Artworks by Oskar Just - Part I

Source: Nordisches Blutserbe im süddeutschen Bauerntum (1938)

(Nordic Blood Lines in the Southern German Farmland)

Part I

Postcards Collection – Swastika Sun, Part I

Part I

 

The Crusade Against the Bolshevism

Die Deutsche Wochenschau – Newsreel No. 564 – 25 June 1941

Vimeo embed code

- Ceremonies of Croatia's Entry into the Tripartite Pact;

 

- Rommel Awards the Iron Cross to Italian General Gariboldi;

 

- Luftwaffe Bombs British Munition Ships in Front of Tobruk;

 

- Germany Attacks Soviet Union. (Operation Barbarossa);

 

- Wehrmacht Units Advance Toward Kaunas, Lithuania;

 

- Luftwaffe Attacks Strategic Targets in Soviet Territory;

 

Art is the Language of God

Source: SS Leitheft, Year 1944, Edition S, Issue 1

From a Field Letter

Perhaps Pentecost, the day of the descent of the holy ghost, is the appropriate day for an answer to your letter of Easter. The teachings of Pentecost are indeed full of mighty symbolic content, but there was already an earlier saga whose wisdom seems to me to be no less. According to it the hearts’ flame - or that holy ghost - that alone elevates man above the animals, was once robbed from the gods by a Titan, Prometheus. Note well: robbed, because the gods did want to give this most direct component of their being to any other of their creatures out of mercy, rather because it was only supposed to be go to the best, the most daring and strongest, the victor in the struggle for existence who dared the most incredible, to penetrate into the divine regions by his own strength, to accomplish the decisive deed of mankind and to sacrifice himself for this deed for its own sake. Thereby he would win man’s right to be the carrier of the divine flame on earth.

Where is the essential difference between this and that fable? It is always that same schism that runs like a red thread through the history of Germanic Christianity and made out of us the folk of eternal seekers, doubters, fighters and “protestants”.

For this is the main pillar of Christian teachings, with which it stands or falls through all reforms and interpretations. They declare love to be the sole and innermost law of “genuine” life, thus a concept which is diametrically opposed to the one dominating earthly life, which is called the “struggle for existence” and the victory of the stronger over the weaker. Indeed, we also find here another, earthly love, but it is not the dominant center of existence, rather only the female opposite of manly struggle.

Since it is obvious that life on earth does not follow the creator’s Christian basic law, logically “genuine” life must be moved to the beyond, and earthly life must be valued as a hollow image, a valley of woe, full of original sin, short, merely a transitional, preparatory phase for actual being. Christianity must hence, in accordance with its intellectual structure, always be other-worldly and basically life-rejecting, and no interpretation, no sophistry are able to solve this contradiction that exists between the revealed will of God and the actual being of his entire creation, starting with the struggle of gravitational forces in space down to the pitiless, consequential and gapless process of selection in the natural world. All of our folk’s religious thinkers from Meister Ekkehard to Lagarde have struggled with this contradiction.

We have now entered an epoch in which this contraction becomes especially crassly apparent due to the escalating intensity of this struggle for existence, in which we as Europeans - that means as the prerequisite for any occidental religion - will only survive, if we affirm this struggle for existence as the genuine meaning of life and not as earthly imperfection. Otherwise we must in the long run succumb against beings for whom - lacking any spiritual problematics - it is the only conceivable form of existence.

What is defended here in the east, is after all far more than this or that religious conviction and also more then the cross of Golgatha. Here it is about the human itself, about that holy flame that, stemming from a divine source, since the time of Prometheus has first created the difference between man and animal, and we must today protect it from the reach of a race in whose heart it has gone out.

I do not know whether one can put that which happens and will yet happen in the course of this struggle under a Christian commandment. At any rate, 1 could not and can do so even less today. For it is about more than this, whether one can with sophistry of interpretation and generosity of view still somehow remain a Christian or not. It is about our life again being based on an obligating, religious center, that religion does not just mean a traditional habit or cult construction, rather innermost, necessary main spring for each act, for life itself.

In the Middle Ages Christianity was such a center and perhaps still in the age of the reformation. It was simultaneously life’s core and main spring, even if the reformation, as a result of humanism and renaissance, meant a first, suspecting rebellion against a never completely comprehended world-image. As this center was lost more and more in more recent times, it coincided with a conspicuous decline of our artistic creative energy, with a growing insecurity toward the basic questions of life and with a dangerous weakening of our physical life-will, in short, with a general deformation of the German soul and German man.

