Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/12/color-footage-of-berlin-weeks.html
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Astonishing how they had all the Soviet propaganda ready to place and put up.
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Took me a couple seconds to figure out the footage was Foley’d (the sound was added later-- note the absence of voices.)
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True of almost all newsreel footage at the time.* Film cameras did not record sound, and sound recording equipment was significantly less portable and/or of very low fidelity.
*unless it was of a speech, which could be recorded at a fixed location using not particularly portable professional equipment.
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It’s hard to wrap your head around the transition for these people from the battle of Berlin, with unimaginable violence and cruelty on apocalyptic scales, to a few weeks later with the sun out, walking down the street trying to reassemble some version of a normal life. I don’t know how a person could process that.
The NKVD didn’t waste any time.
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I’m assuming that’s the entrance to the Fuhrerbunker around 4:36. The fuel cans may have been the ones the Soviets used to burn Hitler’s body (or at least pretend to).
The expressions on the faces are a mixed bag, although in general the young people seem to be happy it’s all over.
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I don’t think so, I think it’s a civilian bomb shelter. I think this is the entrance to the fuhrerbunker:
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Look again. I think it’s just a different perspective. Presumably a bunch of empty gas cans were deemed significant to film them. The SS had instructions to burn Hitler’s body, it wasn’t the Soviets. BTW, It was the Stalin who started the disinformation campaign to suggest Hitler was alive - notably in the west - to suggest the western allies were somehow bungling things.
An interesting account of this period can be found in “Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II” by David Stafford
By David Stafford
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I have complex feelings about the thumb to the nose at 1:39.
I noticed her as well. Was she legitimately mad at the Amerikaners running around with their fancy jeeps and cameras, or was she flirting?
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They even brought back Hitler’s skull. Which Stalin used as a paperweight/ashtray for years to follow.
A lot of the same sentiment went around Japan during the US occupation.
My in-laws were adolescents when the war ended. They were very happy not to be on the verge of starvation all the time or under the risk of being blown up by American bombers.
My father in law’s first taste of chocolate came from US soldiers.
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They wasted a large number of people, but not time. (too soon?)
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Hmmm, I’m not sure that’s the case. One is an entrance flanked by trees with no structure above grade, the other is a mass of ferro concrete above ground attached to field gun emplacement next to the Chancellory.
This is what the Fuhrerbunker entrance looked like in July 1947, according to Wikipedia:
What is the source for that? I’ve never seen that claim.
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Reminds me of this film-
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Well, the film is from 3 months after the Red Army captured the city. I saw signage for all the different Allied occupied zones too, as well as British and American troops.
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I believe it was in Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
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neither; in this case its mostly the german non-verbal equivalent to the expression “take a picture, it will last longer” (which is in itself kinda ironic, given that she is being filmed)
saw this video couple years ago, its eeri to see this and living today in the neighbourhood, while watching the rise of normalized fascism over the world. oh well.
heres the long, 1/2h-version from the same channel, btw
