Title:LES ACTUALITES FRANCAISES NO 20 [Main Title]
Film Number:COI 541
Other titles:
Summary: (Free) French newsreel. No commentary.
Description: a) La Rochelle after the German capitulation on 9 May. Crowds cheer the entry of French troops. Two home-made armoured cars and two machine gun carriers belonging to the FFI Regiment Jean Guiton are visible. Germans are marched off. Bomb damage in town and harbour areas of other German bastions after surrender, including Dunkirk with the statue of Jean Bart intact, and the ruins of Calais.
b) Paris. De Gaulle, accompanied by Diethelm and Koenig, lays a wreath on the Joan of Arc statue. Service detachments march past before a parade by youth organisations, including the Union de la Jeunesse Republicaine de France (formerly Jeunesses communistes), and JOC. De Gaulle later lays a wreath on behalf of the Provisional Government on the Clémenceau memorial. Final sequence shows de Gaulle, followed by Diethelm and Koenig, approaching Les Invalides.
c) Hitler's Berghof above Berchtesgaden in ruins, being inspected by American troops. Field Marshal Kesselring with Major General Taylor after the former's surrender. Large number of German troops in temporary captivity. Former Crown Prince Wilhelm Friedrich beside a lake.
d) Buchenwald is visited by a British Parliamentary delegation. Views of crematorium with charred remains, heap of corpses on truck, whipping bench and the haggard faces of inmates of all ages.
e) Bucheres in ruins. Frenchman addresses German prisoners who start to clear the rubble.
Alternative Title:
Colour:B&W
Digitised:No
Object_Number:COI 541
Sound:Silent
Access Conditions:IWM
Featured Period:1939-1945
Production Date:1945-05
Production Country: France
Production Details:
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Clemenceau, Georges Benjamin (person)
Diethelm, Andre (person)
Gaulle, Charles André Joseph Marie de (person)
Kesselring, Albert (person)
Koenig, Pierre (person)
Taylor (Major-General) (person)
Wilhelm II, Kaiser of Germany (person)
Free French Forces (regiment/service)
United States Army (regiment/service)
Forces Francaises de l'Interieur, Regt Jean Guiton (regiment/service)
Union de la Jeunesse Republicaine de France (regiment/service)
Keywords: casualties, German dead (object name)
celebrations, French - liberation: La Rochelle (object name)
ceremonies, French - customary: wreath-laying (object name)
ceremonies, French - display (object name)
delegations, British international - informative: parliamentary delegation to Buchenwald (object name)
destruction, French military - area: bomb (object name)
law and order, German - liberation: Buchenwald (object name)
prisoners of war, German - custody (object name)
prisoners of war, German - labour (object name)
Bucheres, Aube, France (geography)
Calais, Pas-de-Calais, France (geography)
Jean Bart Square, Dunkirk, Nord, France (geography)
La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, France (geography)
Germany & Berchtesgaden, Bavaria <Berghof> (geography)
Germany & Buchenwald, Thuringia <concentration camp> (geography)
Hotel des Invalides, Paris, Département de Ville de Paris, France (geography)
Joan of Arc Statue, Paris, Département de Ville de Paris, France (geography)
