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Oppeln Upper Silesia 1921 stock footage and images

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Germany prepares to defend Fortress City of Breslau in Lower Silesia, Germany (now Poland) against Soviets in World War II

The city of Breslau being fortified and prepared to defend against surrounding soviet forces in January, 1945, World War 2. Armed sentries patrolling the city streets. Snow on ground in some places. Poster announces the situation and requests cooperation of all Men, women, and children (over the age of 10). A poster being nailed to a pole, showing a defender with a panzerfaust anti-tank weapon confronting a tank. German soldiers shouldering panzerhaust on patrol in the snow. Closeup of insignia on sleeves on defenders' overcoats reading,"Volkssturm Wehrmacht." Men on defensive barricades. Others hauling material for defenses in wheel barrows. Tram cars being overturned and placed as impediments to invading forces. Closeup of Karl August Hanke, Gauleiter of Silesia, the city's Battle Commander (Kampfkommandant), mingling with other officers, and various groups of defenders. Hatless, he shakes hands with a defender who is dressed in heavy white cold weather coat. A car riding on road laced with tram tracks. view from inside the car of streets, building, and barriers contrived from overturned vehicles. Tram cars being set up as barriers. View from inside a defensive position, of a woman and man walking in the snow. Men setting up boxes of explosives and hooking them up to detonators along railroad tracks on a bridge. Closeups of the boxes and detonators. The charges are ignited and a large destructive explosion results raising dust and smoke. Civilian inhabitants of Breslau, under orders to evacuate, are seen leaving the city with their belongings. Some ride in army trucks, others use any means available to transport their belongings, including , wagons, bicycles, carts, and even baby carriages. As they leave, German soldiers including Volkssturm (Peoples' Militia) enter to reinforce the city defenses, Views of the reinforcements, some carrying panzerfaust anti-tank weapons, but most shouldering rifles as they march into the city. Cases of small arms being offloaded from army trucks to supply the reinforcements. A Goliath, SdKfz. 303 remote controlled tracked mine is seen scurrying across the ground as soldiers watch it in operation. A contingent of Volkssturm carrying panzerfaust weapons. City defenders setting up a large artillery field piece. A supply train carrying heavy armor and artillery to the city. A German Hetzer light tank destroyer (JagdPanzer 38) being maneuvered into position with other armor on a dirt road. A line of Panther tanks on a roadway behind supply trucks. Closeup of one with crew members visible. Scene shifts to a dirt airfield where a German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109 aircraft is taking off. It is followed by several Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft. Some raise considerable dust during takeoff. Closeup of one passing the camera on takeoff. Next, one is seen nosing over in the soft dirt of the airfield. But the pilot manages to right it again and continue the takeoff. Some Messerschmitt Bf 109 aircraft taking off in the dust. German airmen look up to watch the departing airplanes. Aircraft are barely seen in distance above, possibly engaged in dogfights with Soviet aircraft. Black smoke rising from Soviet bombing or shelling. German Army soldier on the airfield, shouldering a panzerfaust, looks skyward, with a comrade. View of sky shows aircraft engaged above, but barely discernible. White smoke rises from the ground, possibly from a crashed airplane.

Date: 1945
Duration: 3 min 56 sec
Sound: Yes
Color: Monochrome
Clip Type: Edited
Language: German
Clip: 65675057619
Silesia celebrates 10th Anniversary of post war secession

Silesia celebrates 10th Anniversary of post war secession. Huge Military and civil pageant on the streets marks the progress of thousand year old nation. Buildings in the background. Chancellor Bruening addresses a huge crowd at Gleiwitz in Germany. Huge crowd gathers for the celebrations.

Date: 1931, April 2
Duration: 1 min 26 sec
Sound: No
Color: Monochrome
Clip Type: Edited
Language: English
Clip: 65675041395
Germans defend against advancing Soviet forces in Silesia during World War II

Germany defending against Soviet offensives along the Oder River in in Silesia, during World War 2. German infantry slogging through mud, past sign pointing back 6 Km to Ratibor,Germany, (present-day Racibórz, Poland) during World War 2. They are proceeding to reinforce defenses at Breslau. They carry many panzerfaust antitank weapons. Scene shifts to German officers conversing with General Hermann Niehoff, Commander of Breslau defenses. German gunners firing a Heavy 21 cm Mörser 18 gun at near-zero elevation. (General Niehoff holds his ears as it fires.) Shell explodes with large fireball in distance. Niehoff speaks with a smiling German officer and pats him on the shoulder, at an informal award ceremony on a street in outlying area of Breslau. German soldiers riding atop an Auto Union Kätzchen (armored personnel carrier) .It is towing a conveyance in which two soldiers ride.

