DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 709 [Main Title]

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  • Title: DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 709 [Main Title]
  • Film Number: GWY 210
  • Other titles: DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 1944/16 [Alternative Title]
  • Summary:
  • Description: I. Oberst Trautloft addresses trainee fighter pilots. Kommandeur of Luftwaffe 4 Flieger-Schul-Division stands outdoors and speaks live to group of young trainees who have volunteered to defend the Reich: "The new task awaiting you here is hard, but recent successes have shown that our young recruits have been especially successful. You too will soon be successful and I wish you well". Camera picks out already decorated members of youthful audience. Contrary to enemy expectations, asserts commentary, day and nightfighter recruits have distinguished themselves in battle. Messerschmitt Bf 109s of Wilde Sau Geschwader are seen at base airfield "after battle"; pilots climb out of fighters and report to Gruppenkommandeur. Feldwebel Hartel, new nightfighter pilot who on 24 March downed four four-engined bombers, shakes hands with his comrades and gives gesticulated description of his latest encounter. II. German withdrawal and demolition in Southern Russia. Defensive battle raging almost continuously in Southern Sector of Eastern Front is described as one of the hardest struggles yet of the War in the East. Temperature rising above zero has thawed snow and turned roads into sludge, leaving line of trucks stuck in mud. Other trucks are equipped with chains and a motorcycle sidecar is pulled through mud. Soldier stands wearing cap with cigarette stuck on oakleaf badge on cap. Orderly withdrawal being dependent on good communications, signals unit moves off from Russian village equipped with aerial and lays telephone cable from rear of Kettenrad across marshy area. Signaller with cable wheel on back stumbles into icy water but recovers. Letter F identifies Fernsprecher (telephone) unit's location. Elsewhere in the Southern Sector small explosive charges are prepared and detonated to destroy railway track as well as a vast steel structure (shipbuilding yard?) in Nikolayev which collapses. Other buildings by riverside blaze, part of German policy to hamper enemy pursuit. III. Russians bomb German barges crossing Bug. Marinefährprähme barges 413 and 412 loaded with guns and fuel cans, and towed by tugs, cross mouth of River Bug during evacuation of German matériel from Southern Ukraine. Camera on board MFP 424, armed with 2cm Flakvierling and escorted by small speedboats, records air alarm as vessels come under attack from four Russian planes which drop bombs into water nearby. Flak opens up and plane crashes into ground. IV. Close quarter combat in ruined town of Cassino. Animated map of Genoa, Nettuno and Cassino. Anglo-American forces have reportedly been driven back with heavy losses at Cassino by German grenadiers and paratroops, universally famed for their heroism and nicknamed "the Green Devils" by the Americans. Film taken in ruins of town during hardest days of fighting shows paratroopers holding grenade, smoking pipe, with binoculars and mortaring. Paratrooper fires MP 40 at close range and comrade has head wound bandaged. During short pause in fighting men eat and stretcher-bearers carry away wounded under protection of red cross flag. Generalleutnant Heidrich, who has turned his Fallschirmjägerdivision 1 into assault force, stands with his officers against background of ruins, before counterattack is launched by his men who move out from rubble and work their way forward across street under fire, supported by StuG III. Captured New Zealanders are brought in, searched and guarded in ruins. Heidrich looks through binoculars.
  • Alternative Title: DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 1944/16 [Alternative Title]
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: No
  • Object_Number: GWY 210
  • Sound: Sound
  • Access Conditions: IWM-GERMAN Attribution: IWM – GWY 210
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1944-04-05
  • Production Country: Germany
  • Production Details: UFA (Production company)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Hartel (Feldwebel) (person) Trautloft, Johannes 'Hannes' (person) Heidrich, Richard (person) German Air Force, Flieger-Schul-Division 4 (regiment/service) German Air Force, Wilde Sau Geschwader (regiment/service) German Army (regiment/service) German War Navy, Marinefahrprahm 412 (regiment/service) German War Navy, Marinefahrprahm 413 (regiment/service) German War Navy, Marinefahrprahm 424 (regiment/service) Soviet Air Force (regiment/service) German Army, Fallschirmjagerdivision 1 (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: aircraft, German - combat: Messerschmitt Bf 109 (object name) training, German air - specialist: fighter pilot (object name) demolition, German - denial (object name) transport, German military - 2/3 wheel: Kettenrad (object name) combat, German naval - anti-aircraft (object name) combat, Russian air - air strike anti-ship (object name) ships, German naval - amphibious: Marinefahrprahm 412 (object name) ships, German naval - amphibious: Marinefahrprahm 413 (object name) ships, German naval - amphibious: Marinefahrprahm 424 (object name) casualties, German wounded - battlefield (object name) combat, German (object name) prisoners of war, New Zealand - surrender (object name) Russia & Nikolayev (geography) Russia & Bug (River) (geography) Cassino, Lazio, Italy (geography)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Sound Soundtrack language: German Title language: German Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 887 ft; Running time: 9 mins
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    GWY 210

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