The Third Reich in Colour | Full Series | Free Documentary History

Berlin, mid-August 1933. SA formations march, cameras perfect through the Brandenburg Gate, just like they had done the previous January in the night when Adolf Hitler seized power. This footage was taken during the shooting of the film "Hans Westmar." What is so special about these pictures is that the cameraman was using 35mm color film at the time, still an expensive rarity in Germany.

September 30th, 1934. The Reich Agriculture Festival in Goslar. Farm workers, men and women from all over the Reich, are seen waiting in front of the Imperial Palace. In an essay to mark the festival, a young German girl wrote: "Above all, the Harvest Festival is our way of thanking God for his rich blessings. But it's also so our way of giving thanks to the government of the Reich, which through the measures it has taken has restored the farming community to full bloom." Delegations from the SA and the SS were also awaiting the arrival of Adolf Hitler. A few weeks earlier, the dictator had deposed of his biggest adversary, Ernst Röhm. Now, following the death of President of the Reich, Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler was leader and Imperial Chancellor of the German Nation.

Director Karl Vasnik, a pioneer of filming in color, had chosen this day to shoot one of the first cultural films using the new two-color film material, as it was known. The result still left something to be desired. In Goslar, a guard of honor from the Army of the Reich was present to welcome its new commander-in-chief. On the Buckeberg near Hameln, a stand had been built for a ceremonial rally. The film's director didn't have to worry about a setting for Adolf Hitler's appearance. Hundreds of thousands of farm workers had turned up to pay homage to the dictator. Karl Brückner had deployed two camera teams equipped with color film.

After the film was presented to the press in December 1934, one critic saw the report as an experiment that could not stand up to comparison with nature. But another critic praised the outstanding color footage, especially the shots of the traditional costumes. Swiss journalist Konrad Wana described the propaganda spectacle on the Buckeberg in a factual report written in 1944: "As they awaited the arrival of Hitler in his retinue, people were filled with excitement and anticipation. Then, as a convoy of cars approached on the plain below, thousands upon thousands of voices shouted out 'Heil!' The sound hurtling down the slope like a hurricane towards the man who knew how to halt the German nation and enthrall." Hitler could only make slow progress through the crowd. He was flanked on both sides by country women in their pretty traditional costumes, who were pushing forward to see him, clutch his hand, and look into his blue eyes. The enthusiasm of thousands of people, constantly shouting "Higher!", stirred each individual into a frenzy, which increased the impact of this man's personality even more. The unmistakable shortcomings of the color film process made it unlikely that Vasnik's report would ever be shown in German cinemas.

In summer 1937, the first 16mm color film produced by Agfa appeared on the market in Germany. Despite its high price, many amateur film enthusiasts were prepared to dig deep into their pockets to use it. Members of the Institute for Folklore in Halle also filmed with the new material. In 1938, racial researchers in Freiburg and Aalen documented a community festival for their archive. The Germans had settled in comfortably under the swastika. The overwhelming majority of the population were devoted to the Führer. Film enthusiasts throughout the Third Reich began using color film when he wasn't at work.

In his bakery house, Hamburg master pastry chef Kurt Löffeld was out and about shooting footage of his hometown. Löffeld preferred the products manufactured in America. In 1935, the Kodak company developed color film, which it also marketed in Germany. From May to September 1938, Löffeld documented life and work in Hamburg's famous warehouse district and in its port. Löffeld's camera also captured the Kaispeicher B, a warehouse building visible from afar. Its tower was a landmark. The success enjoyed by Hamburg's port, stamped originally from international trade, had been hard hit by the Great Depression. A large proportion of Hamburg's merchant fleet had to be decommissioned. In its stockyards, workers were laid off on a huge scale. But roundtrips to German seaside resorts or through the port were, it seems, highly popular with locals and tourists. From the landing stages and the old Elbe Tunnel, ships headed down the river Elbe.

Also captured on the film taken by Löffeld are pictures of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a luxurious cruise liner, which was intended to symbolize the classless nature of Nazi society. "Strength Through Joy" was not an organization for Nazi bigwigs, but the party expected anyone who was allowed to sail to Norway for a week to behave appropriately. Through work procurement measures, financed with credit, and through contracts awarded by the Senate, the Nazis had succeeded in reducing unemployment, thanks mainly to increasing rearmament contracts from the German Navy. The situation was also gradually improving in the port. By 1936, Hamburg's six major dockyards were again providing nearly 20,000 jobs. Löffeld's film recordings are rare documents of a bygone age when 1,300 mobile electric cranes and hundreds of stores unloaded goods from all over the world. The Hamburg pastry chef entered his 20-minute long documentation in a competition and won first prize. His footage portrayed many ships which today exist only in the memories of Hamburg's elderly citizens, like the Monte Rosa, which in 1931 sailed on a regular schedule to the East Coast of South America. The vessel normally carried cargo and passengers, but the Monte Rosa was also used for pleasure cruises.

One of the first film enthusiasts who could afford the new 16mm color material was Hitler's chief pilot, Hans Baur. In Berlin, on September 27th, 1937, Baur filmed the state visit of Italy's fascist leader, Benito Mussolini. In front of the Technical University, the Führer gave the Duce and his entourage a demonstration of Prussian traditions and showed his guest the results of German rearmament. Hans Baur was allowed to film the spectacle from one of the rear rows on the VIP stand. After the demise of the Third Reich, these unique documents of Hitler's immediate environment were regarded as lost. It wasn't until 1988 that they were rediscovered in the estate of a former US soldier from Tennessee. As head of a translation unit of the American Secret Service in Munich in 1945, Herbert Zankgöa learned where Agfa color film footage taken by Hitler's pilot had been secretly buried. He secured it and took it back with him to Chattanooga. Displaying weaponry of all kinds, the parade lasted 3 hours. Mussolini was particularly impressed by the goose-stepping, so much so, in fact, that on his return, he also had the snappy marching style introduced into the Italian Armed Forces. Hitler saw the pompous parade as the expression of his enhanced sense of self-esteem: "We are somebody once again. We have demolished the Treaty of Versailles. We have the same arms as our adversaries. Perhaps ours are even better."

That autumn in 1937, it wasn't only at home that the Third Reich demonstrated its regained strength. At the World Exhibition in Paris, the Germans were allocated a site right next to the Eiffel Tower for their huge pavilion. The Soviet Union had built its exhibition hall directly opposite. In terms of monumentality, the communist dictatorship was certainly on a par with Germany. Hitler had commissioned his new favorite, Albert Speer, with the design of the German Pavilion. The two had spent many nights in Berlin and on the Obersalzberg, pouring over drafts and drawings.

On Sunday, February 27th, 1938, a carnival enthusiast from Nuremberg filmed this carnival procession. A local Nazi newspaper wrote: "It's not always necessary to wonder whether you're in the midst of supporters or enemies. Instead, you should set yourself above inhibitions that are better suited to the affected and not to the Germans of our magnificent era, an age which, whether in earnest or in jest, offers incredible impressions and proves time and again that the concord and solidarity of a great ethnic community are the most wonderful gifts of the National Socialist state."

In 1944, Swiss businessman René Ju published a factual report on his experiences in the Third Reich. In it, he describes a conversation he had in autumn 1937: "My friend was over the moon. He had expected many things, but not what he was now witnessing with his own eyes. 'Such happy, optimistic people!' 'You've not seen everything,' I told him. 'Above all, you're forgetting what price the German nation has had to pay: the loss of personal freedom and truth in public life.'" By this point in time, Hitler had long since decided to lead Germany into a new war and also to tighten measures against the Jewish population. Consequently, on one of the carnival floats, caricatures of Jews hung from gallows, as if this were something totally natural. According to eyewitnesses, the float was greeted with frenetic applause.

In Cottbus, in 1938, a member of the SS took this color footage of his most senior boss. Heinrich Himmler was visiting the town. He came to Cottbus every year to honor his great idol, King Henry I. He lies buried in a cathedral, and Himmler turned the church into a national shrine. The head of the SS wanted to replace Christianity with a Germanic cult worship. His devotion was to the swastika; his lifetime goal was to eradicate the Jewish nation.

In early May 1938, Hitler's chief pilot, Hans Baur, accompanied the Führer on a state visit to Italy. He documented his impressions of the trip in a short film, which he entitled "Beautiful Italy." Six months later, the censor approved it for public showing in the Third Reich. The state visit was to have been documented in color by a professional camera team from the Nazi propaganda machine, but problems with the optical filters made its footage unusable. As a result, Hans Baur was able to earn money with his amateur film.

