Mix of actual footage and scenes with actors. Professor in laboratory extolling virtues of international research and researchers, in science and medicine. Voice-over with German accent speaks about inferior peoples and the scenes darken. Images of Nazi, Fascist, Japanese leaders and their followers including Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, Pierre Laval, Oswald Moseley, Fritz Kuhn, Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Rudolf Hess (or Heß), Julius Streicher, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler and Benito Mussolini. Footage from World War I era shows rubble from bombing in French cities and towns, and French citizen refugees leaving homes with hand pulled wagon carts. German Kaiser Wilhelm II descends steps and reviews cheering German Army forces in 1914. French poster calls for military mobilization. Mobilized French soldiers march in France as citizens cheer them off to war. Explosions of shells on World War 1 battlefield. French "taxicab army" of French military vehicle line leaving Paris. Battles of Verdun and Chemin des Dames showing French artillery and French soldiers. David Lloyd George confers with Clemenceau. Close ups of General Foch and then of General Joffre. Armament factory in France manufacturing arms in World War 1. British battle scenes at Passchendale and Ypres. Scenes of U.S. battles at Chateau Thierry, the Argonne. U.S. Marines battling at Balleau Wood and Cantigny. Lloyd George greets citizens in England. Close up of British General Haig. American General John J Pershing greets French Generals in World War I. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson is shown. World War II era events: Adolf Hitler addressing a crowd. Brownshirt SA soldiers and other German Army soldiers march and goosestep. Remilitarized Germany invades Poland in 1939, and then France in 1940. Hermann Goering reviews marching troops. Elevated, overhead view of German troops marching with hands raised in Nazi salute, and shadows of their salutes are cast on the ground in front of them as they march. Close up side view of Hitler giving Nazi salute to cheering troops. German artillery and railroad guns fired and tanks advance during invasion of France. French Army soldiers fighting the invading German soldiers; French soldiers fire artillery. French civilian women and children refugees flee in carts as Luftwaffe aircraft fire guns and strafe their path.
House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings (HUAC) in Washington, DC, the United States. Former Undersecretary of State, Sumner Welles, is sworn in and sits during the hearings. Several men sit in the background. The defendant is asked questions about a note from Eleanor Roosevelt, on January 11, 1939,about the rejection of a U.S. visa for Mr. and Mrs. Hanns Eisler, by the U.S. Consul in Cuba, which was subsequently reviewed again. Defending against implications of negligence, Mr. Welles reminds the Committee of the context in which these decisions were being made. He talks about the atrocities committed in Germany.
Director of the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J.Edgar Hoover, addresses Americans in military service in 1940. He speaks about enemy agents sent to the United States to undermine the war effort. Scene shifts to a 1940 nighttime view of New York City with lights on in its buildings. Sound of Benny Goodman's orchestra in background. Glimpse of water displays at the New York World's Fair. Brooklyn Dodgers Baseball team playing a game at Ebbets Field. A large field of wheat being harvested by a mechanical reaper, in an American western state. American soldiers putting on civilian clothes for weekend passes. Views of various American cities and towns with cars driving on parkways, shoppers and pedestrians walking in business districts. Closeup of a German agent, ostensibly being apprehended while beaming information to Germany via shortwave radio. German documents are on his desk. A submarine periscope tracks across surface of water. A torpedo races through the water leaving a trail of bubbles. An American ship, ostensibly being torpedoed in the Caribbean. Letters being mailed to so-called "mail drops" in Spain and South America. An intercepted letter with military information being highlighted. A brick house, outside Los Angeles, where an unidentified man is seen, whom narrator (J.Edgar Hoover) describes as " This self-appointed Dictator, who set himself up in the business of promoting Nazism." A picture of Adolf Hitler is seen on his wall. Near Chicago, a wooden sign reads, "Camp Hindenburg., Two miles." American Nazi youth are seen parading there. A newspaper shows a picture of Nazi youth at Camp Nordland, in New Jersey where young American Nazi girls are seen parading. In Yaphank, on long Island, New York, American Nazis are seen parading. The head of the German-American Bund, Fritz Kuhn, is seen at an outdoor podium giving a speech, while surrounded and guarded by uniformed Bund members. He is enthusiastically applauded by members of the audience. Several women with babies in carriages, cross at a corner in New York City. Some receive notices being passed out by a young man, announcing a "Mass Demonstration for true Americans" (to be held at Madison Square Garden). A swastika appears on each notice. View from a high point overlooking a crowd of 22 thousand American Nazis gathered in Madison Square Garden, on Feb. 20, 1939. An honor guard parades as drummers play from the stage. A mass of men holding American flags, and one holding a banner showing a swastika and words in German. Audience members all render the Nazi salute and shout "Heil." Files in the FBI offices labeled "German Agents." The file of Walter Kappe, one of the leaders of the Chicago Free Society of Teutonia and German American Bund is shown. Narrator, Hoover, says, " he was a Lieutenant in the German Army and the Leader of German sabotage in the United States." View of a vast array of desks and files in the FBI where men and women work on fingerprints. A man projects fingerprints on a screen, as Hoover speaks of the files revealing that "innocent appearing persons, applying for work in United States war plants, had been convicted of espionage in the last world war."Two men look over an FBI chart showing the location of every key spy and mail drop in North and South America
In spite of Non Aggression treaty with Denmark, signed by Germany, May 31, 1939, German ships carrying army troops dock in Copenhagen and offload troops, tanks and equipment in the midst of local citizens, as part of surprise invasion of Denmark, on April 9, 1940, in World War 2. Some local citizens running away from the dock area. View of German troops marching along a street in Copenhagen, as local people line the sidewalks, watching.
Jews in German-occupied Dombrowa, Poland, during World War 2. Jews on streets of the city of Dombrowa after the 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany. Close-up views of numerous Jewish people of all ages, including children, wearing the star of David patch or badge on their outerwear with "Jude" label identifying them as Jewish. People walking on the street. Buildings along the sides of the street. Crowd of people gather outside a building. Men watching from the window of the building. Many people wearing star of David patches.
Jews in German-occupied Dombrowa, Poland during World War II, following the 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany. Close-up views of Jewish people on the streets of the German-occupied city of Dombrowa. Buildings along the sides of the street. People lined up outside a building, with some smiling and joking as they pose for the motion picture camera. A number of the Jewish people are wearing Jewish star of David patch or badge on their outerwear clothing that identifies them as Jewish.