Dr. Fritz Todt - Mission and Achievement (1942)

At the time of his death in 1942, Dr. Fritz Todt was among the most powerful men of the Third Reich. By training a civil engineer, Todt first caught Adolf Hitler’s attention in 1932 by emphasizing the importance of road building for national economic recovery. Upon taking power, the Führer made Todt responsible for what would become Germany’s great Autobahn project. Every aspect of Autobahn construction - its design, aesthetic (to harmonize with the German landscape), and model role in National-Socialist labor relations - was stamped with Todt’s personality. As was his other great achievement, the building of the massive network of bunkers and fortifications known as the West Wall - described here as the first battle in the war against France. With the outbreak of war, Todt’s organization provided German troops an exemplary corps of engineers, filling out Germany’s expanding imperium with new roads, bridges, aircraft fields, and fortifications. All of this is lavishly documented in this film, which supplies extensive and often rare footage of Todt’s life and work, concluding with remarkable footage from his state funeral inside the Chancellory in Berlin.