To win back a religious center as a genuine, active center, hence happens as an unconditional life necessity. This so much the more so as we enter an era where we must defend our physical and spiritual existence not only against the nihilism of the east, rather in which we through the general technological and political development will come into increasingly close contact with the races of the far east, who possess such a lifedetermining center.

Do you believe in all seriousness, that among men of the twentieth century Christianity can still be this center? Even if one would come in order to interpret for us the teachings of Nazareth in a totally new, revolutionary sense, historical experience still speaks against a world-moving idea that has once lost its obligating effect on men winning it back. But why, may you ask, should it no longer suffice for us, that which was content of life for our fathers for almost 1000 years? To that the following explanation: The people of the German Middle Ages and yet to the middle of the nineteenth century were in their life attitude and peasant origin so non-falsified and close to nature that they could survive a world-rejecting, purely otherworldly religion without running the risk to lose the foundation of the natural world or to even seriously violate the life-laws of this world. However, when man started to increasingly change his life through technology and to distance himself from simple and clear nature in life style and origin, grew at the same time the compulsion and drive to in his faith again think of the eternal laws of earthly nature, to seek God in this world and to hence base his highest ethical values on the commandants of this world and not the beyond. This development seems to me to be a necessary reaction to the technology in our life, which in union with a purely other-worldly religion must lead to a complete loss of any natural bond and to a lethal misrecognition of natural values, on which we men are one way or other dependent.

But even if you do not agree with this line of thought, a question must be asked: “Are you yourself still a Christian?” A Christian in the sense that the salvation teachings of Golgotha, that charity as the sole supreme value, that the equality of all before God, that these ideas, which actually mock the actual world order on earth, are for you the obligating center and driving force of your action? Is not precisely your work determined by completely different forces?

You can hardly deny that, at the latest in the classical period and to an increased extent in the romantic period, the work of even the church-oriented, pious artists drank from other springs than from those of Christian teachings. Like all works of our folk, it comes from a religiosity that stands beyond all denominations, comes from the divine fire of the incomparable German soul.

Was Christianity really the foundation of their wonderful creative strength? I believe that cause and affect are switched here. That what our Nordic soul has given to mankind could not have been placed in it by any ever so holy teaching. It was inborn from the start like any great talent. It proved its creative strength already millennia before Christ in culture-works that range from mankind’s first plough among our Germanic ancestors to the Nordic pillars of the Parthenon and the Aryan wisdom of Old India. But like each creative talent, it requires a push, a vibration, which first makes it fully active. Christianity became a fertilizing force, its proclamation and its Germanization, but even very early the passionate conflict with an alien God became driving force and characteristic of German spiritual creativity and so became inseparable components of the German soul and German life itself.

But does the recognition of a spiritual condition and value also mean the acceptance of its immutability? That would mean to sentence the creative force to death, for its most essential trait is its ever rejuvenating fertility, is Goethe’s “Die and become!” Indeed, everything that was, remains preserved forever, and a spiritual phase of development always remains a permanent possession.

German art began its journey home from the other-worldly regions of the orient when it became aware of the legacy of the spiritual ancestors of Greece in the classical period and when in the romantic period the most secret springs of their own folk-soul broke open in fables and songs. It was just the first presentiment long before the time, yet already proclamation of new life, for whom titans like Nietzsche cleared the way.

Is it then so old and used-up, the German soul, that it cannot, under the blows of fate, walk new paths, in order to become fertile from a new center and to so fulfill its divine task? Only if we answer no to this question, can we affirm our present and future, in short, our life. And if we do that, then we also do not want to and we cannot reject our own past as part of this life and everything from which our soul has become rich. We do not want to reject anything at all, not the cathedrals and not the altar images, not Luther and not the Matthew Passion. But also not the new paths, which lead to the future. All of them only represent steps of development and forms of expression of the one divine force, the German soul, in which the fire of Prometheus bums. Precisely this German soul now searches for a new faith, creates for itself a new obligating religious center. Perhaps it is today still more presentiment than form, and hence I cannot formulate it with universal validity, rather just affirm the basic characteristics, which glow to me personally from the mists of the beginning.

This, then, is its first statement, that God is of this world and that his commandments are the natural commandments of this life. That the researching intellect of men hence simultaneously means the divine task to recognize the will of creation in its laws, which reveal themselves to human intellect. That we must therefore be victor in the struggle for existence in order to remain capable and worthy to carry the flame in our hearts that is the purest expression of the divine. That this divine flame, which distinguishes us from animals, is the eternal will for formation, for the creative deed, to the deed that in itself becomes proclamation of divine will.