After the annexation of Austria in March, Hitler had expected Italian leader Benito Mussolini to give his approval for Germany to seize the Sudetenland. The Germans actually wanted to sign a written agreement with the Italians, but their hosts were hesitant and only relented when, in a public statement, Hitler declared the Brenner border to be the eternally valid border between Germany and Italy. The official host was King Victor Emmanuel III, and the monarch knew how to ease Mussolini into the background. Hitler was repulsed by the obsequiousness of court ceremony, and he let the king feel it.

On May 5th, 1938, Hitler and his entourage were taken on an excursion to Naples, where they were given an enthusiastic reception. With a small camera, Hans Baur filmed the sights of this city at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, which had donned itself in truly festive garb for its state visitors from the north. After a few days, Hitler felt fairly irritated by the little king, who knew how to take center stage. Mussolini had no alternative but to put on a brave face, to snap the royal family. Time and again, the Führer had his old friend come forward and walk alongside him.

On May 8th, 1938, Hitler's hosts organized a maneuver by the Italian Air Force north of Rome. It was a case of staged saber-rattling in the Rome-Berlin axis. The Duce had long since been relegated to the role of junior partner. Mussolini actually feared that Hitler might start a military conflict with Czechoslovakia. Later, Hans Baur remembered that the German guests were impressed by the strength of the Italian forces, but Mussolini had secretly decided not to become involved in a war in Europe.

Hitler spent virtually all of August 1938 on the Obersalzberg. On the terrace of the Berghof, he studied plans for the planned invasion of Czechoslovakia. A frequent guest was Albert Speer. The little time the Führer allowed himself was often spent with his architect. Hitler once had visions of becoming an architect himself, and in Speer, he had found the ideal executor for his colossal plans. Speer, an individual, had been part of the dictator's inner circle for some time. The architect had also become friends with Eva Braun, who took these pictures in 1938. Hitler's mistress was a keen amateur photographer; consequently, she too had developed a passion for color film. These pictures of the dictator should actually have been destroyed after her death, but in October 1945, they fell into the hands of the American Secret Service. As a result, what are probably the only uncensored pictures of Hitler's private life have been preserved in the National Archives in Washington. In his memoirs, Albert Speer would later claim that the Berghof society merely engaged in small talk and killed time waiting for the master of the house to arrive, but this, it seems, was just an attempt to cover himself and play down his own involvement in the crimes committed by the Nazi regime. In fact, many political decisions were taken on the idyllic Obersalzberg; murders were even planned there.

At this time, peace in Europe was hanging by a thread. Hitler wanted war, but the major powers of Britain and France were not yet prepared to engage in hostilities. So, with Mussolini's help and reaching concessions in Munich, they forced the dictator to the negotiating table. Eva Braun edited her footage to produce film shows in color, which were presented in the evenings on the Berghof. When Hitler was not staying on the Obersalzberg, his mistress liked to make trips to Bavaria's lakes, accompanied by her parents, friends, and relatives. The athletic 26-year-old was the center of attention. Eva's sister, Gretl, also liked to film and take photographs. Sophie Stöcker, a good friend who was also an artist, drew the film links. The Germans had no idea that Hitler had a mistress. As a senior correspondent with Reuters' news agency in Munich, Ernst Pope had particularly good contacts in the Bavarian capital. So, in his book "Munich Playground," he engaged in speculation: "The buxom Eva Braun is Adolf's secret mistress. She was assistant to his photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. She cooks fine meals for him and serves him in every way you would expect from a German wife. There are rumors that the Führer has secretly married her, but I doubt that. German propaganda stresses that no mortal woman has the quality to become 'Frau Hitler.'"

Even though the films made by Eva Braun, Chief Pilot H. Baur, and the folklorist from Halle don't always document the decisive stations of the Third Reich, they do provide eloquent testimony to the nature of the National Socialist dictatorship. And it is only through color that the flower-clad swastikas at this children's festival in Thuringia have such an oppressive impact.

May 1st, 1939. Berlin was festively decorated for Labor Day. Only 6 years had passed since the Nazis declared May 1st a national holiday, a move designed to bind the German working class to it through National Socialist slogans and pretentious prophecies for the future, and one that had already proved successful. Berlin journalist Ruth Andreas-Friedrich described such events in her diary: "District leaders, factory representatives, block leaders, shop stewards, leaders from the Federation of German Girls and the Hitler Youth Organization – in fact, all the state-appointed ideological controllers of the German people – ensure that only acolytes turn up to cheer on official occasions. Anyone who is politically unreliable, anyone who has roused even the slightest suspicion of being a naysayer, is to be kept away from such occasions. The yes-men know what is expected; they cheer spontaneously at the right place and at the right time."

"March of the Golden Standards" is the title of a color film which an unknown cine enthusiast took on this particular day. He was part of a delegation from the Zeppel Aircraft Works, a Nazi model plant, which the day before had been honored by Hitler himself and was allowed to provide one of the 200 flag bearers. In his speech, the Führer adopted a pacific tone and castigated an alleged international clique of Jewish warmongers. But in actual fact, 4 weeks previously, he had ordered his military leaders to prepare the invasion of neighboring Poland. The rearmament of Nazi Germany was taking place at full speed. Consequently, on this May 1st, it was mainly arms factories who participated in this parade of the golden standards.

To the sound of appropriate marching music, the Golden Standard of the Zeppel Aircraft Works and Halberstadt was rolled up. This was the last May holiday to be celebrated in such grandiose style in the Third Reich, because the outbreak of the Second World War was only a few weeks away. In Berlin, in the summer of 1939, there appeared to be little enthusiasm for a renewed call to arms. Memories of the Great War of 1914-1918 were too traumatic. This is how an American reporter described the mood: "Everyone is against war. How can a country start a decisive war with a people so tired of war?" An internal note stated that "Faith in the Führer will now be put to the test more than ever before." And a German journalist noted that "The observer cannot help thinking that people are deliberately indulging in unrestrained enjoyment." It was a dance on the volcano.

The recently completed Reich Chancellery was deserted. Albert Speer had adapted the huge building entirely to the Führer's wishes, but Hitler preferred to forge his plans for conquering Poland on the Obersalzberg, Salzburg, far from the capital of the Reich. Only occasionally did he show himself to his people. On July 16th, 1939, the Haus der Kunst in Munich was dedicated to National Socialist creative activity. Hitler wanted the Day of German Art to be celebrated as a true Festival of Peace. The members of an amateur film club had been positioned at various points in the city to document all important events. The first item on the program for the morning was the laying of a wreath at the grave of architect Ludwig Thoma. Local branches of the Association of German Amateur Filmmakers were commissioned more and more often by party officers to document major events on 16mm color film, because there was still no satisfactory process for professional cinema productions. On this particular day, the members of the Munich branch of the association had been provided with passes and armbands, which allowed them access to all prime filming locations. On the afternoon of July 16th, anybody who was anybody in the Third Reich took their seat in the VIP stand to marvel at a 3-hour procession of live images from 2,000 years of German culture. Not only was Germany's future to be National Socialist, so was its past. In the program for this tacky festival, it said: "The German eagle towers above the whole procession. With it ends this manifestation of our history. At the same time, it gazes into the eternal future, keenly and calmly, with pride and assured of victory, announcing the greatness of our era and our willingness to act. It is the herald of our doing and our plans." American reporter Ernst Pope commented: "The Nazi procession is the admission of the Führer's restless plans for conquest."

On the Obersalzberg, Eva Braun filmed Hitler in the pose of a resolute power politician. Hitler clearly displayed his willingness for war, while at the same time keeping open the possibility of a peaceful solution by receiving diplomats from all over the world, like Khaleed al-Hude, the special envoy of the King of Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabis had established an absolute monarchy on the Arabian Peninsula; they had control of oil, a commodity so keenly sought after by every major power, and they were fanatical anti-Semites. In the end, all that was agreed on this occasion was an insignificant arms deal. Accompanied by his accomplices, Reinhard Heydrich and Karl Wolff, Heinrich Himmler had also traveled to the Obersalzberg. They were planning an extermination program to which not only Poland's intelligentsia but also its Jewish population would fall victim.

On August 12th, 1939, Eva Braun filmed on the terrace of the Berghof. Hitler was awaiting a visit from the Italian Foreign Minister. On official occasions, the Führer's mistress had to withdraw into her rooms, so this time too, she could only secretly film a few scenes. Prior to the arrival of the state guest, Count Ciano wanted to win over his ally for a new international conference, but the Führer was determined to defeat Poland militarily. Ciano's efforts were fruitless. This is how he described his meeting with Hitler: "He has decided to attack, and he will attack."

