Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Performance: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Date of recording: 18-23.04.1989
I. Allegro moderato (E major)
II. Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam (C♯ minor)
III. Scherzo: Sehr schnell (A minor) – Trio: Etwas langsamer (F major)
IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell (E major)
This is the last known recording of Herbert von Karajan – he made it in honour the 100-th birthday of our Führer!
1. Spain.
In honour of the 4th anniversary of the liberation of Madrid from the Bolshevik yoke, a grand parade of Spanish troops was held in the capital.
– Caudillo Franco on the podium.
– Infantrymen and sailors pass by.
– A close-up of one of the soldiers of the Spanish ‘Blue Division’, fighting on the eastern front, who is on the podium.
2. Ostmark, Salzburg.
Meeting of the Fuhrer and the Duce 29-30.4.1942. A Mercedes is rolling up to the entrance.
– Out of it come out of the Führer and Mussolini.
– The meeting is attended by German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Italian Foreign Minister Ciano.
– Field Marshal General Keitel, Colonel General Cavallero and Chief of the General Staff of the Italian Armed Forces are talking in the hall.
– The Berghof.
– Adolf Hitler and the Duce climb the stairs, on the right Field Marshal General Kesselring.
– They are in the reception hall.
– Conversation between the Führer and the Duce.
– Adolf Hitler and the Duce over a map.
– General Jodl gives explanations at the map.
– The negotiations were held in a spirit of friendship and unbreakable brotherhood of the armed forces of both nations and their leaders.
– They ended with the adoption and approval of decisions on the elimination of all forces resisting the victory of the Third Reich after a further plan of warfare in the political and military spheres.
– Duce and the Führer at the exit from the residence.
– They leave Berghof by car.
– At the railway station.
– Mussolini says goodbye to Keitel, the generals.
– Führer’s farewell and the Duce.
– The Führer shakes hands with the Duce in the car window.
3. Germany.
Production processes at one of the Krupp military plants.
– Workers in a hot shop.
– Workers and workers at the machines.
Berlin.
– Session of the Reichsarbeitskammer (Imperial Chamber of Labour) in the Mosaic Hall of the new Reich Chancellery on the occasion of the ‘national day of labour’ on May 1.
– Address by Dr Ley, who speaks of the tremendous successes on the eastern front and calls on the workers and the whole nation to follow their example.
– Audience.
– The meeting culminates in the awarding of honoured figures of German industry.
– Dr. Robert Ley awards the Reich Minister of Economics and Bank President Walter Funk, designers Ernst Heinkel, Ferdinand Porsche.
– A number of German enterprises were awarded the title of exemplary, they were given the right to pin the sign of the Cross for military service to the banner of the enterprise.
4. USSR. Eastern Front.
– Spring thaw.
– Running streams.
– Flooded terrain.
– The population of temporarily occupied by the Germans on forced labour for the construction of river crossings for the German army.
– Construction of dams and dams.
– Skis and sleds are deposited in the clothing warehouse.
– Soldiers are sent for sanitisation.
– Treatment of clothing in the sanitation camera.
– Medical examination.
– Soldiers in the bath.
– Soldiers receive treated clothes.
– Soldiers on holiday.
– They are engaged in household chores: shaving, washing clothes, washing their heads.
Soldiers playing cards, writing letters, smoking, cleaning weapons.
– Soldiers at the gun.
– Repair of cars, buses, tanks in the camp workshop.
– Tanks on the streets of the village.
– Tankers receive the order.
– The commander in his tank.
– Tanks rush forward.
– They are on the terrain.
– Tankers help to get out of the jam soldiers in the boat.
– Boats and boats on the water.
– Artillerymen ferry ammunition on the ropeway.
– The city of Orel, partially submerged by floods.
– Buildings and streets flooded with water.
– The population in boats moving through the streets.
– German soldiers in a boat.
– Turbulent streams on the streets of the city.
– Soldiers wash cars and motorbikes.
– Construction of footpaths.
– The car, specially rebuilt, moves on the rails.
– Unloading of rubber boots from the wagon.
– Unloading of ammunition and materials.
– Ammunition is sent to positions on the narrow-gauge railway.
– Unloading of goods.
– Horse-drawn carts are carrying goods.
– Cars in the mud on the broken road.
– The car is pulled out of the mud.
– Car wading through the mud.
– Stuck car.
– It is pulled out with the help of an artillery trailer.
– The northern section of the eastern front.
– Spring floods in Valdai.
– The convoy and soldiers are on the water.
– The convoy in the forest.
– Horses with difficulty wade through the water.
5. USSR. Northern section.
The detachment goes through a wooded area.
– The forest, mangled by shelling.
