The Third Reich's Celluloid War: Propaganda in Nazi Feature Films, Documentaries and Television by Ian Garden

Author:Ian Garden [Garden, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

PLOT SUMMARY

The film opens in Vienna where a student, Hans Westmar, becomes friendly with a German recently returned from America and his beautiful daughter, Maud, who are on holiday in Europe. Hans tells them that they must visit Berlin but, in an immediate scene switch to Berlin, it is revealed that life there is really quite miserable, with many citizens unemployed and dependent on the welfare system.

Some inhabitants are even heard complaining that life in Moscow is far better and, at a meeting of Soviet-controlled communist leaders, it becomes obvious that most of Germany is under the control of the communists, and that it is they who are responsible for organising many protest marches and civil disorder among the workers.

Having returned to Berlin, Hans, a recognised member of Hitler’s Sturmabteilung (SA), is next seen listening rather sceptically to a lecture where a Jewish-looking professor is expounding the merits of the Versailles Treaty for having brought peace to Germany, even though it had meant a retrenchment in Germany’s borders.

Hans agrees to show his German-American friend the sights of the capital. His friend is appalled by the changes which have befallen Berlin in the intervening twenty years, and that it is now such a cosmopolitan city that hardly anything German remains. This is clearly demonstrated by their only being able to purchase English beer instead of a German beer, and in the decadent foreign music and promiscuous dancing in the nightclub, which so upsets Hans that he causes a scene and walks out in disgust.

Having watched the impressive demonstrations organised by the communists, Hans is convinced that they are Germany’s real enemy, and he agrees to speak at a meeting organised by the communists to promote the National Socialists’ views on the reasons for Germany’s woes. However, he is soon heckled as he complains about the constant lies which the Bolshevik leaders tell to the German workers, and a fight ensues which ultimately results in one Nazi being attacked and drowned in the river. The Communist Party leader, Kuprikoff, is happy with this outcome, believing that it will serve as a warning to all Nazis to scale down their activities.

However, the murder has completely the opposite effect, with the Brown Shirts deliberately organising a loud procession which concludes in the very square where the communists have their headquarters. Further scuffles and arrests ensue.

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