A march of the Federation of German Girls and the Hitler Youth in Offenburg on May 19th, 1939. Here too, by now, the Second World War was not far off. Paul Stoiber, who had been documenting everyday life in his hometown ever since 1928, filmed the Nazi Party's local annual conference in the Baden District in color. Among the town's dignitaries was publisher Franz Bopp. As early as 1933, in his popular radio magazine "Südkurier," he had already stated that "in its thoughts, desires, and the Südkurier has always been solidly German and patriotic, nationalist and socialist. The spirit of the new age is alive in it. No Jewish capital has been invested in the printing house, nor are any of the company's contributors or employees Jewish." The highlight of the event was the address by District Leader Karl Vögt. Since 1936, Offenburg had been a garrison town; accordingly, local military leaders also presented themselves in parade uniforms as part of National Socialist society.

On September 8th, 1939, a loudspeaker vehicle announced news of the Wehrmacht successes in Poland. The Offenburger Tageblatt also printed special reports from the Army Supreme Command. The Germans couldn't believe that their fathers, husbands, and sons were sweeping through Poland so quickly. Every day, maps were hastily put up to show the latest conquests. On this particular day, September 8th, German tank units had reached the suburbs of Warsaw. Hitler's first Blitzkrieg ended on October 6th with the capitulation of Poland.

Johannes Blea owned a photography shop in Korbach in Hesse. Time and again during the Second World War, he filmed events in his hometown. Later, he edited them to produce "Korbach in the War," a film which shows rare footage of life in a small town during the Third Reich. On March 22nd, 1940, the National Socialist Public Welfare Organization in Korbach invited people to come for pea and bacon soup on Adolf Hitler Square. With food rationing in place, such occasions ensured that the poorer levels of society also got to enjoy a cheap hot meal. Paramount, however, was the Nazi leadership's intention to promote communal solidarity along the lines of socialism in practice.

Since September 3rd, 1939, a state of war had existed between the Third Reich and Great Britain and France, but the Allies had not come to Poland's aid. For them, it was a case of wait and see. Hitler had been planning for months to launch a campaign in the West, but it had been postponed time and again. Finally, Germany's Supreme Commander decided that the offensive would begin on May 10th, 1940.

Infantry units were also stationed in Bitterfeld, near Halle. In early May, they were moved West. They were to invade the neutral countries of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, while German tank units had it through the Ardennes towards France. At the start of his campaign in the West, Hitler moved to his headquarters in Hünfeld in the Eifel. From here, his chief pilot, Hans Baur, flew the Führer to the front time and again. On Odendorf Airfield, near Aachen, we see the dictator discussing the situation with Hermann Göring. In less than 6 weeks, Hitler had achieved what German armies had failed to achieve in four years in the Great War. France was forced to capitulate. After a long discussion with Hitler on June 6th, 1940, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: "The Führer towers high above us all. He's one of history's geniuses. What a glorious era, and it will be followed by the great rest we all desire so much. The Führer, perhaps more than any of us, then we shall build the new Europe. After the war, we shall soon deal with the Jews."

Near the town of Compiègne in northern France, Hans Baur filmed the wreckage of a French Air Force unit. This is how French historian Marc Bloch described the disaster in his book "Strange Defeat": "We have just suffered a devastating defeat. Who was responsible? The parliamentary regime? The troops? The British? The Fifth Column? Our generals? Reply: everybody but them. No matter how one might assess the deeper reasons for this catastrophe, the immediate cause was the incapability of our military leaders, their inability to think the war."

On June 2nd, 1940, the leadership of the German Luftwaffe was waiting at Neurenes Airfield for the arrival of the Führer. Filmed by Hans Baur, the Air Force generals were in jovial and victorious mood, although their contribution to the military success had been modest. German troops wounded in battle were quickly flown in to form the backdrop to a special ceremony. Adolf Hitler arrives in his Mercedes limousine, while the commander-in-chief is greeting his troops. 150 km away, in Dunkirk, the last of 330,000 British and French soldiers are being evacuated across the English Channel. Exactly 4 years later, they will return to free France from the German yoke.

Wherever Hitler appears with his entourage, he is given a frenetic reception. The dictator is at the zenith of his power. As Chief of the German Armed Forces High Command, Wilhelm Keitel put it: "My Führer, you are the greatest commander of all time." Comments like that earned Keitel the reputation of being the Führer's lackey. In his memoirs, Chief Pilot Hans Baur commented on Hitler's visits to the troops in France: "Hitler's intended effect was achieved. The troops and the French population were impressed by the fact that he appeared as soon as hostilities had ceased." The commander-in-chief ate from field kitchens. The only special requirement was for any pork meat to be removed, since the Führer always avoided meat. Naturally, people back home in Germany didn't get to see such scenes. Even the camera teams of the weekly newsreel rarely had the chance to observe Hitler like this. With the exception of Eva Braun's private films, the films taken by Hans Baur are the only footage which shows the dictator from close up, unedited and uncensored.

On June 13th, the French government declared Paris to be an open city. A day later, the German Army marched into the capital. One soldier, Arnold Binder, wrote in his diary: "Paris has been declared an open city. We have occupied it without a fight. The heart of France is in our hands." On June 23rd, 1940, Adolf Hitler visited the defeated French capital. Chief Pilot Hans Baur had flown the dictator to Le Bourget at 5:00 a.m. and was allowed to accompany him on a tour of the city. Once again, he used 16mm color film to document the bizarre sightseeing trip. Alongside Hitler on the observation platform on the Trocadéro were sculptor Arno Breker and architect Hermann Giesler, and Albert Speer. Later, in his memoirs, Speer described the dictator's reaction: "Wasn't Paris beautiful? But Berlin must become even more beautiful. In the past, I often wondered whether Paris shouldn't be destroyed. But when we're finished in Berlin, Paris will be a mere shadow, so why should we destroy it?"

Hitler had purportedly come to Paris as an educational tourist who was very keen on culture, but in reality, the visit was his personal triumph as a commander. In Les Invalides, he spent a long time next to the tomb of Napoleon, past and present dreams of world dominance. Finally, a visit to the Panthéon, France's Hall of Fame. The dictator's lifelong dream had been fulfilled, at least for the time being. 5 years later, the French would celebrate victory by dancing in the streets, and Berlin would lie in ruins.

Berlin, July 6th, 1940. Eva Braun took these pictures from a window in the Reich Chancellery. As always, on official occasions, Hitler's mistress had to remain in the background. Adolf Hitler was returning to the Chancellery from France as a glorious commander. People had been waiting in for the dictator for 6 hours. In his diary, Joseph Goebbels wrote: "The cheering from the jubilant masses is indescribable. The Führer is being welcomed with a carpet of flowers. Our people, our wonderful people!" The New York Times reported: "The streets were full of thousands of cheering people, shouting and weeping. They work themselves up into a truly hysterical frenzy."

In the summer of 1940, following the successful Blitzkrieg campaigns in Poland, France, and Norway, for a while, peace and calm returned to the capital of the German Reich. On July 16th, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary: "In politics and in the conduct of the war, there is an absolute lull." The war seemed far off, and people went swimming, just like every year. Berliners headed for the Wannsee. Hitler had promised his people that the Nazi Reich would last a thousand years, and in the summer of 1940, it looked as if the dictator might be right.

In April 1941, Hitler opened up a new theater of war. The military intervention in Greece by his Italian allies threatened to end in disaster. Consequently, the Wehrmacht marched first of all into Yugoslavia and then into Greece. Gottfried Kessle, an officer with the Grossdeutschland Infantry Regiment, was a keen photographer, so his company had chosen him to keep a film diary of its operations. After 11 days, the Yugoslav Army surrendered unconditionally. Germany took some 350,000 prisoners. These pictures show Serb soldiers being held in Belgrade Fortress. Those taken prisoner also included Serb civilians who were suspected of being partisans. Partisan raids took place time and again. In the night of April 21st, near the cemetery in the village of Pančevo, one SS soldier was shot dead and another seriously wounded. As a result, Wehrmacht troops and members of the SS Das Reich division carried out arbitrary house searches. Civilians of military age were arrested at random. The occupying forces took terrible revenge for the attack. The next day, Gottfried Kessle filmed the execution of alleged partisans in Pančevo. In a staged trial, those accused of guerrilla activity had no chance to defend themselves. As a deterrent, 17 men and one woman were hanged in public. The gruesome task was performed by an ethnic German executioner. Then, 12 former Serbian soldiers were lined up on the cemetery wall in Pančevo and executed by firing squad. Gottfried Kessle also filmed this brutal act for his war diary. This scene, where a German soldier gives the c. de grâce to one of the men, became one of the most foreign symbols of German crimes committed during the Second World War.

On August 28th, 1941, Adolf Hitler met with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The Duce had come especially to witness the successful progress of the campaign against the Soviet Union, one in which Italian troops were also involved. Two months previously, despite the existence of a non-aggression pact, Nazi Germany had attacked Russia. The Red Army, it seems, was ill-prepared for the invasion because Joseph Stalin had ignored all warnings right to the very end. In less than a week, German troops had swept through that part of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union and advanced into the Ukraine.

