- Description
- Volunteers in various countries. Danish volunteers for "Germany's fight against Bolshevism" enter a building with a sign that reads "Arbejdsfronten DNS." Norwegian men sign up for military service. Men in black uniforms march down the street in the Netherlands. Rowdy volunteers saluting and carrying anti-Bolshevik banners march down a street in Spain. Members of the Blue Division from Spain depart the Bordeaux train station for the front. They lean out the windows and wave. Mussolini bids farewell to Italian volunteers in Verona. The volunteers parade down the street in motorcycles and other military vehicles. Crowds wave flags and cheer. An image of Romanian newspapers, as the narrator describes spontaneous gatherings of pro-German Romanian citizens. Romanians waving Romanian and German flags gather at the German embassy in Bucharest. Romanian soldiers march toward the front. Cheering and saluting civilians gather to see them off. Slovakian soldiers march down the street. The narrator says that they will again fight side by side with German troops, as they did in the Polish campaign. Hungarian volunteers march down the street at the narrator says that men from almost all parts of Europe have joined the fight against Bolshevism.
01:19:01 German (and Romanian?) troops move down dusty roads. A soldier receives a drink of water from a peasant. A sign reading "Heil Hitler!" in German and Ukrainian welcomes German troops to a Ukrainian town (town name is mentioned but difficul to understand). Villagers in the marketplace and waving to the German troops. A woman hands a German salt and bread, which the narrator describes as a "symbol of hospitality." Aerial shots of buildings bombed by the departing Soviets. German soldiers and civilians tear down a poster described as "Moscow propaganda kitsch." A statue of Stalin is toppled.
01:20:44
Soldiers march across a reconstructed bridge and down a road while a song plays. The lyrics include, "In der Heimat." Long shot of the burning city of Minsk. Destroyed buildings and rubble in the city. German soldiers and civilians in the streets; good shots of still-burning buildings. Shot of an undamaged building with the narration, "only the administrative building of the Soviet party was spared by the Bolshevists." Statue of Lenin with anti-Bolshevist commentary. Good shots of the spectacular destruction of the city. Civilians pick through the rubble. Wehrmacht soldiers move forward on a muddy road past a group of civilians. Civilians, including children, watch as a soldier nails an army symbol onto a wooden fence. People inside a shop with a poster of Stalin in the window. CU of a Soviet propaganda poster meant to encourage the Red Army's fight against the Germans. German artillery fires on the Stalin Line.
Shots of Soviet POWs, including Asians and a Soviet "Flintenweib" or female partisan, in uniform. Marching column of Soviet POWS. The narrator says that as a result of the double battle of Bialystok and Minsk, almost 350,000 POWs were captured. See duplicate footage: Story 3912, Film ID 2691.
- Duration
- 00:08:16
- Date
-
Event:
1941
Production:
1941 July 16
- Locale
-
Denmark
Norway
Spain
Bucharest,
Romania
Czechoslovakia
Hungary
Soviet Union
Ukraine
Minsk,
Soviet Union
Slovakia
Verona,
Italy
Bordeaux,
France
- Credit
- Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Bundesarchiv