And this is its second statement, that in the bodily as in the spiritual, confirmation only grows out of struggle, perfection only out of victory, life only from death. Sacrifice is the purest expression of this basic law of all life.

And this is its third statement, that all life is eternal. For we today know the law of the preservation of energy which knows no passing, rather only transformation. So do we presume the law of the preservation of physical life in itself, which likewise presents itself to us in an eternal process of transformation, most beautifully and insightfully in the genetic rivers of our own blood, that is simultaneously the bearer of all our spiritual traits. And therefore I also believe in the immortality of everything spiritual that, conceived by the flame of our hearts, has made the world rich and man the proclaimer of the divine. For spirit is at the same time energy and life.

I believe that thoughts and deeds are eternal and that God’s visibility in this world depends on their perpetuating number, energy and purity. So, too, can the evil, that means the part that contradicts the God-given life-laws, never be atoned through the individual’s regret or by sacrifice of life to God, rather only through an appropriate, morally good deed. A man’s sole salvation lies in the moral deed. Whether he or others perform them, is meaningless for the eternity of life, but that the saving and elevating deed is performed at all, that decides over existence and growth of the divine in the world and is the moral call that goes out to each one of us.

Here, too, lies the religious justification for folk-life as the highest value, for it is the unconditional prerequisite for the rise of men who are capable of the moral deed.

So I believe in the great unity of body, soul and mind, in active life and religious task, in passing world and eternal God, in that lofty harmony that enabled the Greeks their God-proclaiming deeds, in that harmony whose consciousness was lost under the influence of Christianity, but nonetheless deeply remained the fertile secret of German creative energy and that, once won back, will enable the German soul its loftiest expression.

Gioacchino Rossini - String Sonatas

Conductor: Wilhelm Furtwängler

Performance: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

String Sonata No.1 in G major

I. Moderato (00:00)

II. Andantino (05:30)

III. Allegro (09:20)

String Sonata No.2 in C major

I. Allegro (11:42)

II. Andantino (18:55)

III. Allegro (22:16)

String Sonata No.3 in C major

I. Allegro (24:32)

II. Andante (28:42)

III. Moderato (33:16)

String Sonata No.6 in D major

I. Allegro spirituoso (36:02)

II. Andante assai (43:14)

III. Tempesta (Allegro) (45:36)

Total time: 51:05

Die Deutsche Wochenschau – Newsreel No. 698 – 20 January 1944

- Sports and Leisure in Germany;

- German Troops Visit Greek Monks;

- Infantry, Assault Guns Oppose Soviet Tanks;

- Allied Bombers Over Germany

Adolf Hitler – speech at the Reichs Veterans Day in Kassel

June 4, 1939

My Comrades!

It is for the first time today that I partake in a Reich Warriors’ Convention; the first time that I speak before you, the veterans of the old and of the new Wehrmacht.

The Reichskriegerfuhrer of the NS Reichskriegerbund, Comrade Reinhard, has greeted me, on your behalf, both as a soldier of the World War and as the Fuhrer and Chancellor of the German Volk and Reich. In this, my dual capacity, I wish to return this greeting. As the Fuhrer, I greet you as representative of the German Volk in the name of millions of Germans. These have placed their trust, their personal destinies, and hence the destiny of the Reich in my hands. They have done so not because of a constitutional exigency.

This year especially the German Volk is inspired by a feeling of profound gratitude for all those who once fulfilled the most difficult and noble duty.

As an old soldier, I greet you with the feeling of comradeship, which can reveal itself in the deepest sense only to one who in war experienced the noblest transfiguration of this idea. For the magnificent spirit of manly communion discloses itself in the most captivating manner only to him who has seen it stand the test of time in this, the toughest trial of manly courage and manly loyalty.

When I speak to you today, my Comrades, then I myself relive in my memory the violence of those times which now lie a quarter of a century behind us and which the soldiers of the Old Army in particular have felt to be the greatest in their own human existence and which still have them under their spell today.

Nearly twenty-five years now lie behind us since those spellbound, violent weeks, days, and hours in which the German Volk was forced to stand up for its existence after a period of peaceful, well-protected ascent. Twenty years have now passed since, in spite of an unequaled, heroic resistance, a Diktat was forced on us which, in theory, was to bestow upon the world a new order, and which, in practice, bore the curse of destroying any reasonable order founded on the recognition of the most natural rights to life.