Lunchtime for high-ranking officers and their adjutants. This color footage was taken by Hans Baur, a keen amateur photographer who had been Hitler's chief pilot ever since 1933. His position enabled him to take pictures even in the immediate vicinity of the dictator without any restrictions. On a flight to the front, Baur took the opportunity to film Mussolini from close up, because the Duce liked to sit in the cockpit. Later, Baur remembered: "I took 6m of film, but Mussolini sat there like a stuffed dummy, stiff as a board, with his head held high. He didn't move a muscle. All I got were pictures with no life to them. With his chin jutting out, Mussolini had this wild look in his eyes, but he never moved." Hitler and Mussolini had flown to Uman on a troop visit. The men gave the Führer an overwhelming reception. During their advance, many of them had been involved in crimes against the civilian population. Also present in Uman was Hitler's personal cameraman, Walter Frentz. He was filming the staged scene, officially for the Ufa weekly newsreel, but in black and white. In a battle of encirclement, which had lasted from July 15th to August 8th, the dictator's troops had defeated 20 divisions of the Red Army and paved the way for an advance into the Donbas region and the hinterland of the Ukraine. 100,000 Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner. As Hitler and his entourage were returning to their aircraft, the injured troops who had been brought in as a backdrop were driven back to their field hospitals. Some of the men had had terrible experiences. In a state of despair, Corporal Alois Scherr wrote: "We now know the full tragedy of war. It's the greatest disaster to befall mankind. It brutalizes people. Only my faith stops me from becoming almost apathetic, mentally and spiritually." That was of no interest to either the high-ranking officers or the Nazi bigwigs accompanying the two dictators. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hitler's private secretary, Martin Bormann, were particularly compliant aids to the Führer, who is said to have told a small circle of associates that "Basically, the war in the East has already been won. Moscow will be raised to the ground." However, within a few months, the war had become a nightmare for his troops. Yet, it wasn't Stalin's armies that had brought the German advance to a halt, but rain and cold.

The Obersalzberg, early June 1942. Hitler was relaxing in the mountains for a few days. The campaign against the Red Army had bogged down outside Moscow and Leningrad in the mud and snow of winter. Now, a major offensive was to give fresh momentum to the Führer's faltering Blitzkrieg. Hitler's guest at the Berghof on this occasion was Sepp Dietrich, the head of the SS Leibstandarte. Adolf Hitler was one of the Führer's old comrades from the early days of the Nazi movement. After Hitler seized power, this unquestioningly loyal warhorse had had murders carried out time and again on behalf of his master. To mark Dietrich's birthday, the Führer made him a personal gift of 100,000 Reichmarks and appointed him Colonel General of the Waffen-SS. This footage stems from Eva Braun's estate. Sepp Dietrich is joking around with Eva's sister, Gretl, who was part of Hitler's court. Dietrich with the children of Hitler's favorite architect, Albert Speer. Dietrich was allowed to accompany the Führer on his daily walk up to a peak called the Kehlstein. Dietrich's troops had already burned villages on the campaigns in Poland and France and committed numerous crimes against the civilian population. On Hitler's orders, they had also been involved in the systematic murder of Polish Jews. The Waffen-SS had carried out further massacres in the Ukraine and in Russia. Before the war against the Soviet Union, the commander-in-chief had told his generals of his true intentions: "It will be a war of annihilation. Our military leaders must make the personal sacrifice of overcoming their misgivings."

Around roughly the same time, a cameraman with the Army's propaganda unit was filming the Wehrmacht's advance in the Soviet Union. Hans Bastian and his team had 35mm color film at their disposal. The 31-year-old convinced Nazi had been chosen to produce a spectacular film using the newly developed material. The propaganda ministry wanted to see heroes, and Bastian provided the requisite pictures. In discussions with his associates in 1941, Hitler had already talked through plans for the future face of Eastern Europe. The goal, he said, was to conquer vast areas to ensure the racial survival of the Germans. "The law of natural selection justifies this eternal battle because it makes the survival of the fittest possible. It's absurd that a higher-ranking people should struggle to exist on land that is too restricted, while amorphous masses who contribute nothing to civilization occupy endless areas of terrain which is among the richest in the world. The Crimea and the Ukraine will become a totally German colony, and the previous inhabitants will be displaced." 30 million people in the East were to fall victim to Hitler's monstrous plans. As Nazi ideologists saw it, Communists, Jews, and members of a wide range of Slavic tribes would have to make way for the master race. Within a few months, SS special task forces operating behind the front had murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Linz, Upper Austria, on April 20th, 1942. The whole town was dressed up and taking part in processions to celebrate the Führer's birthday. The formations included the Hitler Youth and the Federation of German Girls. Linz proudly carried the title of the Führer's adoptive city because this is where Hitler spent most of his youth. After final victory had been achieved, he planned to spend his twilight years in Linz. Colossal buildings had long since been planned for construction at this point in time. Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, a journalist who was critical of the regime, was hoping that more and more Germans would turn their back on the regime. In summer 1942, she wrote in her diary: "The age of the individual is over. The strong are no longer at their most powerful when they are on their own. We must form a shock troop right across Berlin. Our people must be in position in every district, sworn confederates who can be trusted implicitly. Old circles of friends are no longer adequate, and not all of them are suitable. New people need to be found from every camp. Each individual must bring his or her clique into play with all their connections and possibilities. What one person lacks, the other will provide. It's now about distributing roles, yet without getting caught by the Gestapo." In Linz, party bigwigs paid homage to the dictator. The dignitaries of the Nazi Reich were still fully behind their Führer, and most of them would give him fanatical support right to the end.

On May 12th, 1942, the Red Army launched a major offensive on a broad front. The aim was to retake Kharkov. Hans Bastian was sitting with his camera in a German tank, filming the battle. To the northeast of the city, a Wehrmacht tank unit had been given the task of repulsing units of the Soviet 28th Army. The propaganda ministry planned to use the footage in "The Front in Color," a monthly newsreel which would only be shown in cinemas in neutral foreign countries. Stalin's forces sustained heavy losses and failed to achieve their goal of breaking through the defensive ring in front of Kharkov. But the Wehrmacht's counter-offensive was successful. On May 22nd, 1942, the Soviet armies were encircled, and the Germans took around 240,000 prisoners. Pictures from the center of Kharkov. Hans Bastian was a specialist in color photography, and he succeeded in attaining the required quality standards. But the planned monthly newsreel never materialized. Only a few scenes on his film were used in German weekly newsreels in black and white. The German troops stationed in Kharkov were to lack nothing. Entertainment films were provided to make them forget the horrors of war for a few hours. In the soldiers' hostels, the troops' needs were seen to. It wasn't until August 1943 that the Red Army was finally able to liberate Kharkov.

The cameraman also filmed these motorcycle riflemen with the Third Armored Reconnaissance Unit. At the time, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich noted: "The Germans are still victorious in Russia. People still talk of Stalin now throwing his final reserves into battle against us. But Moscow today lies many kilometers behind the Russian front. And even though every week sees a few dozen readers' letters arriving at the publishing house, sent by enthusiastic 'Final Victory Apostles' wanting information on settlement opportunities in the Crimea and the Caucasus, the last word still hasn't been spoken about the Caucasus either. The war can still be lost, even beyond the Elbrus."

On August 21st, 1942, mountain troops from Bavaria had indeed scaled the highest peak in the Caucasus and planted the Imperial War flag on Mount Elbrus. But the poor weather ruled out any photographs or film footage of the event. So, in early September, the Armed Forces High Command sent experienced climber and cameraman Hans Ertl into the mountain range to restage the heroic deed in bright sunshine. Ertl took the opportunity to film German mountain troops driving out Red Army forces who had occupied an important pass. As a former cameraman with Ufa-Revue, he was an adept filmmaker. The film Ertl completed in June 1943 was entitled "Alarm on the Pass." For many years, it was thought to have been lost. It was only in the late '90s that a copy turned up in Russia.

On March 18th, 1943, a documentary appeared in cinemas in America which showed the advance of Allied troops in North Africa. The director was none other than Hollywood supremo John Ford. After his award-winning films on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the battle for Midway Island in the Pacific, the Oscar-winning director also wanted to present the war against the Nazis in color. On November 8th, 1942, British and American troops landed in Morocco and Algeria. A short time later, 40 camera teams unloaded their equipment. The expedition was headed by Hollywood mogul Darryl F. Zanuck, one of the founders of 20th Century Fox. The film contained expressive footage, but one US critic later complained that "at the front, North Africa clearly bore Zanuck's signature: artistic shots of tanks, trucks, sunrise and sunset, and no end of superfluous frills."

