World War 2

As Long as You're Alive

USSR 1970-1 1970 19 mins bw

Salisspils.

Ballad of a Child

Czech 35mm 10 mins bw ec

Recollections of a Czech women remembering events at Lidice in 1942. She was the only survivor of her family and was sent for re-education in Germany. Contains strong footage.

Battle of the Kursk Salient

USSR 1983 16mm 20 mins bw ec

The biggest tank battle of WW2 took place in 1943. Nazi tank and troop formations of Hitler's 'Operation Citadel'. Soviet Generals Vatutin, Koniev, Rokossovsky and Popov. Scorched earth policy by Soviet farmers and Nazi devastation of the Orel and Belgorod seen when eventually freed by the Soviet Army.

Bombing of London and Coventry

1940 16mm 10 mins bw mute with English slates

Nazi newsreel material recording the bombing of London and Coventry. Mainly aerial shots.

We Survived the Leningrad Blockade

USSR 1984 16mm 60 mins bw/col ec

Archive footage account of the nine hundred day Nazi siege of Leningrad. Air raids, terrible conditions endured by the citizens. Lifting of the blockade on January 27th 1942.

Warsaw Ghetto

35mm 20 mins bw

Nazi newsreel footage showing appalling conditions of the Warsaw Ghetto. Disturbing footage.

Victims Accuse

USSR 1960's 35mm 25 mins bw ec

Nazi atrocities during the occupation of Byelorussia 1941-1944. Contains disturbing footage.

Teheran, Yalta, Potsdam

USSR 1985 16mm 25 mins bw ec

Useful archive compilation. 1941 Battle for Moscow, campaign for the second front. 1943 Albert Hall Rally, Eden presents British Sword of Stalingrad. Big Three (Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt) at Teheran Conference. The second front opens, Nazi Ardennes offensive. Yalta conference Feb 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt meet Stalin. Battle for Berlin. 1945 - victory; allied parade. The Potsdam conference.

Stalingrad Victory

USSR 1972 16/35mm 20 mins bw ec

Account of the battle for Stalingrad November 1942 and German surrender in 1943. Soviet army 'digging in'. Nazi aerial bombing, 1942 Germans break in, street fighting. Sergeant Pavlov, the heroism of the 138th Rifles Division. New divisions arrive, 'Operation Yuran' (Soviet offensive). Reconstruction of the pincer movement capturing the Germans. PoW's. Von Paulus surrenders, Russian celebrations. Mamaev Hill memorial in 1972.

How to Make Cannon Fodder

Czech c1963 16mm 40 mins bw ec

Covers the rise of Nazism. Nazi speeches at a large youth rally, youth leagues and athletic displays. The Sudetenland annexation on October 1st 1938. Nazi newsreels showing landslide elections, racial conception of heroes, 'Mein Kemp' distribution, visit of Heinlein. Black Shirts march through the villages, Goering gives children sweets. Czech refugees. German losses and destruction in WW2.

Czech Story

Czech 1961 16mm 50 mins bw ec

hitler inaugurated in 1933, the rise of Fascism. Kristallnacht. The Munich Agreement. Concentration camps in Slovakia, Bohemia and Moravia, Nazi atrocities, rounding up of Jews. Occupation of Prague, deportation of Czechs to German factories. Hitler visits the Eastern front in 1941. Czech partisan and scorched earth activity, underground resistance. Heydrich in Prague castle, his funeral after assassination, Nazis watch the subsequent Lidice massacre. Fascist exhibitions in Prague. Svoboda and the Czechoslovak Corps in snow suits travel from Russia to helps liberate Czechoslovakia 1944-5. May 9th 1945 liberation scenes.

Last Letters

USSR 1965 16mm 30 mins bw ec

German soldiers were ordered by Hitler to write letters home when defeat became apparent at Stalingrad in a hope to justify the terrible losses to German people. This documentary uses clips from the captured documents with archive footage.

Defeat of the Japanese Military

USSR 1985 16mm 65 mins bw ec

Covers the Soviet wars with the Japanese from 1904. Military education of Japanese children, Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939. Soviet declares war in 1945, capture of vast areas of China, Soviet artillery bombardment of the occupied South Sakhalin and Kurile islands. Liberation of N.E. China, Inner Mongolia and North Korea. Soviet Pacific fleet. Allied victories in the Pacific War.

Don't Forget These Little Children

Czech 1960 16mm 10 mins bw ec

A short film about the treatment of Gypsies in South Bohemia by the Nazis during WW2. No archive footage but contains stills of Gypsies interned in concentration camps.