The fateful grandeur of those five years from 1914 to 1919! The jolts and mortifications this meant for our Volk! What suffering followed in the wake of our collapse! What depths of degradation, deprivation, and destitution was Germany to suffer! Still, how enormous a change which this doomed Reich underwent in the end-how it pulled itself back from the brink of imminent destruction and moved towards a renewed rise, regarding which we believe that it shall be better and, above all, more lastingly founded than any similar process in German history! When soldiers gather their thoughts, conversations usually turn back to the years shared. Remembrance allows that to arise anew before their mind’s eye which once constituted the shared meaning of their lives. As in epochs of long years of peace, the daily chores with their harsh demands on a sense of duty and on the bodily ability to perform constitute the sum of memories which are recollected at such gatherings, so, with us, these are made up of the memories of the greatest time with which human beings have ever been confronted on this earth. A quarter of a century then begins to pale before us, and the ever-present force of the most difficult, but greatest epoch in our history, casts its spell on us once more. Whatever the individual among us may wish to exchange from the cherished treasure of these, his dearest recollections with others, it is surpassed by what this period in its entirety meant for our Volk, as fateful as this may well have been for our individual lives. For me as the Fuhrer of the German nation, when engaged in critical reflection, time and time again the question presents itself, which I judge as infinitely important not only for the fate we met with then, but also for the correct fashioning of our future, namely, the question of the inevitability of the events back then.

Twenty years ago, a miserable state leadership felt compelled-as it may well have believed-by an irresistible force to place its signature beneath a document which sought to burden Germany finally with the war guilt.

Scientific research in the meantime has revealed this to be a lie and a deliberate deception. I solemnly undertook to erase this signature-given against better knowledge-beneath the Diktat of Versailles-and have thereby paid a formal tribute to honor. Still, beyond this, we all must realize for ourselves: war guilt is inexorably linked to the presupposition of a war aim. No people and no regime will wage war simply for the sake of waging war. That anyone would stride forth into a war merely for the pure joy of killing and bloodshed-such a delusion can take hold only in the brains of perverted Jewish literati.

What is decisive in this context is that the German Government not only pursued no war aim in the year 1914, but also, in the course of the war, never managed to arrive at a reasonable or even precise determination of an aim to be pursued. The Peace Treaty of Versailles, by contrast, clearly reveals the true war aims of the British and French encirclement politicians: the theft of the German colonies; the elimination of German trade; the destruction of all bases for German life and existence; Germany’s removal from all positions in power and politics. All in all this added up to precisely the same war aim the British and French encirclement politicians still pursue today.

In Germany at the time, regrettably, there were men who thought they need not pay any attention to the extremist proclamations of English papers and English politicians on the necessity of taking away the German colonies, of eliminating German trade, all goals already apparent in peacetime. The World War and the Peace Diktat of Versailles have instructed the German nation differently. What in former times apparently irresponsible journalists pronounced as the sick products of their own fantasy or hatred, became the goals of British policy, namely, the theft of the German colonies, the elimination of German trade, the destruction of the German merchant marine, the powerpolitical nervous breakdown and destruction of the Reich, and by inference the political and bodily extermination of the German Volk. These were the goals of the British policy of encirclement before the year 1914.

And it is good that we should recall now that when faced with these intentions and war aims of our enemies, later to be affirmed in the Peace Diktat of Versailles, the German state leadership of the day was left without direction and, regrettably, completely without any willpower. And thus it came to pass that there were not only no aims in the war for Germany, but also that the necessary German preparations for the war, in the sense of an effective defensive build-up, were never undertaken. And in this the great guilt of Germany in the World War must be seen. Namely, it is the guilt of having facilitated for the surrounding world (Umwelt), through a criminal neglect of German armament, the propagation of thoughts of the destruction of Germany and the realization of these in the end.

In the year 1912, under pretexts incomprehensible to us today, expenditures for the necessary armament were cut; trivial appropriations were stinted; aspiring, honest soldiers banished to the desert; and thereby the convictions of our enemies reinforced the idea that a successful campaign against Germany might well be worth trying. Beyond this, the simple mustering of all men fit for service was conducted only to an insufficient extent and thereby many hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men did not receive training. In critical hours, a high percentage of those who were nonetheless drafted had to pay for this with their lives. All this only reinforces the picture of an incompetent state leadership and therefore the only genuine conception of guilt, not only regarding the outbreak of the war, but, above all, the outcome of the fight.

