ABSTRACT
The very idea of re-education seemed a ‘conqueror’s catchword’, not a method of instruction but a ‘panacea for all of the perceived weaknesses in society’. Film communicates through emotional stereotypes, which meant that trying to depict only some Germans as evil was never as popular in Hollywood as the typecasting of an entire nation. The film offers a hammer-and-tongs assault. The musical score, an insistent ostinato, matches the ham-handed narration. The American documentary film unit, finally fully established in July 1947, had managed to produce eight short subjects, plus a feature-length documentary about the Nuremburg war crimes trials. Welt im Film, the Anglo-American newsreel intended to be a major part of the film programme for the re-education of Germans, receives withering sarcasm. The one great success of the American film programme is of course shared by camera teams from all of the Allied powers.