– Shot down tanks.
– At the positions of the German battery.
– Officers discuss the plan of operation.
– German guns shooting at the enemy.
– The beginning of artillery preparation.
– Infantry preparing to perform.
– Infantrymen move through the water and sinking terrain.
– Burning village.
– German infantry continues to go.
– Shot down Soviet tanks.
– German infantrymen at rest.
– Rewarding distinguished soldiers with iron crosses.
– Under Leningrad.
– View of the city from German positions.
– The beginning of the shelling of the city.
– Calculation at a heavy gun.
– Explosions.
– The shelling of the harbour area.
– Smoke over Leningrad.
6. Atlantic.
The coast of the English Channel.
– German fortifications.
– Loading downed German aircraft on platforms for shipment to Germany.
– In the German unit.
– Soldiers on holiday.
– Singing to the guitar.
– Spin gramophone record.
– Alarm.
– All rush to anti-aircraft guns.
– Shooting German anti-aircraft guns.
– Alarm in the flight section.
– German fighters in the air.
– Fragments of aerial combat.
– Shot down English aircraft falls.
– Another shot down English aircraft.
– Captured pilot.
– Fighters return to the base.
– Pilot Captain Joachim Müncheberg, Knight of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, sits with a puppy in his hands at the table at the circle of comrades.
– The appearance of enemy bombers.
– German fighters take off into the air.
– A downed bomber falls to the ground.
– German pilot in the car.
– Another English aircraft falls to the ground.
Soldiers of the Norwegian theater!
In irresistible advance, German troops have today established the land link between Oslo and Drontheim. The intention of the allies to nonetheless still force us to our knees through a late occupation of Norwegian soil had thereby been definitively thwarted.
Units of the army, of the navy and of the Luftwaffe, in exemplary coordination, have brought about an achievement that in its daring brings the highest honor to our young German Wehrmacht.
Officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men! You have found in the Norwegian theater against all the hardships at sea, on land and in the air and against the resistance of the enemy. You have solved the tremendous task that I had to put to you in faith in you and your strength.
I am proud of you. The nation expresses its gratitude to you through me.
As outward sign of recognition and of this gratitude, I bestow upon the supreme commander in Norway, General von Falkenhorst, the Knights Cross to the Iron Cross.
I will also decorate the bravest among you upon suggestion by your supreme commander.
The highest reward for you all, however, may now already be the conviction that you have made a decisive contribution in our folk’s most difficult struggle of fate for existence or nonexistence.
I know you will also continue to fulfill the task put to you.
Long live our Greater Germany!
Berlin, April 30, 1940
Adolf Hitler
Published in „Siegrunen“ Magazine – Volume XI, Number 3, Whole Number 65,
Spring 1998
When the story of the Danish volunteers of the Waffen-SS is recounted, the conversation usually goes back to the men of the FREIKORPS DANMARK. Their battles on the Ilmensee (Lake Ilmen) and near Welikije Luki, (Velikiye Luki), have always been held up as an example of Denmark's participation in the common European struggle. This unit, which existed from 19 June 1941 until 20 May 1943, had on the average a strength of about 1,200 men, and all-in-all, only about 1,800 men ever belonged to it
In sum total there were over 12,000 Danish volunteers in the Waffen- SS between 1940 and 1945 and about a third of them fell in action. These Danes could be found in all of the 38 Divisions of the Waffen-SS. The majority of them however were in the III. (Germanic) SS-Panzer Corps, with the volunteer formations „Nordland“ and „Nederiand“. The principal motivation for the voluntary enlistment of these men was without a doubt, their belief in the communist threat of the Soviet Union to Denmark and Europe. Among them could be found those who had already volunteered to fight in Finland during the Winter War of 1939- 1940.
What is very little known, is the fact, that when the war between Germany and the Soviet Union broke out on 22 June 1941, (Operation Barbarossa), there were already 216 Danes in the ranks of the known troop strength of the SS Division „Wiking“. These volunteers were differentiated from the bulk of the Danish volunteers since they had joined long before the breakdown in relations between Germany and the Soviet Union had taken place. These young men had not joined up to fight against something that they were afraid of, but instead came together for something that they believed in.
Soon after 9 April 1940, (Operation Weserübung - the invasion of Denmark and occupation of Norway), the first, albeit still secret, attempt to recruit volunteers for the former SS-Verfiigungstruppe (later Waffen- SS), began in Denmark. This was all done through the Danmarks National-Socialistiske Arbejder Parti, the DNSAP or National Socialist Worker's Party of Denmark. Those who responded were young men from the DNSAP SA (Sturm Abteilung - Storm Troops), and the National- Socialistisches Ungdom, the NSJ or National Socialist Youth, along with some Party members or people who had some connections with the DNSAP.