Behind the front, a camera team witnessed an attack by German aircraft and took dramatic pictures. Director John Ford was in his element. He had already recorded similarly spectacular footage in his film "The Battle of Midway," but for his employers at the War Department, this wasn't enough. The problem was that the scenes were totally authentic and thus inadequate for the military authorities. The British enjoyed great success with their "Desert Victory" production, but many of the dramatic scenes in it had been quickly restaged. When Secretary of War Henry Stimson saw "The Front" in North Africa, he found the film feeble and not very inspiring. In his diary, he wrote: "We have only just realized the importance of such efforts. Our cameramen obviously have no desire to get killed. The British have lost four cameramen and many more have been wounded. We must be willing to take a more energetic approach and thus do a better job." Scenes which the team filmed in their spare time, far from the front, came in for particular criticism. Here, the soldiers have got hold of a turkey because in America, on November 26th, 1942, people were celebrating Thanksgiving. Then, the director himself appears in the picture: John Ford, sitting astride a donkey.

In early December, when German and Allied armored units clashed not far from Kasserine, Ford's camera teams were present. Hitler had ordered the new Tiger tanks to be sent not to the Eastern Front but to North Africa, where they inflicted a bitter defeat on the advancing British and Americans. A cameraman had entrenched himself on a nearby hill and took authentic pictures, but they also met with disappointment back in the United States. Shortly before the premiere, Darryl Zanuck admitted: "I'm afraid that our war scenes don't look as dangerous and realistic as the battle scenes we film at our studios. You simply can't have everything." For these captured German and Italian troops, the war is over, but not for their comrades. They're not so lucky. In the end, even the Tiger tanks could not prevent an Allied victory in the desert. Hitler refused to allow his remaining troops in North Africa to withdraw, but in May 1943, they finally surrendered.

Casablanca, mid-January 1943. In the elegant suburb of Anfa, a hotel and several comfortably appointed villas have been cleared to accommodate delegations from Washington and London. On January 14th, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill traveled to Morocco with his top brass to attend a secret conference with the President of the United States. The British wanted to land on Sardinia or Sicily as soon as possible in order to attack the Third Reich from the South. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived in Casablanca exhausted from the 5-day Atlantic Crossing. Since the age of 39, when he contracted poliomyelitis, the 60-year-old had been confined to a wheelchair. Since he avoided any pictures that showed his handicap, the president sat in a Jeep as the American guard of honor marched past. A cameraman with the Signal Corps took these pictures of Roosevelt's trip to the Casablanca conference with 35mm color film for the president's own personal archive. They were not published until many years later.

German propaganda had got wind of the meeting between the two statesmen, but Joseph Goebbels assumed that Churchill had traveled to Washington. In his diary, he wrote: "In our currently difficult situation, Churchill and Roosevelt will of course try to step forward with a demonstrative political statement designed to undermine our nation's morale. But I will do everything in my power to shield our people from such machinations." Naturally, the US president and his generals knew that the Wehrmacht was facing a devastating defeat on the Eastern Front because at Stalingrad, the Sixth Army had been encircled. The Americans were still clinging to the hope that an invasion could be launched across the English Channel in 1943, but they didn't have the requisite troop strengths or the necessary equipment. For days, the Nazi leadership remained in the dark. Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary: "The meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt would is now indisputable is creating a stir at the moment. We don't know where the two super gangsters met, but the press in both Britain and America has announced that sensational news of far-reaching importance will be forthcoming." The Allies negotiated for 10 days. Roosevelt and Churchill then astonished the world public by stating that Nazi Germany and Japan had to surrender unconditionally. Italy was not mentioned in the press statement, so as not to undermine the possibility of a coup against Mussolini. The Casablanca conference marked the zenith of Britain's influence on Allied strategy. From now on, the Americans would push their plans through more and more, in close alliance with Moscow. Joseph Stalin was not particularly impressed by the news from Anfa. The Soviet leader had been invited, but with reference to

The battle for Stalingrad. He had decided not to attend the conference in January 1943. Cameraman WTA France filmed a meeting of two of the Axis powers. The Führer had received Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu at the Wolf's Lair, his headquarters in East Prussia.

Hitler was making the Romanians responsible for the precarious situation of the Sixth Army in Stalingrad. Antonescu countered by criticizing the Wehrmacht and its commanders. On Hitler's orders, the German people had not been told that the Sixth Army had been encircled for several weeks and stood no chance of receiving help from outside. The Führer categorically rejected any idea of capitulation. Nevertheless, on January 31st, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Red Army. The end of Nazi domination of virtually the whole of Europe was now only a question of time.

In the Balkans, partisan units in particular were making life difficult for the Germans. In August 1943, the Yugoslav resistance leader Josip Broz, who was known as Tito, received an Anglo-American military delegation at his mountain hideout. The scene was documented by a cameraman with the US Secret Service OSS.

Tito was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, in which he had proved his qualities as an organizer of the Communist International. He firmly believed that Communists worldwide had to help their comrades in the Soviet Union. Tito's partisans accepted defeats and brutal reprisals by the Germans and were also fighting against Croatian pro-Nazi collaborators. The British and the Americans had learned from decoded German radio messages that Tito's partisans would mount attacks no matter what the risk. So from then on, the Allies supported them with food and arms and, in doing so, turned a motley group of fighters into a powerful army.

Many Americans, in particular, held the naive view that communist resistance fighters just had to love freedom. Press reports time and again spoke of self-determination, the right of all nations to choose their own government, which Roosevelt and Churchill had guaranteed in the Atlantic Charter they proclaimed in 1941. The British Prime Minister was called an imperialist because he warned that after the Nazis had been defeated, communist parties would brutally crush all democratically minded forces in Stalin's name. And that's precisely what also happened in Yugoslavia under Tito's rule, right through to 1980.

At the conference in Casablanca, Churchill and Roosevelt also agreed to step up their air raids on German cities. Henceforth, the British flew at night and the Americans by day. Under the command of Air Marshal Arthur Harris, even residential areas were exposed to "morale bombing," as the British called it. But the US Air Force restricted its attacks to targets of military importance, such as submarine pens, armament factories, and German infrastructure. Hollywood director William Wyler was commissioned to document these dangerous operations. He was determined to fly on some of the missions himself and take pictures.

On February the 26th, 1943, Wyler and his team filmed the crews of the 91st Bomb Group being informed at daybreak that their next target would be the naval base at Wilhelmshaven. The Americans were stationed at Bassingbourn Airfield near Cambridge. They had to cross the Channel 25 times before they were allowed to go back home. Accordingly, Wyler's film was to be entitled "25 Missions."

The girlfriend of US pilot Robert Morgan had christened his bomber the "Memphis Belle." Later, the B-17 Flying Fortress lent its name to one of the most successful films on the Second World War. In a radio interview, William Wyler was asked how he had experienced the operations over France and Germany. "Fear, simple, honest fear. You're afraid of being killed. It's a feeling you've never had until you've been shot at. But there's an even more powerful feeling that really helps. When you look around and see the sky full of Flying Fortresses and then look down at the enemy coastline, you'd rather be where you are than down below."

Wyler and the cameramen on board other aircraft had to work under the most difficult conditions. Above all, they had a real problem with the bitter cold at an altitude of more than 10,000 meters. If you wanted to change the film, you had to take off your glove. But if you took it off for more than one or two minutes, you would lose some fingers from frostbite. Being on oxygen, your efficiency was at a minimum. Taking three steps was like walking a mile. So far, there was no sign of enemy fighters, but then came the flak. "William Wyler, the flak was terrific. We'd fly through entire belts of it. The blue sky looked like a punctured sieve." One of the cameramen was killed when his plane was brought down. In a letter, Wyler wrote, "I saw so many who never came back. But it makes a difference when it's one of my own people, someone I recruited myself and sent off on a mission." William Wyler filmed spectacular scenes of German fighters attacking the bombers. Finally, the big moment: the bomb aimer focuses on his target. Wilhelmshaven is now defenseless. Later, Wyler constructed his picture as if these scenes had been filmed from the "Memphis Belle." But on this particular day, in fact, the B-17 wasn't even in the air.

In the night of the 27th and 28th of July 1943, the British Royal Air Force attacked Hamburg. The bombs created a horrific firestorm, which raged for 5 hours in the workers' suburbs in the east of the city. The next day, fireman Hans Brunk took these pictures of the firefighting operations. 24 hours after the raid, some of the fires were still burning. Around 150,000 people were left homeless.

