Nazi newsreels in Europe, 1939-1945: The many faces of Ufa's foreign weekly newsreel (Auslandstonwoche) versus German's weekly newsreel (Deutsche Wochenschau)

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Volumn 24, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 5-34

  Vande Winkel, Roel ^a,b  

^a GHENT UNIVERSITY   (Belgium)

^b NONE   (Belgium)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049342362     PISSN: 01439685     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0143968032000184470     Document Type: Review

References (104)

1. Recently, German universities and archives showed an increasing interest for the short documentary that formed part and parcel of each cinema programma: the so-called Kulturfilm.. Peter Zimmermann and Kay Hoffmann (eds), Triumph der Bilder, Kultur- und Dokumentarfilme vor 1945 im internationalen Vergleich (Konstanz, 2003).
2. R.C. Raack, Nazi Film propaganda and the horrors of war, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 6:2 (1986), p. 189.
3. In 2000, the Bundesarchiv reprinted a catalogue of its newsreel and documentary holdings (1895-1950) in which a short summary of the newsreels mentioned above can be found: Peter Bucher, Wochenschauen und Dokumentarfilme 1895-1950 im Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv (Koblenz, Bundesarchiv, 1984-Nachdruk, 2000). These newsreel summaries give an indication of their content, but are too brief to be more than suggestive. Nevertheless, the Bundesarchiv has far more extensive and very accurate newsreel descriptions that are available for researchers visiting the archive. These texts describe every newsreel item in great detail. They need further editing but are the potential basis of an excellent wartime newsreel repertory. It can only be hoped that the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, which showed to be very supportive towards research in this field, will find funding to publish such a project. An indication of the richness of their collections can be found on http://www.wochenschau-archiv.de
4. Some parts of this article were previously published in Dutch. See Roel Vande Winkel, Filmjournaals in bezet Nederland (1940-1944): de Nederlandse nieuwsfilmoorlog in internationaal perspectief, Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis, 6:1 (2003), pp. 72-92.
5. This section, unless otherwise noted, is mainly based on the following articles. Peter Bucher, Wochenschau und Staat 1895-1945, Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 35:1 (1984), pp. 746-757.
6. David Welch, Nazi wartime newsreel propaganda, in K.R.M. Short (ed.), Film & Radio Propaganda in World War II (Knoxville, 1983), pp. 202-219.
7. Other than the production of amateur films of party rallies.
8. The difference between party and state faded: their merging or Gleichschaltung was characteristic of the Nazi regime.
9. For a biography of Hippler, see Roel Vande Winkel, Nazi Germany's Fritz Hippler (1909-2002), Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 23:2 (2003), pp. 91-99.
10. See Kay Hoffmann's article for further elaboration on this matter.
11. Bundesarchiv (hereafter: BArch), R 55/504, pp. 33-34.
12. Willi A. Boelcke, Kriegspropaganda 1939-1941. Geheime Ministerkonferenzen im Reichspropagandaministerium (Stuttgart, 1966), p. 170.
13. Nicolaus Schröder, Vorwiegend deutsch: Ton für die Wochenschau, in Hans-Michael Bock and Michael Töteberg (eds), Das Ufa-Buch (Frankfurt am Main, 1992), p. 281.
14. Boelcke, Kriegspropaganda, p. 170.
15. Hans Traub, Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Ufa-Wochenschauen, in 25 Jahre Ufa-Wochenschau (Berlin, 1939), pp. 18-21. (In 1939, Ufa pretended to celebrate its newsreel's 25th anniversary, tracing its history back to Oskar Messter.)
16. BArch, R 109 1/1033 c, p. 196.
17. BArch, R 109 1/2423, Ufa Situationsbericht für die Zeit vom 1. bis 30 Sept. 1939, p. 3.
18. BArch, R 55/491, p. 199.
19. For example, the French version of ATW issue 467 lacks a retrospective of French-Italian fighting in the Alps. The Spanish version of the same ATW lacks an item on Spanish artists performing in Berlin.
20. BArch, R 55/773, p. 58.
21. DW issue 537 versus the French version of ATW issue 486 (French Actualités Mondiales 41-24).
22. The most detailed ATW catalogue to date can be found in Roel Vande Winkel, Nazi Nezvsreek and Foreign Propaganda in German-occupied Territories: the Belgian version of Ufa's foreign weekly newsreel, ATW (1940-1944). Part 2: annotated catalogue of Belgian ATW-versions (Ghent, 2003). This will be published in 2005 by Academia Press (Ghent).
