 1904, it remained in production until 1940, with around 10,500 guns made. A few of these guns were still in service in the early period of WWII.
03:05 These small tanks are Vickers Mk VI light tanks. The sixth edition of the Vickers light tank, it was introduced in 1936 and built until 1940, with 1,682 tanks built. It was a very small tank, only 4.0 meters long and armed with one .50 Vickers MG as main gun and one .303 Vickers MG as a secondary weapon. Most of the tanks of the British Expeditionary Force in France were Vickers Mk VI; the British lost 331 tanks, several of them were captured and further used by the Germans.
03:43 During the early stages of WWII, there were plans to invade Italian colonies using French troops, but these plans were dropped after the armistice.
04:00 These tanks are French Hotchkiss H35. The H-35 was a French light tank, produced between September 1936 and June 1940. Around 1200 H-35 and H-39 (a variant of the H-35 with a stronger engine) were made. They had up to 40mm of armor and were equipped with a 37mm SA 18 gun. It was a decent light tank, that was superior to most German light tanks, but it had only two crew members and was a slow tank. 27 of these tanks were sent to North Africa, serving in the 1e Régiment de Chasseurs d'Afrique.
04:23 John Vereker, better known by his title (Viscount Gort) (1886-1946) was a British Field Marshall. Joining the British Army as a cadet in 1905, he served mostly as a staff officer, but also as a battalion commander. During WWII, he was best known for leading the British Forces in France, which is why he is mocked here as “greatest retreater in world history”. He was controversial, one the hand, he was criticized for being too old-fashioned and not facing the new German tactics, but he was also praised for enabling the majority of the BEF to retreat to England. This was his last troop command, he later became Governor of Gibraltar and Malta, and Commissioner for Palestine. He died from cancer in late March 1946.
04:30 After the British attacked the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria, sinking a battleship and damaging further French ships, in order to not let the French fleet fall into German hand, the French public reacted with shock, considering a betrayal of a former ally. As a consequence, the French State under Marshall Petain severed diplomatic relations with the UK on July 8th, 1940.
04:42 Britannia was the name of a monument, erected in 1938 in Boulogne-sur-mer, a city in the Pas-de-Calais region in France. It was created there to commemorate the first British troops that landed on French soil in WWI, on August 13th, 1914. The statue was blown up by German troops on July 1st, 1940, and was never rebuilt.
04:54 Despite insinuating that the French blew up the monument themselves, it was actually blown up by German troops.
05:45 After the Fall of France, the British Army was in a desperate situation; Britain always spent more money and resource on its fleet then its Army, and while large parts of the British Army were able to evacuate in Dunkirk, still around 11,000 British soldiers were killed and 40,000 taken prisoner, and the British Expeditionary Force had to leave behind virtually all of their artillery, tanks, trucks, cars, ammunition etc. To be prepared for an eventual, upcoming German invasion, new recruits were trained and a militia, the Home Guard, was raised, these efforts were often mocked by German propaganda.
06:25 Back then, as fully motorized armies were still a rare thing, horse-drawn carts, like shown here, were extremely important for an army, especially for the supply troops, and both the German and French armies relied heavily on them.
07:06 Antimony is a metal, often used in alloys with lead or tin. It is often used as a material for bullets.
07:56 This tank is a Panzer IV Ausf. D. Equipped with a short-barreled 7,5cm gun, mainly for infantry support; 232 tanks were built between October 1939 to October 1940.
09:40 This tank is a Panzer III, either an Ausf. E or F., as they both had little differences.
10:08 On the side of the turret, the marking “R01” is clearly visible. This meant that this tank either belonged to the Regiments commander, or his Adjutant (Sometimes, the commander used “R00” for his tank).
10:28 The tank in the front here is a Command Panzer I. It is a turretless vehicle built on the chassis of the Panzer I, and was the worlds first dedicated command tank. Behind it is a formation of Renault UE Chenillette, a French light armored carrier, and around 3,000 of these vehicles were captured by the Germans, which used them extensively in their own army.
10:43 Bruno Fritz (1900-1984) was a German actor, both in film and theater, and a stage comedian. He mainly portrayed the typical Berlin citizen in a humorous way. Like many other German comedians, he also performed in front of soldiers during the war.
10:51 The main joke here is that he confused words, such as “microphone” and “microscope”
12:45 Obviously, this is wrong, and a propaganda lie. The German soldiers at Narvik were on the verge of defeat, and only the start of the German invasion of France forced the British and French troops to evacuate from Narvik, and the remaining Norwegian units were not strong enough to beat the Germans. The German troops at Narvik only got saved by the development on the French front, something that was obviously not mentioned by German propaganda.
