Part IV
Anmut (1938-39)
Grace (1938-39)
Eos (1941-42)
Flora (1943)
Psyche (1941)
Demut (1944)
Humility (1944)
Part IV
Anmut (1938-39)
Grace (1938-39)
Eos (1941-42)
Flora (1943)
Psyche (1941)
Demut (1944)
Humility (1944)
1. Italy.
Celebration of the 20th anniversary of the ‘March on Rome’ /the seizure of power by the fascists in Italy/. PNR Rome.
– Building with Italian flag, bust of Il Duce.
– Italian Ambassador Dino Alfieri speaks at the Italian Embassy in Berlin.
– He talks about the significance of the March on Rome.
– Mussolini's quote: ‘My blood is the cause of the Fascist revolution.’
– Historical footage of the March on Rome on 28 October 1922. Armed columns enter the city.
– Mussolini at the head of the Blackshirts, 1942.
– King Victor Emmanuel III. Mussolini on the balcony.
Construction of new roads, bridges, residential buildings and holiday homes.
– Drainage of marshy land in Agro Pontino.
Mussolini in the city of Littoria.
– Mussolini with a pickaxe at a road construction site.
– Children swimming in the sea.
– Mussolini in one of the villages.
– He takes part in agricultural work.
Italian ship.
– Construction of a new road and villages in an African colony.
– Settlers in a new house.
– Marshal Italo Balbo, Governor-General of Italian Libya.
– A new industrial enterprise.
– Launching of a new military vessel.
– Italian submarines, destroyers, cruisers, etc.
Combat aircraft.
– A squadron in the air.
– Italian infantry marching.
– Tanks on parade.
– A solemn formation of troops.
– The Italian flag.
2. Eastern front.
The northern section of the eastern front in the Ilmen Lake area, where German troops are surrounded.
– Colonel General Alfred Keller, responsible for supplying the surrounded troops by air, exits the aircraft and takes up his position.
– Keller presents the Knight’s Cross to Peter-Paul Breu, commander of the 2nd Group of the 3rd Bomber Aviation.
NSKK Corps Commander Erwin Kraus inspects the ranks of the National Socialist Motor Corps.
– Loading of ammunition and supplies by the NSKK. Vehicles with ammunition on the move.
– They pass through Staraya Russa.
At the German air unit’s location, a pilot watches a puppy.
– Loading of containers with shells, letters and newspapers onto a transport aircraft.
– Planes take off into the air.
– Dropping containers to surrounded soldiers.
– Inscription on the ground: ‘We thank you.’
– German soldiers reading newspapers.
Commander of the Totenkopf Division (‘Death’s Head’), SS-Obergruppenfüher Theodor Eicke, and commander of the 16th Army, Colonel General Ernst Busch, at a meeting in the forest.
German train travelling on narrow-gauge track, soldiers on platforms.
– Infantrymen disembark.
– They cross the bridge to their positions.
– Horse-drawn carts with weapons and ammunition.
– A fallen horse is pulled out of the mud.
– Unloading at the final destination.
In the Ilmensky Lake area.
– Supply troops with canisters on their shoulders walk across swampy terrain under enemy fire.
– They reach the trenches and distribute food to soldiers in mess tins.
– Firefight with Soviet troops.
– German artillery fires.
– Tanks with infantry on the attack.
– Junkers in the air.
– Tank crews watch the air battle from the ground.
– A soldier watches the battle through binoculars.
– A downed Soviet aircraft falls.
– German artillery fires.
– Soldiers on a break, lunch.
– Fighting near the river.
– German infantry advancing in a chain.
– Signalmen pulling a cable.
– A mortar firing.
– A German tank in the forest.
– Tanks firing.
– A damaged Soviet tank.
– Soviet prisoners.
– Destroyed Soviet equipment. A view of the battle-scarred terrain.
– Abandoned and destroyed Soviet equipment.
3. The North African front.
Meeting of German officers at the headquarters of a combat squadron.
– Officers with maps.
– The Kufra oases, which are British fortifications on the southern Egyptian-Libyan border, must be attacked.
– German air unit.
– A 1,000 km flight is planned, and the bombers are being prepared in a special way, even for a forced landing (spare petrol cans, food supplies, a pilot's kit: flask, mess tin, machete, sunglasses).