The enlistment of the recruits took place at SA facilities in the larger Danish cities under the supervision of SS officers in Luftwaffe uniforms. The recruits were informed that they would do their service in the SS-Standarte „Nordland“. They really did not know anything about the SS- VT, only that it was an elite unit in the German Armed Forces, and because of their beliefs they wanted to go there. They were not advised as to what purpose they would serve in the event of war time action. The SS-Standarte „Nordland“ had been authorized by Führer decree on 20 April 1940, and was to be formed from a combination of volunteers from Denmark and Norway.
Above left: SS-Staf. Möller and SS-Ostubaf. Jakobsen in Flensburg, 26 June 1940. Above right: SS-Ostubef. Jakobsen with one of his NCO's in Flensburg, 26 June 1940. (H.T. Nielsen).
The recruiting commission was very selective and established high standards. Great emphasis was placed on the correct body size and the sound teeth of the recruits. Those found acceptable received orders on where to report in, mostly to railroad stations, along with departure dates. The first contingent of 40 Danish volunteers, (chosen from 120 candidates and between the ages of 17 and 23), left for Germany on 8 May 1940. They were transported under strict secrecy, crossing the border in German Army trucks that were supposed to be empty. A small transport of ethnic-German volunteers from North Schleswig was also soon made.
A still larger contingent of 72 ethnic-Danes and 19 ethnic-Germans made up the next transport on 26 June 1940. The 72 Danes were picked up at the reporting stations and then taken in trucks with enclosed sides to the German-Danish border. The convoy came to a halt in a forest north of Krusau. Here a roll call of all those along was taken, and it was here that the 19 Danish Volksdeutsche volunteers joined the rest. The trucks again passed over the border posing as empty Wehrmacht vehicles and eventually came to a halt in the courtyard of the Police Presidium in Flensburg. Here they were met by SS- Obersturmbannfiihrer Jakobsen, the former CO of l./BNordland“, along with SS-Standartenführer und Oberst der Polizei Möller. SS-Staf. Möller made the volunteers aware of the fact that they now came under German war time regulations.
On the next morning the Danes began a three day journey in a train with three freight cars that took them through Germany and on to Klangenfurt in the Ostmark (Austria). They then proceeded on a foot march from the railroad station to the barracks where 1./“Nordland“ was located. Here the Danes were assigned to different companies.
Of this group of 72 Danes in the SS-VT, I have the names of 15 that are known today . . . nearly all of those who were not killed in action became officers or officer-aspirants and were recipients of many of the high and highest decorations. After 14 days, the Danes were individually called to the battalion staff to determine the lengths of their service obligations: a three month trial, two years, four years, or for the duration of the war. Of the few who selected to serve for three months, nearly all of them continued on after their time had expired.
The training period proceeded with relatively little friction. Only between the ethnic-Danes and ethnic-Germans from North Schleswig was their a difference of opinion over the future course of the Danish- German frontier. The SS Main Office dispatched SS-Untersturmführer Werner Grothmann to try and smooth over the waves from this disagreement.
In the next months, more Danes arrived in the Ostmark. Among them were 10 career officers of the Danish Army, including Kapitänleutnant of the Royal Danish Guard Christian Frederik von Schalburg, the highest ranking European volunteer and a representative on the command staff. In October 1940, Danes arrived at II. and III. Battalionsf Nordland“, that were then located in Vienna. At the same time, the recruiting program in Denmark was legalized, causing a growth in voluntary enlistments.
In December 1940, Danes were sent to the Germanic SS Training Camp at Sennheim, Alsace, where they were assembled together with their comrades from Norway, Holland and Flanders to receive basic military training. From March to May 1941, the Germanic volunteers were then dispatched to the SS-Standarten „Germania“, „Westland“ and „Nordland“. „Germania“ had already been formed during peace time, while „Westland“ contained many of the Flemish and Dutch SS volunteers.
The three above named Standarten were then combined to form the newest unit of the SS-VT, the Division „Wiking”, the first multi-national division to be formed in the war. This division was assembled on the grounds of the troop-training camp at Heuberg under its commander, the widely respect SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner, who would later be decorated with the swords and oakleaves to the Knight's Cross. On 22 May 1941, the division was inspected by the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, and then began its way to the east.
All these young Danes came voluntarily into the Waffen-SS on the basis of their beliefs, convinced that the new German-led Europe would become a great power independent of both Anglo-American capitalism and Soviet Bolshevism. The greater numbers of the comrades of the early Danish volunteers, including the men of the FREIKORPS DANMARK, (established on 19 July 1941 under the Danish Lt.Col. Christian Peter Kryssing), came later on. These volunteers, along with many of their European comrades in the National Legions and other volunteer formations were committed only to fighting against the Bolsheviks and not the Western powers.
