DAMAGED KRUPP WORKS IN ESSEN, GERMANY; 66TH US ARMORED REGIMENT PASSING THROUGH HILDESHEIM, HANOVER PROVINCE, GERMANY [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: DAMAGED KRUPP WORKS IN ESSEN, GERMANY; 66TH US ARMORED REGIMENT PASSING THROUGH HILDESHEIM, HANOVER PROVINCE, GERMANY [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: A70 514-16
  • Other titles: CONCENTRATION CAMP MATERIAL FOR ALLIED FILM PRODUCTIONS [Allocated Series Title]
  • Summary: Unedited panoramic views of bomb-damaged Krupp Armament Works, showing cameramen of No 4 RAF Film Production Unit on the ground. Interior and exterior views of wrecked workshops and machine-shops with unassembled 28cm heavy Kanone components lying on floor. Armoured column of the 9th US Army passing swiftly through damaged Hildesheim.
  • Description: KRUPP WORKS. [Dope sheet title] Views of acres of the bomb damaged Krupp Armament Works shot from high vantage points on 11 April 1945. Tall brick chimneys, a winding house mechanism, a large gasometer and the main administrative building are seen to be little damaged. Panoramic views across the scene show considerable devastation with wrecked workshops, cratered railway tracks littered with rubble and huge, hangar-like production buildings gutted and roofless. The place seems deserted until the cameraman descends to ground level and shoots scenes of the statue of Alfred Krupp (1812-1887), founder of the family firm. This has been blown off its plinth, which has skewed on its base but remained upright, and lies in a deep, wet crater where some fit, well-dressed young men seem amused by its fall. The remains of the plinth with its undamaged figure of a railway craft worker at the foot, is shown in the context of surrounding damaged buildings from different viewpoints. A damaged building with ground floor archways and a round tower, a building with barred windows and a massive nineteenth century brick wall of a factory building are all shown with the statue plinth in the foreground. A distant panoramic view of the city with church spires and factories with tall chimneys shows smoke rising in the middle distance. The cavernous, sunlit interior of the partially wrecked artillery machining plant has an unassembled, 28cm heavy Kanone, sixty-foot long, barrel and mounting lying in other debris. Damaged railway wagons with Krupp markings lie near a water tower. A group of officers from No 4 RAF Film Production Unit are shown in the middle distance inspecting the damage to the Alfred Krupp statue. One carries an unidentifiable camera, and they have with them Professor Doctor Gerhard Houdremont, the technical director of the Krupp Works whom they have come to interview. He is wearing a pale overcoat and low brimmed trilby hat. A column of Sherman vehicle recovery tanks, White M2A1 half tracks and jerrycan-laden trucks, passes between the camera and the distant group; a US cameraman runs across between vehicles with a Speed Graphic 5"x4" camera with flash attached. "ROAD TO BERLIN" [Dope sheet title]. The 66th regiment of the 2nd Armored Division of the 9th US Army are shown wending rapidly through the damaged town of Hildesheim on 10 April 1945. They are part of the advancing Allied convoys, tens of miles long, that are sweeping towards Berlin 135 miles away. The pavements are heaped with rubble from destroyed buildings that has been cleared by bulldozers of the 17th Engineering Battalion of the 9th US Army. The streets are cobbled and have tram tracks. The column raises clouds of dust as the Sherman tanks, trucks towing trailers, jeeps and despatch riders' motorcycles, pass in and out of deep shadow and bright sunlight. The towns-people look on with wary acceptance of their presence, they are walking in the road and some have bicycles and handcarts piled with baggage. A local be-whiskered man dressed in black overcoat and homburg hat is filmed in close up profile and does not react, while a liberated Polish slave labourer with a patch over one eye smiles and salutes the passing column. The column passes ruined churches and is filmed from steps flanked by two statues, the tanks each have about eleven men riding on top and a motorcycle military policeman, covered in dark dust, directs traffic at a cross-roads with a whistle in his mouth. As the column passes on to the road out of the town the proportion of people moving along with their belongings becomes more significant. A final shot looks back at the town from the countryside showing prosperous outskirts houses and the two churches, one with three spires, from across the meadows.
  • Alternative Title: CONCENTRATION CAMP MATERIAL FOR ALLIED FILM PRODUCTIONS [Allocated Series Title]
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: A70 514-16
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions:
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1945-04-11
  • Production Country: United States of America
  • Production Details: Army Pictorial Service (Production sponsor) United States Army Signal Corps (Production company) Thompson, H R (Production individual) McClure, William (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords:
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent Soundtrack language: None Title language: None Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 860 ft; Running time: 8 mins
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    A70 514-16

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