Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Why We Fight 2: The Nazis Strike

US 1942. PC: 834th Signal Service Photographic Detachment, Special Services Division, U.S. Army. No personal credit titles in the film. [In charge of production: Frank Capra, with a mighty staff of film professionals]. A fine Imperial War Museum print. 42'. Viewed at Orion, Helsinki, 30 Aug 2005. The history of German militarism: Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Hitler. A background figure to Hitler: Genghis Khan. Interesting footage of Karl Haushofer's Institute of Geopolitics in Munich in the 1910s and the 1920s, with huge files of your hometown with information you yourself did not know. Land, water, natural resources, manpower. Control the land, control the world. Control the heart of Europe, control the master island (Central and Eastern Europe), control the super-continent (Europe, Asia, Africa), control the world. Nazi activity in Liberal countries. The re-armament of Germany. The Haushofer strategy, already explicit in Mein Kampf, being put to action in the 1930s. The importance of Rheinland, Austria, Sudetenland. The importance of the Munich agreement. The fate of Poland (excellent sequence). Forceful animation on Hitler's military strategy in the 1930s. The Molotov Ribbentrop pact: too fantastic to make any sense; the Russians had read Mein Kampf. Hitler's smile as he flies over the ruins of Warsaw. The dedication of the Western allies. Churchill: there will be no compromise. Liberty Bell and the huge V sign. - The first two Why We Fight films (I saw them for the first time) were better than I expected. They have a strong viewpoint: strategy. It is mostly evident in the commentary (often read by Walter Huston) and in the illuminative animation.

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