Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
From 1940, around 25,000 Dutch people served in the Waffen-SS. In spite of their large number, they did not make much public disclosure after the war. Eight Dutch former SS men tell their story in this documentary. Never before have former SS men talked so openly about their motives, their (wrong) acts, their experiences on the (Eastern) front and their struggle with the memories of the past.
What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)
Documentary which examines the reasons why Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party lost the General Election of 1945, after Churchill had just led the country to victory in the World War II.
Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.
Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.
Documentarians Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer turn their camera on 81-year-old Traudl Junge, who served as Adolf Hitler's secretary from 1942 to 1945, and allow her to speak about her experiences. Junge sheds light on life in the Third Reich and the days leading up to Hitler's death in the famed bunker, where Junge recorded Hitler's last will and testament. Her gripping account is nothing short of mesmerizing.
Dalibor K. is an industrial painter, amateur horror maker, the composer of angry songs, painter and a radical neo-Nazi. He is approaching 40, but he is still living with his mother Vera, Aged 63, and is yet to experience the real relationship with a woman. He hates his job, gypsies, Jews, refugees, homosexuals, Merkel, spiders and dentists. He hates his life, but he doesn’t know how to change it.
The documentary of the Nuremberg War Trials of 21 Nazi dignitaries held after World War II.
Easy Company, the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, fought their way through Europe, liberated concentration camps, and drank a victory toast in April 1945 at Hitler's hideout. Veterans from Easy Company, along with the families of three deceased others, recount their horrors and victories, bonds they made and the friends they lost.
The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, a 70-year-old who is taking his mother to visit the German factory where she was forced to work during WWII. In this road movie which takes place between Majdanpek and Germany, the trip becomes a journey into the past, retracing memories from the war and revealing a unique relationship between an old son and his elderly mother.
Many members of the Dutch Underground were gay and lesbian. This film pays homage to them and recounts their story.
Documentary using archival footage, newsreels and contemporary interviews with women of the WW2 Australian Women's Land Army.
A remarkable film that takes a special look at the first war to be truly reported and recorded by one of the more unsung heroes of World War II: the combat photographer. Through the unflinching eye of their camera's lenses, these courageous soldiers continually risked their lives in their brave attempts to capture history.
Betty Van Sevenant, a young resistance fighter from Bruges, arrested in March 1942, was declared "Nacht und Nebel". She recounts her deportation to the Ravensbrück and Mauthausen camps until liberation. Tobias Schiff, a Polish Jew from Antwerp, was deported with his parents to Upper Silesia on August 28, 1942, on convoy No. 25. His story begins upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau and concludes with the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen camp. (2 x 26 min.)
Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown recounts his flying experiences, encounters with the Nazis and other adventures leading up to and during the Second World War. Illustrated with archive footage and Captain Brown's own photos.
After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)
Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.
During World War II, Taiwan was part of the Japanese Empire. This documentary explores the experiences of Taiwanese soldiers, doctors, and overseas residents in Southeast Asia during that time. Using cross-generational memory dialogues, family letters, diaries, and videos, the film addresses the complexities of Taiwan's historical memory and diverse identities during that period.
This communist history film recalls the heroism of Soviet soldiers fighting the Nazis in World War II. Forty of the 236 cameramen used for the feature were killed during their mission filming the Red Army.