Hamburg author Hans Erich Nossack wrote, "Nothing around us bore any resemblance to what we had lost. It was something totally different, something alien, something that could not actually be possible." But why document all this? Would it not be better for it to be forgotten for all time? In all, Operation Gomorrah, the military name for the bombing raids on Hamburg, claimed around 34,000 lives. Barely half the victims could be identified. People now fled from the devastated city in droves, homeless, desperate, and terrified. An assembly center was set up in Hamburg's Moorweide Park. The actual aim of the bombing campaign was to break German morale, but that was something the Allies never achieved.

Fireman Hans Brunk documented the exodus of the survivors. In the days after the first massive air raid, around 900,000 people left Hamburg. They were evacuated into the hinterland on trucks. Some tried to make their way to Southern Germany, where they felt they would be safer.

In May 1943, work began in Hamburg and in a film studio in Berlin on the production of one of the Third Reich's last color films. But because of the increasing number of air raids, the shooting was moved to Prague. The aim of the entertainment film "Große Freiheit Nr. 7" was to take people's minds off the ever-present war. German film star Hans Albers played the main role in a love drama which took place on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. But the censor refused to allow the film to be shown in Germany. It was thought that there were ulterior motifs behind the title. What's more, the characters did not correspond to the Nazi ideal. Consequently, it was only after the war that the film became a classic.

The Nazi leadership was now placing its remaining hopes of final victory in what it called its "Wonder Weapons." In late June 1943, the first V-2 rockets were tested in absolute secrecy at the experimental center in Peenemünde on the Baltic Coast. The plan was to use the new type of missile to attack Allied cities in retaliation for the Allied bombing of German cities. For documentary purposes, all the tests were filmed, sometimes in color. At the end of the war, the material was seized by the American Secret Service and taken back to the United States.

In the early days, the test results were inconsistent. Time and again, things went wrong. Engineer Wernher von Braun had developed the new rockets and brought them up to production level. Although he was a member of the SS and used slave laborers from concentration camps in the construction of his rockets, von Braun was not put on trial by the Allies. Later, he was even allowed to head NASA's Luna program. The head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, traveled to Peenemünde to form his own impression of the V-2. Because of Allied bombing raids, production was moved to a mine in the Harz Mountains. On September the 7th, 1944, the first V-2 hit London.

With Allied bombing raids now threatening to paralyze Germany's entire armaments industry, more and more facilities vital to the war effort were being moved underground or given special protection. In 1944, for example, a huge reinforced concrete Colossus was built in the Bremen suburb of Farge for the construction of submarines. A naval architect filmed the work with his camera. He was one of the few cine enthusiasts who still had 16mm color material. Unintentionally, he also recorded the brutality of the Nazi dictatorship. The project was built with slave labor from concentration camps. Despite the efforts of tens of thousands of workers from concentration camps, the Valentine bunker was never finished, and not a single submarine was ever built in it.

The Nazi propaganda machine still had some 35mm film at its disposal, and its camera teams were instructed to produce footage at the front and at home. These pictures show German dive bombers in action somewhere in Russia. In January 1944, Joseph Goebbels had at last given his approval to the old plan of producing a monthly color newsreel for showing in neutral countries. The first of three editions of "Panorama" were screened that same year. Scenes like these from ground-attack aircraft in the East were probably filmed much earlier.

In the summer of 1944, cameraman Heinz von Jaworski filmed on a Sunday in Berlin. In the fifth year of the war, by now, Berlin journalist Ruth Andreas-Friedrich was hoping to see the end of Nazi rule. Yet she had her doubts. "If we talk, plan, or recruit followers, we will hang, because at least one person in ten is treacherous or talks too much. Yet if we remain silent and are only up in arms in the silence of our own four walls, we keep the Nazis in power. That is the tragedy of our situation. Can a small group of 10 or 20 resolute souls topple the Third Reich? And we are only a small group, small groups in Berlin, small groups in Dresden, in Breslau, or in Hamburg, a handful here, a handful there, who like the King's children in the fairy tale, never come together."

Summer 1944. Somewhere in Nazi Germany, cameraman Göran Schildt took this footage of members of the Hitler Youth and the Federation of German Girls helping to bring in the harvest as part of their land service. Schildt was a so-called color film reporter for the "Deutsche Wochenschau," a weekly newsreel shown in German cinemas. He had been commissioned to provide emotive pictures for the "Panorama" project in Berlin.

At roughly the same time, cameraman Heinz Sass and his assistant Karl Falter were filming the morning dance performances by girls at a meadow gymnastics college. Such scenes were only to be shown abroad to neutral countries. They suggest that in no way did the Third Reich regard the war as lost. Many cinema-goers in Germany would probably have sneered at such pictures, because the precarious situation at the front and the devastating destruction caused by Allied bombing raids could no longer be kept secret.

Peenemünde on the Baltic, manned by recruits. German motor torpedo boats are setting out on an exercise. With its warships now barely operational and unable to be deployed in the North Sea or the English Channel, the German Navy was relying mainly on these powerful flotillas. They were used to attack coastal shipping off the British Isles. As the son of a film producer from Kiel, cameraman Gerhard Gade was in his element. Gade was fully aware that his pictures had nothing to do with reality.

London, May 1944. Springtime calm before the storm. These pictures were taken with this amateur camera by American war reporter Jack Lieb. The decision had been taken: in a few weeks' time, the Allies would attempt a landing in Normandy. All that remained was for the precise date to be set. Church services in Westminster Abbey were also attended by American troops. On this warm Sunday in May, many Londoners were relaxing in Hyde Park. They knew no longer had to fear German bombing raids and, as yet, had no idea of the existence of Hitler's Wonder Weapons, the V-1 and the V-2.

Jack Lieb's task was to provide black and white material for the US weekly newsreel "News of the Day." But he also had a small amateur film camera with him and 16mm material, which he used to take pictures for his family. At the end of May 1944, a host of American war correspondents headed to the south of England to report on the biggest amphibious landing operation in history. Selected journalists, press photographers, and camera teams would be present on D-Day. They were only allowed to take along what they could carry on their backs. Everything, of course, had to be kept top secret. The enemy had to be kept totally in the dark. Also present was star journalist Ernie Pyle, a Pulitzer Prize winner. On May the 31st, Pyle wrote in his notebook, "So I now know the secret the whole world has waited years to hear. And once you have heard it, you become permanently a part of it. Now you were committed. It was too late to back out now, even if your heart failed you." At this point, more than 3 million troops were on standby on the south coast of England, ready to drive the Nazis out of France.

On June the 3rd, the US war correspondents were waiting in Weymouth, where part of the Allied Armada was lying at anchor. Ernie Pyle wrote, "And in more pensive moments, we also conjectured on our chances of coming through alive. We felt our chances were not very good, and we were not happy about it." Military commanders expected losses to be high. Some put the chance of establishing a bridgehead at just 50%. In his diary, British Field Marshal Alan Brooke had this to say about the forthcoming invasion: "At best, it will come very far short of the expectations of the bulk of the people, namely all those who know nothing about its difficulties. At its worst, it may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war."

The plans for Operation Overlord involved five divisions going ashore in Normandy. The aim was for the invasion force to reach the Seine and Loire Rivers within 90 days, driving the Germans back eastwards. The Allies would then liberate Paris. The Americans had been allocated two sectors on the west of the invasion front: Utah Beach and Omaha Beach.

June the 6th, 1944. D-Day. Now only professionals were allowed on the scene. Several weeks earlier, Hollywood director John Ford had already been given the most important task of his career: he was to record the massive event on film with as many camera teams as possible.

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's task was to prevent the landings. His orders were clear: "The technically most difficult point, the moment when troops make for the beach in boats, should be used for defense with every means possible. Pre-beach obstacles, beach mines, and concentrated fire from all weapons as the enemy comes ashore should increase the problem of this maneuver many times over." Machine gunners on Omaha Beach fired at anything that moved. Thousands of American soldiers were killed or seriously wounded. In an interview 20 years later, John Ford remembered, "Once I was on the beach, I ran forward and started placing some of my men behind things so they'd have a chance to shoot their film. All I could think was that for the most part, everything was all so well coordinated, fitted perfectly, went beautifully to my mind. Though chaotic, kids were heroes. I saw very few dead and wounded men. Later, I could see one dead floating in the sea."

On HMS Belfast, one of the Royal Navy's flagships, Hollywood director George Stevens experienced D-Day off Juno Beach. He was taking part in the landing with an army film team to document the Allies' historic achievement for people back home, but in black and white. This color footage was only found in his estate many years later. Just before the men went ashore, the captain recited the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V: "And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day to the end of the world, but we in it shall be remembered; we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

On the late morning of June the 6th, George Stevens and his men also went ashore. Juno Beach was in Allied hands. The team started to film. The German defenders had left Bayeux in a hurry. Now supplies were coming ashore. In the village itself, a bar had been open since 9:00 a.m. In front of it, a French resistance fighter, holding his nation's flag, posed for the camera. A tank from a mine-sweeping unit, apparently disabled by a landmine.