12:59 Eduard Dietl (1890-1944) was a German mountain troop officer, and one of the most famous mountain troop generals during WWII. He joined the Bavarian Army in 1909 as a cadet, and fought in WWI on the Western Front, where he was awarded with both classes of the Iron Cross. After WWI, he continued serving the army. He joined the DAP, the predecessor of the Nazi party, in 1920, but left the same year as he was not allowed to be a member of a political party as an officer. He remained ideological close to the Nazis, and trained SA-units. He continued serving in various staff positions, becoming a battalion commander in 1931. In May 1938, he was made commander of the 3rd Mountaineer Division, with which he took part in the invasion of Poland and Norway, where he successfully defended Narvik until the Allied troops left in June 1940. Afterwards, he became commander of the Army Corps in Norway and later the 20th Mountain Army, which was stationed in Finland for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Dietl was a convinced Nazi, and he publicly declared his support for Hitler several times, he was also awarded the Golden Party Badge in January 1943. Dietl died when his plane crashed on his way back from a briefing with Hitler on June 23rd, 1944, three other generals also died (Eglseer, Rossi and von Wickede). Dietl was involved in several war crimes, including the commissar order, or the execution of German penal unit soldiers in Norway.
13:41 The land battle at Narvik was preceded by two naval battles, on April 10th and April 13th. Both these were lost by German forces, and they lost all 10 of their destroyers, six cargo ships and one U-Boat. The surviving crews of these ships became part of the German land forces at Narvik, leading to the curious situation that the majority of German soldiers at Narvik were sailors (2,600 sailors, compared to 2,000 mountain troops and 1,000 paratroopers).
In this Die Deutsche Wochenschau video:
Being produced shortly after the victory over France, this is one of the main topics of this episode. Footage of captured French war material and raw resources, footage from German soldiers returning home and holding parades, and footage from German tank crews being awarded the Iron Cross are the main point of this episode. The second part features a lenghty section of a German U-Boat from the famous captain Günther Prien returning to its harbor, and footage from other U-Boats attacking British ships.
00:38 Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944) was a Fascist politician and diplomat. He was the son of Costanzo Ciano, an Italian Admiral and founding member of the Italian Fascist Party. In 1930, he married Mussolinis daughter Edda. He held various positions in the Fascist government, prominently being Italys foreign minister between June 1936 and February 1943. He voted for Mussolinis ousting in July 1943; he was then arrested by the Germans and handed over to the Italians, Mussolini had him executed in January 1944.
01:31 Pál Teleki (1879-1941) was a Hungarian professor and later Prime Minister; he ruled the country between February 1939 and April 1941. He tried to keep Hungary neutral in WWII, when he learned that German troops entered Hungary to invade Yugoslavia, using Hungary as a staging ground, he committed suicide in early April 1941. He was also infamous for enacting far-reaching anti-Semitic laws.
01:32 István Csáky (1894-1941) was a Hungarian nobleman and politician. Between December 1938 and January 1941, he served as Hungarian foreign minister; he tried to cooperate with Germany, but also keeping Hungary out of the war. He died of a heart attack in late January 1941.
02:17 The small “AA” badge on the fender of the car stands for “Auswärtiges Amt”, indicating that this car belongs to the German Foreign Ministry.
02:40 Egypt was occupied by British troops after the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882; despite Egypt declaring its independence in 1922, it remained a British puppet state. Officially, Egypt remained neutral until 1945, but the Egyptian territory became a battleground between Axis and Allied troops, and many famous battles of the North African campaign, especially the Battle of El-Alamein, were fought on Egyptian territory.
02:50 This gun is a Bofors 37mm anti-tank gun. Designed by the Swedish Bofors company in 1934, it was exported to numerous countries in the 1930s, most notably Poland, who bought 300 pieces and locally produced around 800 more untill WWII started. Britain aquired a few of these guns from Sweden, and used them in Egypt.
02:57 These guns are most likely QF 18-pounder guns, the standard British field gun during WWI. Introduced in 1904, it remained in production until 1940, with around 10,500 guns made. A few of these guns were still in service in the early period of WWII.
03:05 These small tanks are Vickers Mk VI light tanks. The sixth edition of the Vickers light tank, it was introduced in 1936 and built until 1940, with 1,682 tanks built. It was a very small tank, only 4.0 meters long and armed with one .50 Vickers MG as main gun and one .303 Vickers MG as a secondary weapon. Most of the tanks of the British Expeditionary Force in France were Vickers Mk VI; the British lost 331 tanks, several of them were captured and further used by the Germans.
03:43 During the early stages of WWII, there were plans to invade Italian colonies using French troops, but these plans were dropped after the armistice.
04:00 These tanks are French Hotchkiss H35. The H-35 was a French light tank, produced between September 1936 and June 1940. Around 1200 H-35 and H-39 (a variant of the H-35 with a stronger engine) were made. They had up to 40mm of armor and were equipped with a 37mm SA 18 gun. It was a decent light tank, that was superior to most German light tanks, but it had only two crew members and was a slow tank. 27 of these tanks were sent to North Africa, serving in the 1e Régiment de Chasseurs d'Afrique.