23. For a detailed analysis of the Katyn propaganda campaign, see John P. Fox, Der Fall Katyn und die Propaganda des NS-Regimes, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 30 (1982), pp. 462-499. Fox's article was published before the Soviets publicly acknowledged (in April 1990) that the massacres had been committed by their security services.
24. Elke Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Teil II - Diktate 1941-1945. Band 8: April-Juni 1943 (München, 1996), p. 113.
25. The item formed part of the so-called standard ATW and circulated in Belgian, Dutch, French and many other local ATW versions. I am indebted to Dr. Wolfgang Gogolin (Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv) for verifying this information.
26. Partial translation of the comments of the Belgian ATW (Actualités Mondiales 609). It is not inconceivable that some other ATW versions either edited/commented the footage in different ways or excluded the Katyn item altogether. Research on the corresponding Polish or Russian ATW versions could yield interesting results.
27. Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, p. 126.
28. Gerd Albrecht, Nationalsozialistische Filmpolitik. Eine soziologische Untersuchung über die Spielfilme des Dritten Reiches (Stuttgart, 1969), p. 59.
29. Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, pp. 176-177.
30. This sheds new light on the Nazi film policy towards the exposure of war horror. Raack, Nazi Film Propaganda, pp. 190-191.
31. This section is, unless otherwise noted, based on various documents in folders BArch R 109 I/1285-1286 and R 109 II/48.
32. Heinrich Roellenbleg, Von der Arbeit an der Deutschen Wochenschau, Der deutsche Film, Sonderausgabe 1940/1941 (1941), pp. 144-145.
33. Hans Spielhofer, Von der Kamera ins Kino: die Herstellung der Kriegswochenschau, Der deutsche Film, 11-12 (1941), pp. 226-227.
34. The Imperial War Museum holds some prints of English ATW versions. The commentary is spoken in German-accented American English.
35. Fritz Hippler, Die Filmzensur der Neutralen, Der deutsche Film, 6:4/5 (1941), pp. 2-3.
36. According to documents kept at the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv ATW, issue 713 was censored (Granskn.Nr. 68536) in Stockholm on 7 May 1945.
37. In April 1941, ATW issues 500 and 501, respectively, featured items of Japanese foreign affairs minister Matsuoka visiting Berlin and Moscow.
38. Armand von Zelewski, third and last head of the Belgian editorial office, in a letter to the author, 22 January 2002.
39. El anniversario de la Victoria, ABC-Madrid, 2 April 1942, pp. 1 and 3-4. I am very indebted to Els Maes and Rafael de España for their assistance in my research on the Victory Day Parade.
40. See, for instance, the Dutch version of ATW issue 557 (completed in Berlin) as well as its French and Belgian counterparts. Note that DW issue 609 also adopted the item and likewise the erroneous comments.
41. Sheelagh M. Ellwood, Spanish newsreels 1943-1975: the image of the Franco regime, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 7:3 (1987), pp. 225-230. No-Do stands for Noticiarios y Documentales Cinematográficos or 'Cinematographic Newsreels and Documentaries'.
42. I elaborated the history of the Spanish Außenstelle in the paper 'The image of Franco's Spain in Nazi newsreels of the Second World War', which was presented at the 4th International Symposium of Film & History in Madrid (November 2002). For a detailed analysis of this newsreel, see R. R. Tranche and V. Sánchez-Biosca, No-Do: El tiempo y la Memoria (Madrid, 2002).
43. Kay Gladstone, British interception of German export newsreels, and the development of British combat filming, 1939-1942, Imperial War Museum Review, 2 (1987), pp. 33-34. As a result, the Imperial War Museum houses Spanish and Portuguese ATW prints that are unavailable in the German Bundesarchiv- Filmarchiv.
44. For an account of Luce (and foreign) newsreels in Italy (1927-1939), see Elaine Mancini, Struggles of the Italian Film Industry during Fascism, 1930-1935 (Ann Harbor, 1985), pp. 121-160. Note that the author often uses the term 'newsreels' instead of 'newsreel items', which may cause confusion.
45. Masaru Okumura, Uber den Einfluss der Deutschen Wochenschau auf die Japanischen Nihon Nyusu während des zweiten Weltkrieges, Iconics, 5 (2000), pp. 59-71.
46. R.C. Raack, Nazi newsreels for the general government (1940-1944), Studio Historica Slavo-Germanica, 13 (1984), pp. 163-180.
47. This section derives from Roel Vande Winkel, Nazi newsreels and foreign propaganda in German-occupied territories, pp. 59-105.