When in spite of all of this the memory of the World War in particular has become a source of proud reminiscences, this is due not to the all-too-weak armament, the incompetent state leadership, and so on, but to the inner value, the unequaled instrument of the German Wehrmacht then, of the Army, the Navy, and later of the Luftwaffe. In terms of numbers the latter often faced an adversary who was many times superior to it, but who never attained its inner value.

Reflection on and recollection of this great time must make more firm in all of us, my Comrades, one conviction and one resolve:

1. The conviction that the German Volk can only reflect in general on its past with the greatest pride, and in particular on the years of the World War. As the Fuhrer of the German nation, I may never for a second, as a former fighter, admit that anyone in the ranks of our Western enemies has the right to think himself or regard himself as someone superior to us Germans! I do not in the least suffer from an inferiority complex. On the contrary, I regard the memory of the four years of war, which I had the good fortune to experience thanks to a most gracious Providence, as a cause of proud trust in my German Volk and, as a soldier, in my own person, too. Deep inside, these years cause me to long for and desire peace in the recognition of all the horrors of war, and make me all the more convinced of the value of the German soldier in the defense of our rights. Hence threats by whatever party do not impress me in the least.

2. I and all of us have derived from this period the resolve never to allow the interests of our Reich and nation to be as criminally neglected as it was before the year 1914.

And now I wish to assure you, my old Comrades, of one thing: whereas the British policy of encirclement has remained the same as before the war, Germany’s policy of defense has undergone thorough revision! It has already changed in that, at the head of the Reich, no longer is a civilian disguised as a major562 seeing to affairs, but rather a soldier who will wear civilian clothes on occasion! There are no more Bethmann-Hollwegs amongst the German state leadership today.

I have taken care that anyone who has anything to do with state leadership is a hundred-percent man and soldier. Should I nonetheless perceive that the behavior of any one person cannot stand up to critical strain, then I shall immediately remove this individual, whoever he may be.

The Peace Diktat of Versailles did not come about coincidentally. It was the goal of those who throughout the years sought to encircle Germany, and who finally realized this goal.

We have no right to doubt that this same policy is being employed in the pursuit of the same goals today. We hence have the duty to tell this truth to the nation, without much ado, and to strengthen it in its resistance and in its defensive capacities to the utmost. I believe that I am hereby acting in the spirit of those comrades who once, regrettably and apparently in vain, had to give their lives for Germany. Just as I believe that now, twenty-five years after the outbreak of the World War and twenty years after the Diktat of Versailles, the German state leadership and behind it the entire German Volk can for the first time step up to the tombs of our heroes with their heads held high. At the very least, some atonement has been made for the sins once committed against them by weakness and a lack of direction and unity. Hence I expect that the policy to strengthen Germany’s defensive capacities should not only be warmly welcomed by the veterans, but should also merit their zealous support. This policy should not conceive of its goal as a temporary recasting of civilians as military men, but rather of the education in principle of an entire nation to soldiership and soldierly behavior.

It is no coincidence that National Socialism was conceived in the Great War.

For it is nothing other than the suffusion of our entire existence with a true fighting spirit for Volk and Reich. May none of us ever doubt one thing: as soon as the German Volk possesses a totally heroic leadership, it will adjust its own behavior to that of the leadership. It is my irrevocable determination to make certain that the highest political and military leaders of the nation think and act as courageously as the brave musketeer must whose task it is to give his own life, and who does so if he receives orders or necessity dictates as much. The heroic leadership of a nation, however, rests on a conscience compelled by the question whether or not a people shall exist.

When I speak to you in this manner especially, my Comrades, then I can already claim of German history the justification bestowed on him who not only speaks through words, but whose deeds attest to the same spirit and to the same persuasion. And this is why I can share more than any one else in the great comradeship of the eternal German soldiery. And because of this I am happy to be able to welcome you here in Kassel on the Reichskriegertag, as the representative of this soldiership.

Behind us lies the transfigured memory of the greatest time of our Volk and of our own existence. Before us lies the fulfillment of what this time, too, once, albeit unconsciously, struggled for:

Grossdeutschland!

Leon Degrelle - The Epic Story of the Waffen SS

Leon Degrelle (born June 15th 1906, died March 31 1994) was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism and later joined the Waffen SS which were front-line troops in the fight against the Soviet Union AND Communism.