04:23 John Vereker, better known by his title (Viscount Gort) (1886-1946) was a British Field Marshall. Joining the British Army as a cadet in 1905, he served mostly as a staff officer, but also as a battalion commander. During WWII, he was best known for leading the British Forces in France, which is why he is mocked here as “greatest retreater in world history”. He was controversial, one the hand, he was criticized for being too old-fashioned and not facing the new German tactics, but he was also praised for enabling the majority of the BEF to retreat to England. This was his last troop command, he later became Governor of Gibraltar and Malta, and Commissioner for Palestine. He died from cancer in late March 1946.
04:30 After the British attacked the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria, sinking a battleship and damaging further French ships, in order to not let the French fleet fall into German hand, the French public reacted with shock, considering a betrayal of a former ally. As a consequence, the French State under Marshall Petain severed diplomatic relations with the UK on July 8th, 1940.
04:42 Britannia was the name of a monument, erected in 1938 in Boulogne-sur-mer, a city in the Pas-de-Calais region in France. It was created there to commemorate the first British troops that landed on French soil in WWI, on August 13th, 1914. The statue was blown up by German troops on July 1st, 1940, and was never rebuilt.
04:54 Despite insinuating that the French blew up the monument themselves, it was actually blown up by German troops.
05:45 After the Fall of France, the British Army was in a desperate situation; Britain always spent more money and resource on its fleet then its Army, and while large parts of the British Army were able to evacuate in Dunkirk, still around 11,000 British soldiers were killed and 40,000 taken prisoner, and the British Expeditionary Force had to leave behind virtually all of their artillery, tanks, trucks, cars, ammunition etc. To be prepared for an eventual, upcoming German invasion, new recruits were trained and a militia, the Home Guard, was raised, these efforts were often mocked by German propaganda.
06:25 Back then, as fully motorized armies were still a rare thing, horse-drawn carts, like shown here, were extremely important for an army, especially for the supply troops, and both the German and French armies relied heavily on them.
07:06 Antimony is a metal, often used in alloys with lead or tin. It is often used as a material for bullets.
07:56 This tank is a Panzer IV Ausf. D. Equipped with a short-barreled 7,5cm gun, mainly for infantry support; 232 tanks were built between October 1939 to October 1940.
09:40 This tank is a Panzer III, either an Ausf. E or F., as they both had little differences.
10:08 On the side of the turret, the marking “R01” is clearly visible. This meant that this tank either belonged to the Regiments commander, or his Adjutant (Sometimes, the commander used “R00” for his tank).
10:28 The tank in the front here is a Command Panzer I. It is a turretless vehicle built on the chassis of the Panzer I, and was the worlds first dedicated command tank. Behind it is a formation of Renault UE Chenillette, a French light armored carrier, and around 3,000 of these vehicles were captured by the Germans, which used them extensively in their own army.
10:43 Bruno Fritz (1900-1984) was a German actor, both in film and theater, and a stage comedian. He mainly portrayed the typical Berlin citizen in a humorous way. Like many other German comedians, he also performed in front of soldiers during the war.
10:51 The main joke here is that he confused words, such as “microphone” and “microscope”
12:45 Obviously, this is wrong, and a propaganda lie. The German soldiers at Narvik were on the verge of defeat, and only the start of the German invasion of France forced the British and French troops to evacuate from Narvik, and the remaining Norwegian units were not strong enough to beat the Germans. The German troops at Narvik only got saved by the development on the French front, something that was obviously not mentioned by German propaganda.
12:59 Eduard Dietl (1890-1944) was a German mountain troop officer, and one of the most famous mountain troop generals during WWII. He joined the Bavarian Army in 1909 as a cadet, and fought in WWI on the Western Front, where he was awarded with both classes of the Iron Cross. After WWI, he continued serving the army. He joined the DAP, the predecessor of the Nazi party, in 1920, but left the same year as he was not allowed to be a member of a political party as an officer. He remained ideological close to the Nazis, and trained SA-units. He continued serving in various staff positions, becoming a battalion commander in 1931. In May 1938, he was made commander of the 3rd Mountaineer Division, with which he took part in the invasion of Poland and Norway, where he successfully defended Narvik until the Allied troops left in June 1940. Afterwards, he became commander of the Army Corps in Norway and later the 20th Mountain Army, which was stationed in Finland for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Dietl was a convinced Nazi, and he publicly declared his support for Hitler several times, he was also awarded the Golden Party Badge in January 1943. Dietl died when his plane crashed on his way back from a briefing with Hitler on June 23rd, 1944, three other generals also died (Eglseer, Rossi and von Wickede). Dietl was involved in several war crimes, including the commissar order, or the execution of German penal unit soldiers in Norway.
13:41 The land battle at Narvik was preceded by two naval battles, on April 10th and April 13th. Both these were lost by German forces, and they lost all 10 of their destroyers, six cargo ships and one U-Boat. The surviving crews of these ships became part of the German land forces at Narvik, leading to the curious situation that the majority of German soldiers at Narvik were sailors (2,600 sailors, compared to 2,000 mountain troops and 1,000 paratroopers).
Source :
https://digitaler-lesesaal.bundesarchiv.de/en/video/16380/662827
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2FmLeaEd-c
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