Summary: Devastation in Flensburg after a huge naval ammunition dump explosion in June 1945.
Description: START 10:04:56 Unedited footage filmed in Flensburg's harbour showing a tall wooden post with one big perforation in it and behind it an expanse of waste land with charred roof timbers and loose bricks where a German Navy (Kriegsmarine) mine school once stood. Five 'Torpedofangboote' (torpedo retrieving boats) with large pennant letters and numbers are moored alongside each other; their superstructures have been almost entirely destroyed by blast from the explosion. The vessel nearest the camera is listing sharply to starboard. The camera records other evidence of the widespread destruction - a big warehouse whose gable end has been largely ripped open and the remains of a collapsed wooden structure with a felt roof; the Red Cross insignia on the funnel of a steamer used by the Germans as a hospital ship can be seen in the background. This film ends with an unsteady, hand-held panning shot over a blast-torn quayside and the adjacent harbour basin, where a freighter (possibly a 'Sperrbrecher' mine-clearance vessel) lies half-submerged on its side near a torpedo boat which, despite its wrecked condition, is still afloat.
END 10:06:00
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Grant, Ian James1917-04-16Family origin: Edinburgh, Scotland (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: German Navy (regiment/service)
Keywords: Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (geography)
Flensburg harbour (geography)
Allied Occupation of Germany 1945-1949, Cold War (event)
North West Europe 1944-1945 (theme)
German Navy 1939-1945 (theme)