When Adolf Hitler learned of the Allied landings, he was in high spirits. "The news couldn't be better. As long as they were in England, they were out of reach. Now at last we have got them where we can defeat them."

On the afternoon of June the 6th, the American war correspondents landed on Utah Beach. Jack Lieb took these pictures with his amateur camera. By chance, the US forces' landing on this northernmost sector of the invasion front had had a surprisingly easy time of it. The tide had swept their landing craft to a more southerly point, which was virtually undefended. Some GIs were disappointed that the operation had not been tougher. One eyewitness remembered later, "It there was little trace of the elation that had been expected. On the other hand, there was no major confusion either."

The Royal Air Force attacked the city of Caen, which was being fanatically defended by the Germans. A color film reporter took these pictures, which were used in a "Panorama" weekly newsreel. The German 21st Armored Division was stationed in the town. The Allies became engaged in vicious street-to-street fighting and suffered heavy losses. It was not until July the 19th that German resistance in Caen was finally broken.

George Stevens and his men followed the advancing American troops westwards into the bocage, a region of fields and hedgerows where there was fierce fighting. The Hollywood director was worried about his team because the almost impenetrable bocage was perfect terrain for ambushes and booby traps. Time and again, the Germans registered successes against a superior force. On June the 30th, star reporter Ernie Pyle wrote to a friend, "This 'hatch-to-hatch' stuff is a form of warfare we haven't had to cope with before, and I've seen more dead Germans than ever in my life. Americans as well, but not so many as Germans. One day I'll think I'm getting hardened to dead people, dead young people, and vast numbers, and then next day I'll notice I'm not, and never could be. I have continually to fight a kind of inner depression over the ghastliness of it all."

On July the 7th, 1944, British Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery decorated American soldiers for their courage on D-Day. George Stevens and his team filmed the ceremony. Also present was US General George S. Patton, who had only arrived in Normandy the day before. The old warhorse had had to spend a whole month in England, basically kicking his heels. In his diary, Patton wrote, "It is hell to be on the sidelines and see all the glory eluding me." On his arrival at the Omaha Beach sector, Patton had inspired his troops with a fiery speech: "I'm proud to be here to fight beside you. Now let's cut the guts out of those Krauts and get the hell on to Berlin! And when we get to Berlin, I'm going to personally shoot that paper-hanging goddamn son of a [ __ ] just like I would a snake!"

In early July 1944, war correspondent Jack Lieb traveled with General Joseph Collins's entourage to the northern tip of Normandy. Around 21,000 German troops had dug in around the port of Cherbourg and were putting up solid resistance. But on July the 26th, the Germans finally surrendered to a superior force. An American officer noted that "some of my boys couldn't understand why the Germans surrendered so quickly." Collins celebrated the victory together with the mayor of Cherbourg and some of its citizens. The general was known affectionately to his men as "Lightning Joe." Hitler is said to have been as enraged at the fall of Cherbourg as he was when Field Marshal Paulus surrendered at Stalingrad.

The small town of Barfleur lies roughly 30 km east of Cherbourg. Its port had been fortified by the Germans, and the Allies now planned to use it for bringing in supplies. Together with his colleagues, Jack Lieb viewed the defenses that had been installed on the beaches and the bunkers the Germans had built to assess the situation in and around Barfleur. One of Hitler's field marshals had paid a personal visit to the area as late as May 1944. But as it turned out, Barfleur was never one of the targets of the first wave of the invasion. Rommel was impressed by the enemy operation in Normandy. "Technically and strategically, the landings in Normandy were an outstanding achievement."

When the Germans withdrew from Saint-Lô, the town was in ruins. George Stevens and his team filmed in Saint-Lô in early August. It was here that the Allies made the decisive breakthrough in the battle for Normandy. A bridge, hurriedly repaired by US sappers, secured the supply line to the West. Saint-Lô served the Germans as an important traffic junction for the redeployment of troops, so the town had been bombed and shelled time and again. In a letter home, a German lance corporal wrote, "Today I spoke to someone who had fought on the Eastern Front. He said things had also been tough in the East, but never as tough as they are here. If a German soldier deserts to the enemy, his family doesn't get any support, and if we were to win the war, he would have to be handed over to be dealt with. Week after week passed with the Allies making only slow progress, but in the end, the Americans achieved the decisive breakthrough. On July the 26th, 1944, they took the small town of Marigny." Shelling and strafing had reduced many buildings to rubble. George Stevens and his team filmed the destruction. The fighting morale of the German troops declined rapidly. On July the 26th, a paramedic noted this remark by a soldier who had been wounded: "I'll tell you one thing, medic, here in Normandy, it's not war anymore. The enemy is superior in both men and material. Without adequate weapons, we are simply being sent to our deaths. Our military leaders are doing nothing whatsoever to help us. For me, the war's over."

For most Americans, the only good German was a dead one. The Waffen-SS were particularly hated because of the repeated reports of wounded GIs being murdered. The black uniforms, it seems, were coveted trophies. In the major offensive in July, 40,000 American servicemen had been killed or wounded. The troops who had survived were exhausted from weeks of fighting.

George Stevens had received instructions from the highest level that first of all, he was to follow General Patton's troops as they advanced towards Brittany. The men in his unit respected the Hollywood director, yet Stevens, who always seemed to be grumpy, remained something of an enigma to them. One of his colleagues remarked later that he was uncommunicative and looked serious even when he was making a joke.

On August the 15th, 1944, an armada of nearly 900 ships approached the coast of Southern France. On board one vessel were American film director William Wyler and his camera teams. The operation was only about half the size of the invasion of Normandy. Three American divisions went ashore on the first day alone. The BBC informed the French Resistance about the imminent launching of this second invasion by broadcasting coded messages: "Garby is sleeping in the grass. Nancy has got a stiff neck, and the hunter is hungry."

German prisoners of war had to help unload the ships. In contrast to D-Day, in the coastal town of Saint-Tropez, the GIs met with hardly any resistance. There was one brief firefight, which cost less than 100 American lives. Afterwards, supplies could be brought ashore unimpeded. The Nazi leadership displayed a lethargic reaction to the news from the south of France. In his diary, Joseph Goebbels remarked laconically that "the enemy claims that the contingent that has now landed is more powerful than the one that came ashore in Normandy. But they're only saying that to scare us. It will, of course, take us a few days to implement our counter-measures, because obviously we can't position adequate numbers of troops at every place on the coast to repel an enemy landing operation."

Even after the Normandy landings, the dangers for the civilian population still existed. The Germans had mined many towns and villages to impede the advancing Allied troops. George Stevens and his camera team were filming in the town of Coutances when a German landmine suddenly exploded. The GIs took cover, just in case there might be other blasts. US paramedics were on the spot immediately, because one soldier had obviously been wounded. In Coutances, US sappers had made most of the roads passable again. The Americans had assembled 15,000 men in the area to open up supply routes blocked by wrecked German vehicles.

Even though countless houses had been destroyed in the fighting, most French people were relieved to be liberated by the Allies. By now, they were no longer afraid that the invasion might fail and the Germans would return. But many wondered about the immediate future. Would the Americans ensure a supply of food to the population, and who would be in control in Normandy in the future: the occupying forces or the French themselves?

Under the leadership of de Gaulle, George Stevens had been given permission to film a German prisoner of war camp. This was the Hollywood director's first encounter with the defeated enemy, a foe who had put up such fierce resistance over the last few weeks. The few possessions the soldiers had with them were carefully inspected. By now, most of the German prisoners were glad that for them, the war was over. The fighting had demoralized them. According to a US report, many Germans created a lethargic impression. Large numbers of those taken prisoner were exhausted. The Americans found that young soldiers, in particular, had believed Nazi propaganda. In fact, one prisoner said to a GI, "There's not much of New York left standing, is there?" "What are you talking about?" the GI asked. "Well," the German replied, "it was bombed by the Luftwaffe, wasn't it?"

Captured German soldiers were transported away from the front and later put on ships. Thousands were sent to prisoner of war camps in Britain or the United States, where they remained until the war was over.

At Mont Saint-Michel, Jack Lieb filmed American star photographer Robert Capa, who had documented the horrors of the landing on Omaha Beach on the morning of June the 6th. The American war reporters had gone on an outing to the medieval island fortress. Also present was author Ernest Hemingway, who was famous for his ability to hold his drink. Hemingway had come close to being killed by a German shell. Here, it seems, he has liberated a bar. Later, Robert Capa said Hemingway had accused him of not having helped him when the author sought cover from the shell in a ditch, that Hemingway claimed was because Capa wanted to take the first picture of the celebrated writer's corpse.

