I've just purchased a newly-released DVD entitled "Swastika", which was originally made in 1973 by film-makers Philippe Mora, Lutz Becker and David Puttnam.
This documentary concentrates on Germany during the years 1934-39, makes use of much previously unseen material and is an amazing piece of work in several ways. Firstly, it was whilst working on this project that Becker discovered the Eva Braun home-movies which have since featured in many WWII documentaries, languishing uncatalogued and forgotten in US archives. More controversially, the film has no narration as the concept was to let Hitler and the Nazis be presented in the same way as they were to the German people at the time, and also to allow the modern viewer to form their own opinions without a narrator signposting the way for them.
British film critics were sufficiently impressed by early screenings that the movie was included in the Cannes program that year, but then things went badly wrong -violence flared at the first screening, and the film was never shown in it's entirety during the festival. The main contentious issue was what some critics saw as a "humanisation" of Hitler, the whole point -as the film-makers pointed out- was that to simply demonise Hitler was to short-change the true horror of his policies and the regime he headed. Since then, it's been fairly hard to track down.
The new DVD release features interview with the film-makers thirty five years on, a 1973 interview with Albert Speer, and various features on film propaganda in Nazi Germany. The main feature itself has some intrigueing footage on it, not least a part of a film made at the time conscription was reintroduced, showing a typical recruit's call-up and induction into the army.
"Swastka" was made in parallel with Becker and Puttnam's "The Double Headed Eagle" which covered Hitler's rise to power, again using original footage without any modern narration. I'd highly recommend both to anyone with an interest in pre-war German history.*
All the best
Paul.
*I got my copies over the counter at HMV, so I'm guessing that they're fairly readily availible.
This documentary concentrates on Germany during the years 1934-39, makes use of much previously unseen material and is an amazing piece of work in several ways. Firstly, it was whilst working on this project that Becker discovered the Eva Braun home-movies which have since featured in many WWII documentaries, languishing uncatalogued and forgotten in US archives. More controversially, the film has no narration as the concept was to let Hitler and the Nazis be presented in the same way as they were to the German people at the time, and also to allow the modern viewer to form their own opinions without a narrator signposting the way for them.
British film critics were sufficiently impressed by early screenings that the movie was included in the Cannes program that year, but then things went badly wrong -violence flared at the first screening, and the film was never shown in it's entirety during the festival. The main contentious issue was what some critics saw as a "humanisation" of Hitler, the whole point -as the film-makers pointed out- was that to simply demonise Hitler was to short-change the true horror of his policies and the regime he headed. Since then, it's been fairly hard to track down.
The new DVD release features interview with the film-makers thirty five years on, a 1973 interview with Albert Speer, and various features on film propaganda in Nazi Germany. The main feature itself has some intrigueing footage on it, not least a part of a film made at the time conscription was reintroduced, showing a typical recruit's call-up and induction into the army.
"Swastka" was made in parallel with Becker and Puttnam's "The Double Headed Eagle" which covered Hitler's rise to power, again using original footage without any modern narration. I'd highly recommend both to anyone with an interest in pre-war German history.*
All the best
Paul.
*I got my copies over the counter at HMV, so I'm guessing that they're fairly readily availible.
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