– Flight over the Libyan desert.
– View from the plane.
– Bombing of the hangar at Fort Etak.
– Burning oil tanks are visible.
– Dive attack on anti-aircraft artillery positions, British rifle trenches, tanks.
4. Stalingrad Front.
– German batteries unleash a barrage of fire on the northern outskirts of the city.
– Smoke from fires.
– German soldiers take cover in one of the anti-tank trenches.
– An assault unit reaches residential buildings, behind which is the Barrikady artillery factory.
– Soldiers take cover in the ruins of houses, run, and flee behind tanks.
– Panorama of the burning city, the Volga River is visible.
5. Caucasian Front. Aerial view of Soviet positions.
– German infantry on the march.
– Soldiers climbing the mountains near Tuapse, horses with luggage.
– Crossing a mountain river.
– Among the rocks.
– Firefight with the enemy.
– German mortar crews in a mountain forest.
– Soviet bunker.
– Soviet prisoners.
– Long-focus camera footage of the city of Tuapse.
– German planes bomb the city.
Source: SS Notebook No. 5. 1943
We Germans have always played a special role in the world. We were the restless and tormented element among the peoples. Even in times of our greatest commercial prosperity we were dissatisfied with our fate. The outbreak of the First World War was felt as a liberation. The cause of this was not the fanatical warlike exaltation which has so often been imputed to us by our enemies, but the liberating feeling of having a new and decisive vocation. The German cannot live with the life of a shopkeeper. The state of rest and satiety is against his nature. He feels called to higher tasks than to engage in a lucrative trade in agricultural or industrial products. This way of being has been described as a Faustian characteristic of the German. It can be interpreted as a blessing or a curse; in any case it determines the reputation of Germanism for good or ill. It was the original fate of the entire Germanic world. Without this obsession to move, the Germans would have been an insignificant people of peasants in northern Europe. They shed their blood all over the West in constant battles, but they also shaped the face of this corner of the world. Even today, they seem to be called upon to fulfil the destiny of this century.
* * *
The gigantic battles of the Second World War marked the end of one of the great eras of humanity. The domination of gold is stopped, the people regain their rights, man once again measures the value of things. This war is being fought for reasons other than changes in borders and interests. It is about the fate of a thousand-year-old culture that has given the world the magnificent expressions of human genius. The greatest revolution of all time is being accomplished in the storm of battle: the revolt of the peasants against the merchants, of labour against the power of gold. The same process that we experienced years ago in the struggle for power in Germany is being repeated today on a world scale, and we are facing the same adversaries. We know their methods of struggle too well to be surprised anymore. We are now in the thick of the struggle, and this war will not end until the continent is rid of its executioners. Whatever the future may bring, it is our duty, for the sake of our dead comrades, to resist, to attack unceasingly, until the enemy force is destroyed. There can be no compromise in this struggle, for the continuation of the previous situation would result in terrible upheavals which would ultimately destroy the West Germany has become the bulwark of European freedom. Our country’s enemies are also Europe’s enemies. It is no longer a question of a quarrel between peoples and states, but of various principles of configuration, the final realisation of which decides death or life. In this way, our struggle goes beyond the sphere of power and interests to that of the spirit. It is not primarily a question of oil sources or mineral deposits, but of maintaining all the spiritual values that allow the human presence to be magnificently realised. What do American railway magnates and Bolshevik despots have to do with Europe and its multi-millennial culture? England has long since turned to its overseas possessions and regards the continent only as the plaything of its interests. Germany, on the other hand, has remained tied to the West’s destiny, however painful this may be. There is now no choice for the peoples of Europe if they want to believe in their destiny. The fronts are sharper than ever, the divinity itself judges nations on their strength and worth.
War is again revealed, as it was in the past, to be a judgment of God. In the clash of the battles of our time, the face of the world will be reshaped and no one will recognise its old face. Whatever the outcome of the battle, there will be nothing left of the old world. The old primordial forces of life are in motion and will not stop until the powers of degeneration and destruction are finally crushed. For the past thirty years, the most gigantic process of transmutation that the history of the world has ever seen has been unfolding. The living forces are demanding their rights. The peoples are rushing out of the atrocious confines of their living space towards the light and the sun. A new migration of peoples is underway. With the old powers, a whole spiritual world that has held Europe back for two thousand years is collapsing. The alliance of the democracies with the Kremlin has put an end to the last doubts about the necessity of our struggle. Truth, justice and life are with us.