Rail War

USSR 1985 16mm 20 mins bw ec

The Nazi occupation of Byelorussia and resistance activity by partisans. Good footage of blowing up and derailing Nazi trains. Veterans talk about their experiences.

My Byelorussia

USSR 1970 16mm 18 mins bw ec

Partisan activity in Nazi occupied Byelorussia. Under cover work, blowing up a bridge. Destruction of Minsk and post war rebuilding.

German Story

1956 16/35mm 100 mins bw ec German version

Documentary composed mainly of original newsreel material denouncing German war mongering over the previous fifty years. Hitler inauguration. Rise of Nazism, Nazi marches, Communists arrested, Anti-Semitism, transportation to concentration camps. Munitions factories. German invasion of Yugoslavia, Ukraine and France. Transportation of families to Eastern territories to work. Warsaw Ghetto footage. 1943 Stalingrad defeat, the German graveyard. Allied troops in Europe, night bombing of Germany, Russian ski-troops, Soviet liberation.

Great Patriotic War

1965 16mm 125 mins bw ec

Comprehensive account. Rise of Fascism in Germany 1930's, Chamberlain and the the Munich agreement. Hitler - invasion of Poland, fall of Copenhagen, Norway, Rotterdam, Paris, the Dunkirk battle. Hitler plans Barbarossa with his Generals. 1941 Soviet troops ready for the front, German tanks in Minsk and Riga. Scorched earth policy. The Leningrad and Sevastopol sieges. Stalingrad siege and battle. Nazi occupation of the Ukraine, Kiev in flames. Partisan activity. Bombed Dnieper Dam. 1944 Liberation of Leningrad, Sevastopol, Minsk. Liberation of Rumania and Bulgaria. Allied air attacks on Germany. Last battles in Berlin. German capitulation May 8th 1945.

Holiday on Sylt

GDR 16/35mm 20 mins bw ec

Rounding up of Jews in Poland. Refugee families. Jewish victims in collecting site, loaded onto lorry and a train. Rounding up in Warsaw 1944. Nazi newsreel of the Warsaw Uprising, Nazi counter attack. Surrender of Polish Home Army, stills the dead at Warsaw put down by the Nazi occupiers.

Life of Dimitrov

Bulgaria 1960 16mm 70 mins bw ec

Stills: 1905 Russian Revolution, Dimitrov marries. Some archive 1914 WW1. Russian Revolution. 1918 Bulgaria, Bledoga Gorge massacre. 1921 Third Comintern meeting in Moscow. Dimitrov meets Lenin. 1923 Bulgarian uprising and defeat. Mid 1920's Dimitrov in Vienna, street scenes. 1930's Ernst Thaelmann at meetings in Germany. 1933 Berlin, the Reichstag in flames, French demonstration to release the imprisoned Dimitrov, Henri Barbusse campaigns. Dimitrov in the court defending himself at the Reichstag Fire Trial. Feb 1934 Dimitrov released, in Moscow at 7th Commintern 1935. Some WW2 material, Red Army in Sophia 1944. November 1945 Dimitrov returns to Bulgaria, post war industrial advances; Dimitrov departs to Moscow for medical treatment. His funeral and tributes. Zhivkhov reports to 7th congress.

Lidice

Czech 1972 16mm 20 mins bw ec

Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia including Hitler footage. News of the assassination of Heydrich, his funeral in Prague. Nazi retaliation with the destruction of Lidice, Nazi Generals view from a nearby field. Slovak uprising in 1944. Red Army liberating Czechoslovakia in 1945.

Liberation of Soviet Byelorussia

USSR 1944-rereleased 1975 16mm 30 mins bw ec

Newsreel footage shot in 1944 showing the eventual rout of Nazi troops from Byelorussia. Tank battles, Rokossovsky commanding from the trenches. Winter fighting in ice and snow. The first Byelorussian front defeats the Nazi's, PoW's. The Nazi scorched earth policy as they retreated west. Partisan activity. Break though on the fronts including the River Don. Paratroop drops. Nazi Generals surrender and Minsk is liberated. Farmers return to the war torn area.

Soldier Went Walking, A

USSR 1975 90 mins 35mm bw rv

Extensive archive is used in this documentary accounting the experiences of ordinary Red Army soldiers during the Great Patriotic War. Good sequences of different types of soldiers, the appalling conditions they endured and the huge casualties they suffered. Ill treatment of civilians in Nazi occupied territory.