This is a self-spoken biography (with an introduction by his daughter). He was one of many, who wished and believed that they could make a better Europe and struggled mightily to that end. Whatever one's political outlook.., one cannot doubt the courage and conviction of Degrelle or the men that he led. That he survived so much carnage and the vengeance of his enemies at the end is remarkable. That he then went on to produce such a memorable account of his experiences we should be thankful for. It was an epic struggle by any standards...

When Degrelle joined the Wehrmacht he was offered the rank of lieutenant, but he refused and he went into Russian campaign as an ordinary private. He points out that Waffen-SS was really a front-line unit and a respected fighting force. Also, that 98% were NOT professional soldiers, or just young men after adventure, or NOT the goose-stepping „half-mad“ stereotypes of Hollywood. Most of the volunteer units had a tragic end as they would rather fight to the last man instead of being handed over to their vengeful countrymen. The Waffen-SS had an estimate of 600 000 European (non-German) volunteers who fought with honour on the eastern front, and many of them winning the highest medal for bravery in the German armed forces, the Knights Cross.

This eye opening historical video is a daring break from the all the typical „anti-German“ videos and publications as it tries to show the real untold truth about the Axis dealings with foreigners, volunteers, minorities, helpers and other diverse international relations. He does quite well at telling the untold, unpopular AND startling truths of the real perspectives AND relations of Germans AND non-Germans during WWII. Unlike Hollywood AND the general media that just LOVES to project an inaccurate historical „pseudo truth“!!

This speech examines AND relates the real unclouded facts tainted by the „fantasy history entertainment“ that is so popular today... Some people actually really believe that going to the movies AND reading books by those who won the war, etc.., is a history course made easy, simple AND fun !!

Yes.., and very sad to say.., „the beat goes on“ (and on, and on).., as WW III will NOT be that much different from the first two that killed millions.., or that far off in the future !!

As always.., after watching.., do your best to „pass it on“...

„Truth Does Not Fear Investigation“

„He who Wins the War.., also Writes the History“

„The Truth shall make you Free.., but at first.., it'll make you Damn Mad“ !!!

Stoßtrupp 1917 (1934)

Directed by: Ludwig Schmid-Wildy      

Hans Zöberlein

Produced by: Franz Adam, Alfred Oberlindober, Franz Geretshauser      

Written by: Hans Zöberlein - (novel)

Hans Zöberlein - (manuscript and screenplay)

Franz Adam - (manuscript and screenplay)

Marian Kolb - (manuscript and screenplay)

Cinematography: Franz Bertl Seyr, Josef Wirsching, Carl Dittmann, Karl Hasselmann, Ludwig Zahn, Josef Wirsching

Edited by: Else Baum, Martha Dübber, Carl Otto Bartning

Sound: Eugen Hrich, Siegfried Schulz

Distributed by: Arya-Film GmbH (München - Berlin)

Release dates: 1934

Running time: 118 min

Country: Germany

Language: German

Starring:

Ludwig Schmid-Wildy: Hans Steinbauer

Beppo Brem: Girgl

Toni Eggert: Toni

Max Zankl: Heiner

Hans Pössenbacher: Anderl

Karl Hanft: Martl

Heinz Evelt: Max

Hans Erich Pfleger: Karl + Capitaine

Georg Emmerling: Gustl

Albert Penzkofer: The Sergeant

Ludwig Ten Cloot: The Company Commander

Hans Schaudinn: The Sergeant

Hans Franz Pokorny: The Major

Harry Hertzsch: The Lieutenant

Matthias Olschinsky: The General

Eberhard Kreysern: The Staff Major

Leopold Kerscher: The Operator

Peter Labertouche: The English

Plot:

Shock Troop (German title: Stoßtrupp 1917) is a 1934 German war film directed by Hans Zöberlein and starring Ludwig Schmid-Wildy, Beppo Brem and Max Zankl. It was based on the novel “Der Glaube an Deutschland” by Hans Zöberlein.

This film is intended to convey the experiences of frontline soldiers. The events experienced by the assault troops in this film show what millions of soldiers in the First World War went through, from the privations to the miracles carried out by heroic courage and the sense of sacrifices made to accomplish their tasks. Nothing in war is glossed over in this film. The film clearly shows how modern warfare in the early 20th Century took place. Artillery barrage and trench warfare accompany the film from the first to the last scene. And it was the frontline soldier who had to deal with this for four long years.