Opening slate advertises "National Air Mail Week. May 15-21. The 20th Anniversary of your air mail service!" Men load a DC-3 airplane with mail bags at an airport in the United States. Transport truck brings more mail and men load the bags. 1918 Map of United States showing Air Mail connection between New York and Washington. 1923, 1928, 1933 and 1938 maps show further connections to cities such as Chicago, Salt Lake, San Francisco and other destinations. Brief view of International routes between Asia and the United States, and from the United States to South America. Men load mail bags on a plane. The DC-3 plane takes off. Dirigible in background. Closing slate, "Don't Forget. National Air Mail Week."
Crowd milling about in Kronstadt, West of Saint Petersburg,Russia, as group of Russian sailors, soldiers and civilians, marches in their midst carrying a Sign reading "Peace, Freedom, and Bread." On March 7, 1921, The Bolshevik government sends 60,000 troops under command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky to quell the disturbance. They are seen marching in the streets. Next scene shows women looking amongst the fallen for their relatives. View of Leon Trotsky (Commander of the Red Army) walking with some of his staff. View of human remains. Brief view of Lenin. Trotsky writing at his desk. Narrator mentions the State Security Agency called "Cheka," being replaced by the Joint State Political Directorate (AKA OGPU). Narrator calls it the Political Police. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov is seen walking with a group of Soviet workers and politicians ostensibly charged with overseeing the OGPU. Another scene shows Molotov conversing with Joseph Stalin (Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin). Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin stands to Stalin's left. views of Stalin. Lev Kamenev, a leader in Moscow City politics. Russian families on a train platform preparing to travel in box cars (to Siberia?). farmers harvesting grain in Russia. A woman shopkeeper cuts a loaf of bread in pieces and weighs them on a scale for sale to a customer. American foodstuffs provided as aid to Russia. Some of the American food being unloaded at a pier. American Relief Administration Chief, Herbert Hoover, standing at a port. Food being distributed to Russian citizens, and to children. Newspaper of March 14, 1923, announces the Lenin suffers a stroke. In January, 1924, a newspaper headline announces that "Lenin is dead." Lenin seen in coffin. Funeral cortege, including principal Soviet leaders, carries the coffin outdoors in falling snow. Spectators watch and others follow in the solemn funeral march. Narrator states that "Stalin,Zinoviev, and Kamenev force Trotsky into exile." Soviet citizens are seen at hard labor under new "Five year plans."
Two girls practice gymnastics in garden. Same girls, nieces of Arthur Kannenberg, pose near headlights of Mercedes car and hold out a small Nazi flag mounted near the headlights. (The older girl is likely Inger Poulsen of Elbingerode, born March 5, 1923 in Copenhagen, Denmark). Arthur Kannenberg arrives and kisses the girls. In next scene, the two girls and a third, younger girl, present a bouquet of flowers to their grandfather on his 73rd birthday. Their grandmother stands next to them. The grandmother and the girls walk along a sidewalk and are met by another man and woman, possibly the girls's parents, outside the Villa Luise. Camera pans upward showing identifying sign on the building.
A film depicts scenes of the rise of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in Germany from 1921 to 1933. Early parades of Nazi Party and crowd in Germany. Adolf Hitler arrives at Nazi Party meetings. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels speaks. Party members gives a salute. Demonstration and riot in Munich in Marienplatz area, between Communist KPD members and NSDAP browshirts, and police, known as the Beer Hall Putsch or Munich Putsch in November 1923. Newspaper headlines of Erich Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler jailed. A man writes on a Nazi Party card. Joseph Goebbels at his office. Baldur von Schirach exits a building. Italian members of the Fascist Party arrive by car on visit in Germany.
Former President of the U.S. National Aeronautical Association Fredrick Patterson presents a medal in 1923 to Orville Wright in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the first flight. Patterson presents a medal to Orville Wright in the United States. View of the medal.
U.S. Army 88th Division troops advance along a road, in the Apennine Mountains of Italy, in final days of World War 2. Members of an Italian Alpinieri Brigade greet them. They serve wine to the soldiers as they pass through the area. Italian soldiers are gathered around a wagon where they drink wine from a large barrel. American infantrymen, in succession, without breaking step, sip wine from a metal cup offered by an Italian Alpinieri trooper. Another view of the Italian soldiers around the wagon containing their wine barrel. In change of scene, American infantry of the 10th Mountain Division are seen moving down a slope, single file, to a mountain road and then proceeding across a small stream in a barren region of the mountains. Later, as they proceed on either side of a mountain road, a jeep passes in the road center, raising dust. The Americans pass Italian troops relaxing near destroyed buildings. Several sit on remains of an Italian Centauro armored personnel carrier overgrown with weeds. Next, a mountain road is seen, clogged with jeeps and trucks. Along the side of the crowded road, Italian soldiers of the Salmerie da Combattimento, 5° group " Montecassino" (Baggage Combat, 5th group "Montecassino") are seen walking with their mules, fully loaded with rations and medical supplies. One of them has been identified as Mario Pace, (Rome 1923-1995) along with his mule, Adeodato. The Italian Baggage Combat Group and mules, continue along the road .(Note: Under the name "5th Pack Mule Group", this Italian unit was assigned the task of bringing supplies to front line combat troops in the mountains.) They are followed by U.S. soldiers on horseback with more horses and mules.