Life in Germany After World War 2, part 1

what's it like in germany must be terrible well they asked for it they got it yes but you can't let them starve i don't know about that i got a son out there as far as i can see it'd be a good thing if some of them did die well a lot of germany is dead our last bombing was directed against their communications against convoys trains road and rail bridges against good yards stations fire ducks we not only smashed up the towns but smashed up the links between the towns and at the finish life in germany just ran down like a clock place and time meant nothing because the people the links between the people were smashed too they were just left wandering searching looking for food looking for their homes looking for each other friday there are 70 million people in germany and about 30 million of them are looking for someone or are lost and lie looking without seeing like the eyes of a dead rabbit they are still stunned by what hit them stunned by the war they started but in the search for food and the urge to get home the life force is beginning to stir again today our powers of destruction are terrifying but the will to live is still stronger that's why we can't wash our hands of the germans because we can't afford to let that new life flow in any direction it wants our military government that is your husbands and sons have to prod the germans into putting their house in order why we have an interest in germany that is purely selfish we cannot live next to a disease-ridden neighbor and we must prevent not only starvation and epidemics but also diseases of the mind new brands of fascism from springing up what is more we have to persuade the germans to do this themselves first of all the material patching up and where in the meantime do they live so yes all looks lifeless but underneath the rubble there are people living living in the cellars the smoke from the cooking stoves drips up from the ruins to the open third story where people are living too many in the big towns living without light without coal without water without soap living in the stench of corpses and surge still with the will to live but the one thing on which all reconstruction depends is coal without coal there can be no power and no transport in essen our coal control has taken over the crop family mansion as its headquarters and from here we organize the output and distribution from the whole ruer coalfields last summer what was called operation coal scuttle brought thirty thousand miners back from the vermont but today the great problem is moving the coal from the pit head to the liberated countries to the german power plants and to the allied military dumps for the germans themselves there is no coal they must go out in the woods and parks to cut wood to strip the bark off the trees to collect brushwood and carry it home in handcarts and prams we say the great problem but in germany today for military government officers there is no such thing as a single problem for example the liberated countries won't get this coal unless there is transport to carry it the transport cannot move any distance unless the tracks and the bridges have been repaired they can't be repaired without steel and the steel cannot be made without coal there are some 17 newspapers published in the british zone they all carry advertisements asking for the whereabouts of relatives at hamburg there is a british run postal search station indexing inquiries coming in at the rate of 50 000 a day but when someone contacts their relatives they must get a permit before they can travel by train hordes of cyclists and pedestrians and horse-drawn trucks wait across the pontoon and bailey bridges built by our engineers wait to cross after a military government threat and all this has to be supervised by our sergeants and our peace um is is oh in all this we have to safeguard ourselves first of all from crime and disorder so military government courts are set up with british judges these courts are public there is an interpreter a german defense counsel and a british prosecutor then the german police force is being remade the new german policeman has to understand that he is the servant of the public and not its master then we have to safeguard ourselves and disease the germans are getting 1 000 to 1200 calories a day according to type of work about half our rations but we have a survey team in the field staffed by the red cross and the ramc checking the effect of these rations on the population tests are made of blood content of blood pressure of height and weight and reports sent to the control commission for them to judge whether the food is just sufficient to keep germany at work but the greatest headache is education you will never get nazi ideas out of the heads of some of the adults particularly those living away from the devastated areas what about the children for them the desolated landscape provides a dream playground the derelict weapons of war might have been specially designed to have games with there are germans who know this can't go on the teachers must be found and themselves taught to teach the children that there are other things in life beyond nazism and war but again the complexity of problems the schools are in ruins the teachers too few the children too many and as the months go by the children are growing up and getting more like their fathers we just cannot afford to leave them to stew in their own juice today berlin has still the aspect of a battlefield the reichstag the seat of past german governments has been gutted the club family who with the other german industrialists first backed hitler and then produced the weapons for world domination have been scattered and arrested this family armed germany in the franco-prussian war they made big bertha the first submarine for the kaiser in world war one they are just as responsible for killing allied soldiers as hitler and guri and by killing they grew rich this time their war plants have been left a mess of twisted girders look so this time the vermouth are rarely beaten to the wire cages all over germany the master race of men are slubbering along they are stripped of their insignia delivered numbered but this mass of humanity has to be sorted out into something like order not only their bodies but also their minds what about the ideas in their heads they have to be demobilized and got back to work but let one man or woman who still believes in the nazi regime or the destiny of the german people to rule the world take office and you have the beginnings of another war so they are put through a screen to begin with selected germans interrogate them and fill in their demobilization papers note this meek little man who looks like a clerk or a grocer here is his portrait in luftwaffe uniform then all their thumb prints are taken for record and they are stripped and examined for the ss mark tattooed under the left armpit then their past history and characters examined by our intelligence officers german-speaking ex-commandos and parachutists the majority of germans get through this close examination and are demobilized but every so often there appears one who is suspect or who is wanted whose papers are too good or whose answers are not good enough um um rejected back to the cage as night falls in germany the people must remember the curfew those without homes or caught on the street disappear into the airaid shelters then the airaid siren wails again to remind them that they lost a war of their own making to remind them that it is up to them to regain their self-respect as a nation and to learn to live in a friendly manner with their neighbors to remind them that much as we hate it we shall stay in germany until we have real guarantees that the next generation will grow up a sane and christian people a germany of light and life and freedom a germany that respects truth and tolerance and justice now gentlemen if you'll raise your right hands and take the earth with me i swear by almighty god that i will at all times and with justice and equity to all persons of germany to establish equal justice under the law for all persons um so help me god so why me a god helper

Channel: DOCUMENTARY TUBE

Views: 3,290,653

Rating: 4.555078 out of 5

Keywords: culture, society, what, how, politics, country, world, watch, play, full, discovery, about, facts, why, footage, explained, new

Id: I2arAuvNZYg

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 12 2014

Reddit Comments

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[u/SierraHotel058]

It is a remarkably level-headed film...especially considering how shortly after the war it was made. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I find very few of the stupid statements/blatant propaganda that are usually sprinkled throughout films of this sort from the same period.

[u/aliokatan]

"our military government, that is, your husbands and sons..."

​

Tells me this film was intended for domestic housewives, if not the housewives of soldiers still deployed to explain why they're still there

[u/VR_Bummser]

I am german, and literally shed a tear at the end.

This is the United States we loved and glorified for decades. All the good reputation you have in germany comes down to the forgiveness you showed after the war.

Almost biblic dimension - if you truly repent you should be forgiven.

Most germans haven't forgotten that. A bit social science: You could argue that we still up to today, as a collective , search for forgiveness.

[u/frosty2oo2]

Does it mention what happened to the German POW's held in Germany?

[u/aborca]

Also this video is very clearly British not American.

[u/OllieGarkey]

Here's part 2: https://youtu.be/NFOscMow5GA

Edit: It's kind of weirdly disjointed. This second one must be significantly after the war. These don't appear to be companion pieces...

[u/[deleted]]

I saw the thumbnail and thought it was going to be mine scene from generation war

[u/pineappledumdum]

My grandfather has some pretty dark stories about living in Berlin both during and after the war.

Shit I couldn’t even imagine.