Posted on 04/28/2011 5:56:47 PM PDT by SJackson
Fragment found from film shot in 1944 meant to hoodwink Red Cross that all was productive work and wholesome recreation at camp.
LOS ANGELES - "The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City” may rank as the oddest film fragment in cinematic history.
The 23 minutes of raw, unedited footage is all that has been found of a Nazi propaganda project to prove that the “model” Theresienstadt camp was a veritable paradise for its Jewish inmates.
Shot in early 1944, when the horrors of Hitler’s Final Solution finally trickled out to the West, the film was part of an effort to hoodwink a visiting International Red Cross delegation that all was productive work and wholesome recreation in Theresienstadt, and by extension in other concentration camps.
During the day, contented workers shoed horses, made pottery and designed handbags. Children played soccer or gorged themselves on sandwiches. In the evenings, well-dressed men and women attended concerts and lectures.All this to the incongruous background music of Offenbach’s “Gaite Parisienne” or a jazzy “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen.”
The director of this curiosity was a mountainous Jewish inmate, Kurt Gerron, whose strange story of pride and self-deception is documented in a companion film, “Kurt Gerron’s Karussel (Carousel).”
Gerron, a native Berliner born Kurt Gerson, was a towering figure both in girth and as a leading impresario in the swinging Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s.
He also was a successful actor, playing the nightclub owner in “The Blue Angel” opposite Marlene Dietrich, and was featured in the world premiere cast of “The Three Penny Opera.”
Though banned from the German stage in 1933, Gerron persisted in the self-delusion that his talent and charm would triumph in the end.
When Peter Lorre and other German expatriates in Hollywood arranged for Gerron to join them and even pay the travel expenses for the impresario and his family, Gerron refused on the grounds that the proffered ship accommodations were not first class.
Gerron did establish a temporary second career in France and Holland, but the Nazis caught up with him and deported him to Theresienstadt.
When “The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City” project came along, Gerron saw a chance to resume his career and signed on as director. He also swallowed the “word of honor” of the German camp commandant that his life would be spared after he completed the film.
Instead, Gerron was sent to Auschwitz in October 1944 and killed one day before SS chief Heinrich Himmler gave the order to shut down the gas chambers for good.
“Karussel” director Ilona Ziok combines footage of Gerron’s halcyon days in Berlin with testimony of surviving Jewish camp prisoners to draw a picture of Gerron as a tragic, self-deluded figure -- “a big, strong man with the mind of a child,” in the words of a fellow Theresienstadt prisoner.
“Kurt Gerron’s Karussel” is available as a DVD, but distribution of “The Fuehrer Gives a City to the Jews” has been sharply limited by the distributor.
A spokesman for Seventh Art Releasing said the film fragment was available for free, but fearing misuse of the material, he stipulated that it could only be used for educational and scholarly purposes by schools or religious institutions, and had to be clearly labeled as Nazi propaganda.
“fearing misuse of the material’
No doubt the muzzies and white racist types are all over it already.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
An interesting find. Garron was an interesting individual, wounded in the "Great War" 60 or 70 films to his credit, the subject of several documentaries after the war. Getting killed does that for you, if he'd come here instead of "fleeing" to France, his career would have continued. Personally, I think he would have been a natural for a post war Al Capone movie.
Yes, they are. After all, it’s “authentic”
Should have mentioned, efforts to prevent misuse aside, parts of it can be found on widely available sites for a few years now.
I remember him in “The Blue Angel”.
Such a “dark” movie!
My Goddaughter is doing her Thesis on the Propaganda of the Nazis. Thank you so much for posting this. It’s a goldmine for her.
Thanks!!!
|
· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe · |
|||
Antiquity Journal & archive Archaeologica Archaeology Archaeology Channel BAR Bronze Age Forum Discover Dogpile Eurekalert LiveScience Mirabilis.ca Nat Geographic PhysOrg Science Daily Science News Texas AM Yahoo Excerpt, or Link only? |
|
||
|
· Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword · |
|||
Part of the story line in “War and Remembrence.”
One of the comments to part 1: "I thought jews were treated poorly. This doesn't look bad at all."
I don't know that the commenter believes that but I can believe that was the reaction of some people seeing the film.
If the libs in the Red Cross were as stupid back then as they are today, they probably would have believed the propaganda.
Rare to some, but known the world over for a long, long time.
There’s a good collection by a professor on the Calvin College website.
Thanks!
Films like this must have been known of before, since a similar clip was used in Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