Meanwhile, to the north, the Allies had achieved a decisive breakthrough. But even so, many German units had managed to escape East. Paris was now within range, but a bizarre argument took place about the next steps to be taken. The talk was of an imminent uprising in the French capital, which might then be suppressed by the Germans with extreme measures. General de Gaulle told the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, who actually wanted to bypass the French capital, "We must march into Paris." So on August the 22nd, 1944, Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the order for the French Second Armored Division to take Paris. The French were to liberate their capital themselves.

The final stage of the advance through the suburbs of Paris was a victory parade. George Stevens and his cameramen were allowed to be present when French forces entered the capital on August the 24th. Later, he told his son that it had been the greatest day of his life. Here, Stevens and his team are waiting at the Gare Montparnasse railway station for a delegation from the Wehrmacht. The city's commandant had had been ordered to defend Paris to the last man and then blow up the most important buildings. But after a meeting with Hitler, General Dietrich von Choltitz was certain that he was showing loyalty to a madman, so he had decided to surrender the city without a fight. The surrender document was signed inside the railway station, where it was actually too dark to film.

In the meantime, General de Gaulle had also arrived. He had organized French Resistance from Britain. Now the day of his triumph over the hated Nazi occupiers had come. In order to capture the historic moment on film, George Stevens wanted those involved in the ceremony to repeat it outside. When von Choltitz hesitated, the tipsy director is said to have remarked, "Sag, General, that's war." De Gaulle's strategy had paid off. Sitting in every ministry were people of his choice. The provisional government of the French Republic had assumed power, and not the Americans. Then it was time to celebrate. Later, Stevens's assistant, British screenwriter Ivan Moffat, remembered, "One knew at the time it was going to be the most exhilarating day. I mean, it couldn't help but be, particularly as we thought that the war was pretty much over and that the Germans were in headlong retreat. The atmosphere was intoxicating, exhilarating, with these thousands and thousands of people embracing us, embracing each other, under an absolutely brilliant sky. Paris looking absolutely marvelous, not at all shabby. An atmosphere almost like a bullfight."

At the request of US General Omar Bradley, on August the 26th, 1944, de Gaulle took part in a parade of the US 28th Infantry Division on the Champs-Élysées. Reporter Ernie Pyle had experienced the boundless joy of the French on the day of their liberation. Now he was disappointed. "As usual, those Americans most deserving of seeing Paris will be the last ones to see it, if they ever do. By that I mean the fighting soldiers. Only one infantry regiment and one reconnaissance outfit of Americans actually came into Paris, and they passed on through the city quickly and went on with their war. The first ones in the city to stay were such non-fighters as the psychological warfare and civil affairs people, public relations men, and correspondents. I heard more than one GI echo land soldiers say he felt a little ashamed to be getting all the grateful cheers and kisses for the liberation of Paris when the guys who broke the German Army and opened the way for Paris to be free were still out there fighting without the benefit of kisses or applause. But that's the way things are in this world."

Like many of his colleagues, George Stevens also took time out to sleep in a real bed and to write to his family. "The days and nights all ran over themselves and became pretty much one thing. The struggle to get to Paris, the doing, and the two weeks before were the most exciting, the most unbelievable time of my life. I do hope you and Georgie have seen the newsreel that carried our film."

At the same time, Stevens's Hollywood colleague William Wyler and his camera teams were filming in the south of France, where remnants of the Wehrmacht were still trying to hold Marseille while French troops were combating the last pockets of resistance. The resistance had already occupied strategic positions in the city center. Street after street was searched to check for German snipers. The next day, the Germans surrendered. After liberation, the search began for those who had collaborated with the hated enemy. A suspect's mother says goodbye to her son, who is then taken away by resistance fighters. Power in Marseille passed into the hands of left-wing forces of the resistance movement. The Americans were tolerated, but as far as possible, were expected to stay out of the city and to push further north. Concerned that his country might become divided, General de Gaulle diffused the situation with a trick. The paramilitary groups were quickly integrated into the French army.

Hitler had already ordered a withdrawal from Southern France. On August the 17th, 1944, nearly 300,000 German troops were able to pull back. The wounded were left behind in field hospitals to be captured and were taken to prisoner of war camps. The Allies' successes had had a demoralizing effect on the enemy. Many simply gave up. Their attitude now was, "It's all over, so bugger them. Now we're going to surrender." As Hitler's Blitzkrieg warriors in 1940, they had overrun France in just a few weeks. Now the sad remnants were being taken prisoner. In the summer of 1944, the Wehrmacht lost nearly 240,000 men killed or wounded. 200,000 German troops were first interned in provisional detention camps.

After his resounding success with "Memphis Belle," William Wyler wanted to make a documentary film about the American fighter aircraft who were attacking German units or convoys behind the front. But his teams never succeeded in showing us Thunderbolts in action. His camera teams were only able to capture the results of their attacks. In the opinion of cameraman Karl Maslowski, Wyler used far too many rolls of color film without rhyme or reason. "In my whole career, I have never seen such a disgraceful waste of precious film material." But sometimes there were exceptions. Near Lyon, a squadron of Thunderbolts had destroyed a Wehrmacht bus. Wyler's team photographed the enemy dead.

A second team followed the advancing Americans towards the Swiss border in the Jura Mountains in eastern France. The village of La Charité had been almost completely destroyed by US fighter aircraft. Its inhabitants gave their liberators a somewhat lukewarm reception. But in other places, it was a different story. This German lance corporal is lucky; he has even been given a glass of red wine. By September 1944, virtually the whole of France was free again. Only in Alsace and Lorraine, the two regions annexed by the Wehrmacht in 1940, were the Americans still facing fierce resistance.

William Wyler ended his filming. His sole aim now was to get to Mulhouse, the town where he was born and where his parents ran a haberdashery business before immigrating to America. The color film reporters with the "Panorama" weekly newsreel were still filming in the autumn of 1944. Here, cameraman Karl Zontar is out on the Baltic with some of the German Navy's net-laying ships. 18 net-laying vessels had been tasked with blocking harbor entrances or important shipping routes to prevent submarines, torpedoes, or frogmen getting through. Through scenes like these, they were intended to make cinema-goers in neutral countries think that Hitler and the Wehrmacht had taken every measure to prevent the Allies from achieving further successes.

The Nazi propaganda ministry was still placing its faith in entertainment. Cameraman Karl Falter was sent to La Ciotat in France to film a performance by the Busch Circus. Master Olman with his 12 Arab stallions and tightrope walker Dinda delighted the audience, which also contained SS and regular army soldiers. Around this time, journalist Ruth Andreas-Friedrich noted in her diary that "we are making an effort with thoughts and wishes, with hopes, aspirations, and expectations. Hardly a day passes without us talking about final victory. Our final victory - will we see it this year, or will we have to wait until next year?"

On the Western Front, they seemed to be taking a breather. With a massive array of men and material, the Western Allies had liberated France and reached the borders of the Reich. Their biggest problem now was not the Wehrmacht, but supplies. Because of the speed of their advance in August and September, the Allies had to wait for fresh troops, arms, and ammunition to be transported to the front from ports in Normandy and Provence. To the disappointment of the British, the final decision on further action rested with the Allies. American Commander-in-Chief Montgomery, in the meantime promoted to Field Marshal, wanted to make a quick thrust into the Ruhr industrial region. But General Eisenhower continued to place his faith in the superior strength of his forces.

George Stevens and his team also had to wait. Midway between Paris and Reims, they halted for a while in Château-Thierry on the river Marne. High above the small town stands a huge monument commemorating the dead of the First World War. In May 1918, the area saw months of fierce fighting between German troops and units of the American Expeditionary Force, which had been sent to the front in support of the hard-pressed French army. Stevens and his men were well aware that the Second World War still wasn't over. Pessimists reckoned that the fighting could last into 1946 and cost many more American lives. Next to the graves from July 1918, there were now new wooden crosses for GIs who had only recently lost their lives.

American war reporter Jack Lieb and his colleagues traveled to the Ardennes to meet up once again with General "Lightning Joe" Collins. The headquarters of the US First Infantry Division was located in Huis, Belgium. Collins and his team were preparing to advance across the border into the German Reich. The civilian population had no idea that the Germans would return during the Ardennes Offensive of December 1944 and that Allied bombers would reduce their town to rubble. But for now, everything was going to plan, and American troops were given the order to attack the Imperial City of Aachen, the Nazi bulwark known as the Siegfried Line. Jack Lieb filmed these children, symbols of innocence in a time of horror. Hitler's suicide and Germany's unconditional surrender were still eight months away. Eight months in which millions of soldiers, civilians, and concentration camp inmates would become further victims of the dictator's crimes against humanity.