This did not apply to the volunteers of 1940. The legionnaires of the FREIKORPS DANMARK fought the Red threat in the east under the Dannebrog (Danish flag). The volunteers from the first hour strove for a Europe under the Germanic victory runes, against the Bolsheviks from the east as well as against the obsolete democracies and their imperialism from the west. When I learned that my father and uncle were among the first group of 216 Danish volunteers, I sought not to emphasize the divisions between the volunteers, but to see what differentiated one group from another.
I was only concerned that this initial small group of volunteers, (and their motivations), were in danger of being forgotten by history. Later on with the formation of SS-Pz.Gr.Rgt.24 „Danmark“ in May 1943 on the Grafenwöhr troop training grounds, the „Wiking“ members and the legionnaires were brought together in one dedicated contingent. All of these Danish volunteers then distinguished themselves in Croatia, before Narva, in Pomerania and at the last, before and in Berlin.
Above left: Two of the trainers with on the right is Uscha. K. Soil. Above right: Ustuf. Werner Grothmann in Klangenfurt, Summer 1940. (H.T.Nielsen Archives).
*****
POSTSCRIPT: Legion-Obersturmführer Kristen Madsen Brodersen
The „heroic“ death of Leg.-Ostuf. Brodersen as told in SR #64 was the official version, but as it turns out the truth was a bit more non-heroical. In fact, on 17 June 1942, Leg.-Ostuf. Brodersen was playing stupidly in front of his men, boasting and bragging. He wanted to show them how ineffective a German stick grenade was and he did it in such a foolish way that it exploded and killed him on the spot. Some rumors even state that he was not sober. Although it was a tragic loss for the FREIKORPS DANMARK, it was not possible to tell the truth in the course of the war. „Officially“ it was not possible for an officer in the European elite force of the Waffen-SS to act in such a dishonorable way!
Above: 3/FREIKORPS DANMARK in Posen Treskau, Spring 1942. From the left: Leg.-Oscha. Erling Haiias, SS-Ustuf. Hennecke (a German), Leg.-Uscha. Andersen, Leg.-Ostuf. Kristen Madsen Brodersen, Leg.-Hscha. Pedersen, Leg.-Uscha. Birkmar, Leg.- Uscha. Jörgensen. They wear the „trifos“ collarpatch.
The Ruler
Directed by: Veit Harlan
Written by: Curt J. Braun, Thea von Harbou and Harald Bratt
Based on: The Ruler by Gerhart Hauptmann
Produced by: Karl Julius Fritzsche
Cinematography: Günther Anders and Werner Brandes
Edited by: Martha Dübber
Music by: Wolfgang Zeller
Production company: Tobis Film
Distributed by: Tobis Film
Release date: 17 March 1937
Running time: 103 minutes
Country: Germany
Language: German
Starring:
Emil Jannings: Matthias Clausen
Paul Wagner: Professor Wolfgang Clausen - his son
Hannes Stelzer: Egert - his youngest son
Hilde Körber: Bettina - his daughter
Käthe Haack: Ottilie Klamroth - his married daughter
Herbert Hübner: Direktor Erich Klamroth - her husband
Maria Koppenhöfer: Paula Clausen - born von Rübsamen
Marianne Hoppe: Inken Peters
Helene Fehdmer: Mrs. Peters
Max Gülstorff: Medical Doctor Geiger
Harald Paulsen: Judicial Council Hanefeld
Theodor Loos: Pastor Immoos
Rudolf Klein-Rogge: Director Bodlfing
Paul Bildt: Diener Winter
Walter Werner: Private Secretary Dr. Wuttke
Heinrich Schroth: Director Hofer
Hans Stiebner: Director Weißfisch
Peter Elsholtz: Engineer Dr. Ehrhardt
Heinz Wemper: Foreman
Ursula Kurtz:
Miss Biel
The Ruler (German: Der Herrscher) is a 1937 German drama film directed by Veit Harlan. It was adapted from the play of the same name by Gerhart Hauptmann. The film’s sets were designed by the art director Robert Herlth. Location shooting took place around Oberhausen and Pompeii near Naples. It premiered at the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin.
Plot
Matthias Clausen (Emil Jannings) is the head of Clausen Works, an old and prosperous munitions firm. He falls in love with a secretary in the office (Marianne Hoppe), and his children conspire against him in order to protect their inheritance. Clausen disowns them and bestows the firm on the state, confident that one of his workers capable of carrying on his work will arise.