Date: 1945
Duration: 33 sec
Sound: Yes
Color: Monochrome
Clip Type: Edited
Language: German
Clip: 65675027912
Liberated United States airmen prisoners at Stalag 7A in Moosburg, Germany (WW2)

Liberated United States prisoners (mostly military airmen) at POW camp called Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager (Stalag) VII A, located just North of Moosburg, Germany during World War II. The airmen cook food. Several are seen sunning themselves. Airmen seen shaving, shining shoes and cleaning clothes. A group of airmen around sign 'I Wanted Wings' and 'Luft 3'. These are some of the prisoners who were originally held at Stalag Luft III, in German Province of Lower Silesia, near the town of Sagan (now in Poland). (Note: Stalag Luft III is famous because the "Great Escape" took place there in March, 1944. Prisoners were forced to march from Sagan to Spremburg during the coldest winter in Germany in 50 years. There, they boarded a train of boxcars for a 3 day trip to Moosburg in January 1945, because the Russians were closing in. The addition of these prisoners to Stalag 7A, at Moosburg, led to serious overcrowding of the camp. On May 1, 1945, the New York Times reported that "The Fourteenth Armored Division liberated 110,000 Allied prisoners of war at Stalag 7A at Moosburg." This corrected an earlier report that 27,000 prisoners had been liberated.)

Date: 1945, April 29
Duration: 2 min 39 sec
Sound: No
Color: Color
Clip Type: Unedited
Language: None
Clip: 65675040694
Adolf Hitler's plans and actions for conquest of Austria and Czech Sudetenland; events leading up to and through Munich Pact

Film opens showing Adolf Hitler ascending stairs to the Bergfhof, accompanied by Marshal Hermann Goering, and followed by other high ranking Nazi officers. Inside, General staff officers begin briefing Hitler about plans for German expansion Eastward. Finger points to Austria on map. Next, on March 12, 1938, Border Guards are seen dismantling barriers at the border as German troops march into Austria. German aircraft fly overhead. Hitler stands in his open touring car as it drives into Vienna, where local people line the sidewalk, and welcome him with the Nazi salute. Maps depict the fall of Austria and illustrate the anticipated conquest of Czechoslovakia. Brief overlay image of Bismark as narrator quotes him about Bohemia being key to control of Europe. German troops advancing up steep mountainous terrain. German soldiers on horseback and wagons passing road sign pointing to cities of Karlovy Vary and Cheb, in the west Bohemia region of Czechoslovakia. Czech troops marching in formation with shouldered arms. View of Czech Avia B-534 warplanes at an airfield. Interior of a Czech Skoda works munitions factory. President of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš, signing papers at his desk. French lancers marching in formation, on parade. (Narrator comments on French military alliances with Czechoslovakia and Great Britain.) View of warships in British fleet. Hitler outdoors, surrounded by German military officers, looking over large maps. Animated map highlights the "Sudetenlands" bordering Germany, including districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Silesia inside Czechoslovakia, where use of German language was common. Street scene from that area showing some youths in uniforms, marching. Hitler giving speech about bringing the German people together again. The uniformed youth marching at a camp. Sign erected on stone wall at the camp reads: "Die Faune ist mehr als der..."(the flag is more than ...) Youth in Naval garb march on a street with a Nazi flags. Spectators give Nazi salutes. Young men in Khaki uniforms march with Nazi symbols. Scenes shift to similar parades in Norway, Sweden,China,and the United States. Back in Czechoslovakia, Hitler reaches down from his podium to shake hands with parading youth. Images of Admiral Chester Nimitz, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, Senator Robert Wagner, Wendell Wilkie, Henry J. Kaiser, and American military members, superimposed on American flags. Sudentenland Nazi supporters marching. Konrad Ernst Eduard Henlein, Sudeten German politician, with a Nazi officer. More views of Sudeten Nazi supporters. Nazis in an office showing blackjacks. Hospitalized Czechs who suffered at hands of Nazi supporters in street fights. Hitler speaking before the Bundestag. Closeup of Joseph Goebbels.Foreign minister Maxine Lichtenhof speaking to League of Nations meeting announcing Russia's readiness to back action against Germany. Czech borders being closed. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arriving by plane in Munich. Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Hermann Goering with Chamberlain, at the meeting to sign the Munich Agreement. View of protests by people in the streets of Czechoslovakia. French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier and Chamberlain, both being praised by countrymen upon their respective returns from Munich. (Chamberlain seen arriving just before giving famous "peace for our time" speech.)

Date: 1938, September
Duration: 5 min 37 sec
Sound: Yes
Color: Monochrome
Clip Type: Edited
Language: English
Clip: 65675043609
Reich Labour Service boys dig drainage area; Athletes participate in athletic events at a Breslau meet with Hitler Youth.

Opening scenes show German young men and boys of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD or Reich Labour Service) forming up into units at a camp in Serbia, marching with shovels, and digging a drainage area. Next scenes show Hitler Youth gathering in Breslau, lower Silesia, and participating in a summer athletic meet. A ceremony with many Hitler youth girls in synchronized calisthenics on the stadium field at the Hermann-Goering-Sports field. A young man does gymnastics on rings. Boy and girl spectators of the Hitler Youth watch the events from the stands and cheer. Youth competing in the long jump and pole vault events. Athletes participate in a relay race. Spectators watch swimming competitions and diving competitions at a swimming pool. Hitler youth leaders and other Nazi officers watch and smile from the stands.

Date: 1943
Duration: 2 min 52 sec
Sound: Yes
Color: Monochrome
Clip Type: Edited
Language: German
Clip: 65675057612