48. BArch, R 109 I/2716, 1.
49. Certain sources indicate that some newsreels had very few Flemish subtitles. Academic research on Belgian newsreel history (and on film history in general) being scarcely out of the egg, this view may be amended in the future. Some people and organizations, like Flemish-nationalist Clemens De Landtsheer and his Flandria Film company, had produced Flemish newsreels but regularly failed to reach a wide audience. R. Vande Winkel and D. Biltereyst, Clemens De Landtsheer en Flandria Film: een blinde vlek in de geschiedenis van de Vlaamse Beweging en het Belgisch filmwezen', in Wetenschappelijke tijdingen op het gebied van de geschiedenis van de Vlaamse beweging, 63:1, 2004, forthcoming.
50. BArch, R 109 1/5465, pp. 183-186. It remains unclear how Belgian censors dealt with the ACE newsreels.
51. This line of policy, the so-called 'Flamenpolitik', became a constant in the policies of the occupying forces. It aspired, among other things, to prove to the Flemish people that they had more to expect from Germany (after all, both were Germanic people) than from the Belgian state, which had been dominated by the French-speaking upper class.
52. It is also possible that they were aware, but at first could not find a Flemish-speaking commentator. After all, they kept on supplying Dutch-language prints until a Belgian editorial office was established.
53. Paul Geens, Naslagwerk over de Vlaamse film ('het Leentje') (Brussel, 1986), p. 587.
54. Armand von Zelewski in a letter to the author, 22 January 2002, recalls only some problems with Belgian collaboration movements.
55. BArch R 109 1/2716 contains Ziegler's first annual report.
56. So far not a single document has been found about the production of these Northern French ATW versions, which were only distributed in a very limited region (the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais) and seem to have disappeared almost entirely. If not for a handful of prints donated to the Belgian Royal Film Archive in the autumn of 2002, there would have been no trace of these films at all. The only thing that is known for sure about these Northern French ATW versions is that, as explained below, they were replaced from 16 July 1943 onwards by Franee-Actualités.
57. Telephone conversation between the author and Armand von Zelewski, 7 January 2002.
58. Edith Réta (ed.), Les archives de guerre 1940-1944 (Paris, 1996). The catalogue is also available online: http://www.ina.fr/voir_revoir.guerre/ index.fr.html
59. Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit, Le cinéma sous l'occupation (Paris, 1989), pp. 25-26, 44-48 and 106-199.
60. See also, by the same author, Le cinéma et les actualités filmées, in Laurent Gervereau and Denis Peschanski (eds), La propagande sous Vichy 1940-1944 (Paris, 1990), pp. 195-204.
61. James Charrel, Les actualités cinématographiques en France (1940-1944) (Paris, 1999, unpublished MA thesis).
62. See also, by the same author, Entre pouvoir allemand et pouvoir français: les actualités cinématographiques en France (1940-1944), Société et Representations, [AQ1] 2001, pp. 63-70.
63. Brett C Bowles, La Tragédie de Mers-el-Kébir and the politics of filmed news in France, 1940-1944, Journal of Modem History, 76:2 (June 2004), forthcoming. I am indebted to the author for allowing me access prior to publication.
64. Various other authors, listed here in chronological order, paid special attention to the French wartime newsreels. François Garçon, Nazi film propaganda in occupied France, in David Welch (ed.), Nazi Propaganda, the power and the limitations (Kent, 1983), pp. 168-179.
65. René Jeanne and Charles Ford, Le cinéma et la presse 1895-1960 (Paris, 1961), pp. 224-229.
66. Max Pevsner, Les actualités cinématographiques de 1940 à 1944, Revue d'Histoire de la Deuxieme Guerre Mondiale, 16:64 (1966), pp. 88-96.
67. Jean A. Gili, Les Journaux d'Actualités Cinématographiques de 39 à 44, Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, 8 (1973), pp. 21-23.
68. Jacques Sicher, La France de Pétain et son cinéma (Bourges, 1981), pp. 35-38.
69. Marcel Huret, Ciné-Actualités. Histoire de la presse filmée 1895-1980 (Paris, 1984), pp. 102-112.
70. The newsreels are now preserved at the ECPA archives outside Paris. I am indebted to Brett C. Bowles for drawing my attention to these newsreels.
71. I will focus here on the situation in the northern departments, occupied France and Vichy France. So far, there is no information about the type of newsreels shown in Alsace-Lorraine (integrated into the Reich) or in the smaller zones of occupation annexed by Italy.
72. The result of this policy is that many Belgian ATW versions contain French items that were never included in their French counterparts. Oddly the Belgian editorial office continued to do so even after losing its audiences to France-Actualités newsreels. Therefore, Belgian wartime newsreels contain rare documents related to the occupation of these regions, a fact hardly ever taken into consideration by French researchers before now.
