Bomb damaged and ruined buildings of Nazi Germany in 1945, including the Reichstag. Nazi Eagle symbol of Third Reich pulled down from building and crashes to the ground at end of World War 2. United States Army of occupation marches into city as German population lines sidewalks and watches them parade. Sign on a shop reads "Gaststatte Schosser." Many buildings in view are damaged or destroyed from bomb attacks during World War 2. American soldiers occupying German give candy to German children who at first hide from them. Nazi leaders including Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel, seen on trial in the Nuremberg war crimes trials. German people struggling to rebuild. women and children trying to gather wood from stumps of trees for fuel. A woman sawing a log. Women and children scraping food from inside trash cans and refuse bins, to stay alive during scarcity and shortages after the war. Americans providing food assistance and feeding German children in relief lines. Close up of a smiling boy as he receives food or drink. Soviet Russian Army soldiers occupying East Berlin and marching in formation. Russians removing an industrial lathe and other machinery and tools from Germany as the Soviet Union continues to strip Germany of resources after the war. A map of Germany and Berlin seen with divided regions as American, British, French and Soviet zones. Views of empty streets and heavily damaged buildings of Berlin after the end of the war. Children play amidst the desolation and destruction in East Berlin. View of Kammergericht, Headquarters of the Allied Control Council. Leaders seen meeting inside include American General Joseph T. McNarney, French General Marie Pierre Kœnig (Marie-Pierre Koenig), Soviet General Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov,. British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. View of Spandau Prison guarded by troops of occupying powers. Soviet and American troops drill and march on the grounds of Spandau Prison. An American soldier relieves a Soviet soldier at a watch post. Soviet blockade of West Berlin begins in June 1948. View of a man shutting down power in a power plant and lights going dark in Berlin. Blackout conditions in Berlin during the blockade. Germans plant vegetables in city to survive. Germans exchange goods in black market setting. A man plants vegetables in view of the Brandenburg Gate. The Berlin Airlift operations underway. U.S. Air Force C-54 aircraft flying low and arriving in Berlin, bringing supplies to West Berlin. C-97 landing. U.S. military forces unloading relief supplies and food from airlift aircraft. American C-47s and C-54s in the Berlin Airlift. Soap and milk being unloaded from airplanes. German children gather on a hill and watch low-flying American airlift planes as they approach to land at Tempelhof Aerodrome in Berlin. An Air Force airman throws a package out of the aircraft. It is a very small parachute with candy that drops from the American airplane to the waiting children. Children run to retrieve it and they share and eat the candy. Blockade is lifted in 1949 and rebuilding of West Berlin resumes. View of railroad tracks being re-linked, a locomotive running on tracks, and trains cross between East and West Berlin. Ships loading goods onto trains for Berlin. A coal processing factory running again in Germany. German workers producing industrial parts and goods again in production factories. West German construction workers rebuilding structures in West Germany. German people cast votes, establishing Federated German Republic (West Germany). Figures seen include U.S. General Alfred B. Gruenther with Konrad Adenauer, President of the new German Republic, together in Bonn, Germany. Soviet Russian troops marching on parade in East Germany. East German workers rioting in 1953, in protest of increased production quotas in Communist controlled East Germany. Soviet forces in armored vehicles patrol the streets and disperse the crowd. A large electronic billboard banner flashes West German messages and propaganda to those who can view it in East Berlin. Citizen refugees from East Germany arriving in a processing center in West Germany, carrying bags and luggage. East German refugees laying on the ground on blankets in a crowded immigration processing center of West Germany. A woman irons clothes in the immigration center, while a child plays with dolls.
January, 1945, on the Western front during World War 2. Troops of the U.S. 8th Infantry Division test new white camouflage coveralls for use in snow. They patrol in snow covered forest areas on the Western Front. A sergeant makes outdoor field adjustments to the coveralls using a knife and captured German sewing machine. He helps a soldier who tries on his new coverall. The material used is from old mattress covers. Several soldiers are seen putting on the camouflage coveralls. Scene shifts to U.S. troops with a jeep towing a 20mm Italian dual purpose gun for use in Germany. On January 2, 1945, they set up and fire the gun at targets a half mile away. In Belgium, U.S. Army engineers of Company B, 238th Engineer Battalion, improvise remote controlled bazooka shells as road blocks. They set them up on fence posts and fire them by ordinary flashlight batteries. U.S. soldiers from a Signal Company of the 99th Infantry Division are seen using a Weasel vehicle (officially designated an M29C light cargo carrier) to lay communication cables through snow in the 1st Army Sector, Belgium. Views of the wire spool on back of the weasel, and soldiers pulling wire from it.
' Allied control council for Germany ' shows the taking over of the control by the Allied powers in Germany. British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery gets off a plane as he arrives in Germany. Montgomery being greeted by officers and he inspects an honor guard of Soviet troops. Commander in Chiefs of various Allied armies arrive at a building on June 5th, 1945. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, French Major General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and the Soviet representative Georgy Zhukov arrive and enter the building. General Eisenhower, Field Marshal Montgomery, Zhukov and Major General Tassigny sign the documents of the partition of Germany. The Commander in Chiefs pose outside the building.
The Germans sign unconditional surrender in Berlin, Germany on May 8, 1945 during World War II, signing a document similar to the one signed at Reims the day before. People gathered outside a German Army Engineering School. Soviet General Georgi Zhukov and British Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder at a desk as they represent the Allies. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and other officers representing Germany arrive. Keitel puts his signature on the document of unconditional surrender. Zhukov and Tedder also put their signatures as they take over Germany. The two officers shake hands. Allied officers tour the city of Berlin. Damaged buildings in the city due to Allied bombings. The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The heavilly damaged Hotel Adlon. Aerial views of the damage caused due to Allied bombings in Hamburg. Damaged buildings and shipyards in Hamburg.
Eminent prisoners held in Nazi German prison camps in Germany are seen being released after the Allied victory during World War II. Snow covered Alps in Germany. A villa in the mountains. Eminent prisoners released from German camps include wife of Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg, the Baroness Schuschnigg, industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prince Leopold of Prussia, German General Franz Halder, Anti-Nazi Pastor Martin Niemöller, Allied pilots, Lieutenant John Winant (son of American Ambassador to England), Lord George Lascelles, the nephew of King George VI, John Alexander Elphinstone, Michael Alexander, and Max de Hamel, cousin of Winston Churchill. Scene changes to Magdeburg, Germany where German General Kurt Dittmar,a Nazi radio broadcaster (Official Military Commentator of the German Armed Forces), together with his son, young soldier Berend Dittmar, surrenders to American soldiers of the U.S. Army 117th Regiment, 30th Infantry Division, on April 25, 1945.
German Army units in action in Germany in January 1945. German troops on tanks fire artillery mounted on the tanks. Smoke due to explosions. Front of a gun barrel. A German flag. Youths and old men enlist in Volkssturm, a German military group under the Nazi party, comprised largely of youth and older men. New German soldiers assembled in outdoor square salute and taking an oath. A poster depicts national sacrifices through the Volksopfer program running from 7 - 28 January, 1945. Civilians donate clothing and equipment to the Reich to aid the German war effort and to supply the Volkssturm soldiers with material. A man pulls a trolley filled with donations. German citizens form a long queue to donate surplus clothing and equipment for the war effort. Newly minted Volkssturm soldiers receive uniforms, armbands with slogan "Deutscher Volkssturm Wehrmacht", and weapons. Men take out the uniforms from a stack. They wear their uniforms. Close ups of faces of new soldiers holding rifles. Newly drafted German soldiers receive Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons and are seen marching with rifles.
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