* * *
The West is still engaged in a decisive struggle for its future. The horizon often seems obscured by terrible events, but at the height of danger the strength of the human heart proves itself. There are still large parts of Europe in a state of quiet contemplation, unaware of the threatening gravity of their situation. Blind madmen turn against the only power that can protect them from destruction and annihilation. These things no longer affect us. We are used to fighting alone, surrounded by hatred and contempt because we are aware of our mission. The destiny of the world is fulfilled by our action and by the will of the divinity. Even if thousands of men die, if tens of thousands return crippled, the Idea will live on as long as Germany sees the birth of men. We are invincible because we have an unshakeable faith. This faith has sustained us in all the circumstances of our existence; it has given us the precious moments of triumph and accompanied us in sorrow and misery; it will one day lead us to victory. The gods do not bestow their grace, they only grant their favours to the brave who resist all violence. Fate has given us special missions. It is up to us to fulfil them. In God’s eyes, a people is only a tool of His almighty will. He mercilessly defeats that which proves to be unfit. We stand and fight, for the Empire, the strength and the splendour are ours.
Hans Henning Festge
Man is superior to matter when confronted with the necessity of a great attitude, and no external power of any kind can be conceived to which spiritual force is not superior. Therefore, he who is capable of this can draw the conclusion that in man, in real man, there live values which cannot be destroyed either by projectiles or by mountains of explosives.
Source: SS Booklet No. 10. 1937.
by SS-Staf. Kinkelin
With National Socialism, the Führer has given us a new world view. This means that the National Socialist teaching the Führer’s doctrine sees himself and the world in a different light. He now has his own way of seeing and no longer looks through the distorting glasses that other powers representing a foreign ideology had put on him.
National Socialism sheds new light on the old system of values and power relations governing the world. When he looks back at the recent past, he sees that not only he himself–but also his people – have been dispossessed of their spiritual wealth, side-lined, but also reduced to pawns on the chessboard of foreign powers. Now it is learning to differentiate itself from others by defining what is its essence and what is alien. He is confronting the old values he was taught with the new, totally different and unknown values that emerge when he follows his own rule. The German has learnt to differentiate between what is his own and what is foreign because he has first become aware of his own inner nature, something that was previously denied to him. In the past, he was seen as just one of many sheep living in a large pen. He escaped. In this way he has regained his freedom by finding himself. Previously, he and his people were only components of a cultural world, a mental universe whose source, spirit and guiding principles were foreign to the German people.
It is clear, then, that the National Socialist sees the wider world, himself and his people, his destiny, in a completely new, rejuvenated light. Since then, he has been confronted with a totally different world which had long since ceased to be his own, of which he was no longer a part, and to which he could no longer belong.
He discovers a new system of values and assimilates it in order to reject, to abolish all the more easily the old values which are precisely those of the others, because they no longer suit him at all. He knows that he is part of a powerful group, of a great community whose scope is limitless: He finally lives his people. And he feels that he is an element, a link in this immense chain, in the national community.
A thousand ties bind him and tie him to this community. His future is inextricably linked to the powerful bloodstream of his people. For the first time he understands his people as a huge racial community. In the past, he was told that it was language, nationality, Christianity, etc. that determined membership of a community. Now he knows that these old considerations are all out of date, for he sees in his own home men who do not belong to his own people, and on the other side of these old boundaries men who belong to his own people just as much as he does. The old barriers are falling, the old frontiers, the old walls are no longer of value. Everywhere he looks, he sees a great renewal in progress.
A new and great unity has emerged from the collapse of the old systems: the German people. Old corruptors are trying to debauch it, but they have no power over it. Prayers and threats no longer have any effect. The National Socialist German has escaped their grasp, he has shed their pressure as easily, freely and naturally as an old garment. The recall is under way! By the thousands, by the millions, they are rallying to their people.