73. ACE, established in Paris, should not be confused with the company of the same name in Brussels. There was, however, a close connection between the French and Belgian ACE. Both firms were false Ufa auxiliaries. Their history has not yet been researched in detail.
74. This was officially mandated as of 26 October 1940, but already in effect from June onwards. Bertin-Maghit, Le cinéma sous l'occupation, p. 25.
75. Bertin-Maghit, Le cinéma sous l'occupation, pp. 26 and 45.
76. BArch, R 55/108, p. 37.
77. During a short transitional period, foreign items were still commented (in Berlin) in French with a German accent while local items were commented (in Paris) by a native speaker. Charrel, Les actualités, p. 83.
78. BArch, R 109 I/1285.
79. The item, which concluded the edition, was dedicated to a cycle race in Paris won by Raymond Louviot. Previous editions also contained footage filmed in France, but these were common ATW items, showing German organizations (Red Cross, NSV, etc.) taking care of French war refugees or German artillery batteries and bombers attacking Great Britain from the French coast of the English Channel. Réta, op.cit., pp. 17-27.
80. BArch, R 55/343, p. 61.
81. For an analysis of these politics as well as a clear insight into their interaction with newsreel and documentary propaganda, see Bowles, op.cit.
82. Its production, strictly controlled by SGI, was carried out by Les Diffusions modernes, the same company that Fritz Tietz had in view and which (as mentioned) previously produced the Gaumont newsreels. FAPG was distributed by Pathé, hence its name.
83. Bowles also discusses in the above-mentioned article the differences between the film and the corresponding item of Actualités Mondiales. His argument illustrates perfectly how Vichy and Germany each manipulated the footage according to their propaganda aims.
84. DW issue 527, featuring this footage, was censored on 9 October 1940 and presumably released two days later. A similar item was featured in different versions of ATW issue 476, including the French (23 October), Belgian (25 October), Dutch (18 October) and Spanish editions. The release dates of both the DW and the Dutch ATW precedes the French premiere of the images, which underlines their importance for German foreign propaganda.
85. Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit, Le cinéma et, p. 198.
86. BArch, R 109 I/1285-1286.
87. BArch, R 55/665, pp. 125-126.
88. For a more detailed account of the Dutch newsreel battle, see Vande Winkel, Filmjournaals in bezet Nederland (1940-1944).
89. Jitze De Haan, Polygoon spant de Kroon. De geschiedenis van filmfabriek Polygoon 1919-1945 (Amsterdam, 1995).
90. Thomas Leeflang, De bioscoop in de oorlog (Amsterdam, 1990). The work of de Haan in particular is interesting for the historiography of the Dutch newsreel battle, while the merit of Leeflang's research is mainly limited to the compilation of a Dutch wartime newsreel catalogue, based on summaries published in newspapers of the time.
91. BArch, R 109 I/485.
92. BArch, R 109 I/5440.
93. Presumably ATW issue 450.
94. Jos Van Der Burg, De Duitse politieke druk op de Nederlandse filmkeuring in de jaren dertig: Dit is niet in het belang ener goede internationale verstandhouding, NRC Handelsblad, 28 January 1988, p. 8.
95. Gerhard Hirschfeld, Nazi propaganda in occupied Western Europe: the case of the Netherlands, in David Welch (eds.), Nazi Propaganda: the power and the limitations (Kent, 1983), pp. 150-154.
96. Gabriele Hoffmann, NS-Propaganda in den Niederlanden: Organisation und Lenkung der Publizistik unter deutscher Besatzung 1940-1945 (Berlin, 1972), pp. 105-106, 203.
97. This account is based on sources about Polygoon. Profilti's paper and film archieve was destroyed during a bombardment in 1944. However, everything indicates that both firms acted in the same way.
98. BArch, R 109 1/486, pp. 12-13.
99. Ingo Schiweck, '[...] weil wir lieber im Kino sitzen als in Sack und Asche.' Der deutsche Spielfilm in den besetzten Niederlanden 1940-1945 (Münster, 2002), p. 102.
100. This happened simultaneously to Tobis offices all over Europe as Ufa was given widespread control over the foreign distribution of German films.
101. BArch, R 109 11/48. See also the appendices.
102. Because this was the 18th week of the year, the first issue was given serial number 18.
103. BArch, R 55/108.
104. The metaphor is borrowed from James Charrel, 'Entre pouvoir allemand et pouvoir français: les actualités cinématographiques en France (1940-1944)', Sociéte et Representations, 2001, p. 70.