Title:DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 729 [Main Title]
Film Number:GWY 230-3
Other titles:DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 1944/36 [Alternative Title]
Summary:
Description: I. German women replace men on the home front. Call-up of females in order to free men for the front is under way, as Total War forms (one addressed to Else Heinrich of Berlin Pankow) are sorted in one of many Gau Work Offices. Women operate metal presses and handle and spray shell cases in a munitions factory. In Berlin housewives and girls with Reichsarbeitsdienst Kriegseinsatz cuffbands train as tram conductresses, while others are police drivers(putting wheel on motorbike) and volunteer firefighters, scrambling during a practice alarm and driving through Pirna in a fire engine.
II. Young close combat hero visits hometown of Kaufbeuren. Gefreiter Beindner (spelling ?), one of youngest holders of Knights Cross, is greeted at station in Bavaria by Hitlerjugend. Hero who destroyed two T-34 tanks with a Faustpatrone (Panzerfaust) and who wears appropriate badges (tank destruction, close combat, sharpshooter) meets his elderly mother, holder of Golden Award for Motherhood of sixteen offspring, and then visits his old woodworking apprentice master.
III. Germans fight off Allied air and armour on Western Front. Animated map from Le Havre to Brest. German reconnaissance troops on road in Brittany. Decoy target adorned with dummy lookout and constructed from captured enemy truck is towed along road towards 8.8cm and 2cm Flak Vierling positions which open fire against attacking planes; wreckage of RAF aircraft. Panzer reserves backed by artillery advance into battle as infantry clear wood; 8.8cm Flak opens fire against US tanks, with wrecked Bren carriers and Shermans showing outcome. At a field dressing station near the front wounded Germans are tended and other injured are carried in by German and US soldiers. Waffen SS are briefed before setting off in Sdkfz 234/2 to attack enemy. 8.8cm Flak fires at attacking US and British armour causing black smoke to rise from hit tanks.
IV. Germans put down Warsaw Uprising. Animated map from Narva to Sieldce. Uprising on 1st August in all parts of Warsaw by Poles reportedly misled by Anglo-Soviet leaders is answered by hard German attack and concentrated fire from 8.8cm Flak. Hetzers and Pzkpfw IV pass along street and prisoners are brought in, surrendering British ammunition 950 Winchester cartridges). Street fighting causes civilian casualties; dead lie with white armbands. Generalleutnant Stahel, ordered to repress uprising, is filmed at his desk. Waffen SS fix and fire Panzerfaust at close range. In order to avoid casualties Poles wait on platform for evacuation.
V.
Alternative Title:DIE DEUTSCHE WOCHENSCHAU NR 1944/36 [Alternative Title]