This is how the German citizen experienced the mystery of blood. But not only that. He sees this blood as the vehicle of his innermost essence. He recognises blood as the most precious heritage which his most distant ancestors have passed on to him and which binds him to them indissolubly. It is hard to imagine to what extent, in the past, he was taught to despise, disdain and scorn blood! To what extent he was educated to despise and deny his ancestors instead of venerating them! Many blinders fell from his eyes. The enemies of the people were even forced to demonise the doctrine of blood in order to be able to control this dangerous notion all the more easily and to destroy it. But now the pressures and threats no longer work.
Living in the heart of his people, the German feels differently: he feels that he is part of it and an active component of it. The divisions into classes and social strata of the past have disappeared. It is a living, immense, meaningfully ordered and structured unit, a giant army of free men: the people; a living whole based on duties and rights. This active, fervent profession of faith for the people today goes beyond the level of intellectual awareness, of unattached teaching, of a sense of selfish wealth. „What does not serve my people harms them!”.
Equipped with this new scale of values, which he has acquired by listening to the message of the blood, the German is now interested in all aspects of life. He is determined to ignore any value that is not his own, that does not embody his world view, to no longer attach importance to things that he himself does not consider important. No area is immune to this inversion of values and new considerations. The National Socialist German thus restructures his entire world.
This conscious, awake German turns his gaze inward. A new faith lives in him. He draws his greatest strength from it. But this faith is not a dogma, it is not a doctrine of foreign origin; it is the fruit of his ancient biological heritage. National Socialism finds itself in harmony with the inner world of its fathers and connects directly with the divine.
Our faith is the origin and measure of all things: all spiritual creations come from it and return to it. It is therefore understandable that we should make a general examination to see whether or not everything that comes from the spiritual creative fields of our people, philosophy, art, science etc., is in accordance with our new ideology, our new faith. The stricter and more consistent we are, the clearer our vision becomes. There is no doubt that we will clean up! We are determined not to leave any aspect of life untouched. We examine every single element from the old world with the utmost care. To our surprise, we find that many belong to us, which the old system, under the pretext that it is its property, has taken over. We are therefore reintegrating it into our system. If we still need the old elements, we keep them, but to create our own substitute. We get rid of everything that is foreign and even throw it in the garbage. We are determined to build a new world out of our blood and everything connected with it, under the victorious sign of the swastika.
In the past we were regarded as intellectually minor and our entire spiritual heritage was managed in a pretentious manner. Now we are letting all the enemy powers know that the German people have come of age, that they intend to take charge of all their spiritual property themselves without exception. We demand the return of our ancestral heritage, which was usurped by unworthy and unfaithful proxies. In this area, too, a four-year plan to rebuild the spirit of the people must be put into effect.
Nothing can prevent us from devising a new law, a new morality or any other rule of national life. Our worldview sees the economy as a component of the new order, which must serve the people, not enslave them.
Like the economy, many other old idols are subject to the law of renewal and the National Socialist order. No work, however threatening, monstrous or respectable it may seem, frightens us. Even if the defeated era continues to issue threatening warnings, these tables of the law no longer terrify any National Socialist. They have been exorcised. Not because a National Socialist would not respect anything, as is often lamented in bigoted offence. But simply because he has acquired a new faith, a new scale of values defining what is sacred to him and what is not what is divine and what represents arrogant alien idols. New foundations, an extreme sense of the divine felt in his people, in his blood, give him confidence and invincibility. The divine apprehension of his own people, of his blood and of this new faith, has developed in the National Socialist a sense of the sacred that makes him respectful. We know today that our blood, our country, is sacred to us, because these two names are of divine essence.
Considering this fact, the verbiage of „neo-paganism” or even „atheism” seems petty, false, misleading and, in the end, a dangerous illusion for our opponents. They will learn that it is our faith that enables us to bring down the old world and build a new and more beautiful world.
The German people have freed themselves politically from all their chains, from economic dictatorship, and have purified their race from invasion. In the future they will also put an end to those guardianship, suzerainty and spiritual authority which are alien to the people and do not serve them. The German people will soon regain their freedom in every respect. To serve the people in order to follow the divine law, to return to the original principles of our blood and the divine world, is the meaning of National Socialism.
He who is, is not concerned with appearances.
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