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Military Newsreels: 1945 - Issue 25
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keywords: wwii, european theater, italy, germany, general von vietinghoff, ss general karl wolff, french p.o.w.s, buchenwald concentration camp, gardelegen massacre, berchtesgaden, eagle's nest, firing squad, americans and russians at elbe river
Synopsis: German Forces Surrender In Italy, German-Held French P.O.W.s Return To France, U.S. Congressmen View War Atrocities At German Concentration Camps, American And Russian Armies Meet At The Elbe River In Germany...(read more)
- Date: 1945
- Duration: 00:10:16
- Sound: Yes
- Color: Monochrome
- Type: Public Domain
- Language: English
- Location: Italy, Germany, France
Germans Surrender In Italy
The long battle in Italy is over. The 5th and 8th armies which has threatened to become the forgotten armies of the European Front, have come to the fore. In a series of gigantic strokes, they captured Bologna, entered Verona, Turin, Venice, Milan; entered all the cities of North Italy. General Mark Clark and Field Marshal Alexander in Bologna received the cheers of the excited people.
In Caserta on the 29 of April, came the inevitable ending. Plenipotentiaries for General von Vietinghoff and SS General Karl Wolff, who commanded all enemy troops in Italy and Western Austria, came to sign an unconditional surrender. Surrendering for Germany, not only Italy, but also the last hope of a southern redoubt. Lt. Gen. Morgan, representative of the Allied Supreme Command, signed for Field Marshal Alexander. Russian, British and American officers watched in stony silence as the documents were signed, surrendering the last great army in Southern Europe - almost a million men.
German-Held French P.O.W.s Return To France
The locked gates of prison camps open up as Allied armor sweeps over Germany. In this corner of Germany, every mile of Allied advance brings freedom to thousands upon thousands of French servicemen after five years of nightmare. The humiliation has ended at last. Westward lies France and home and a waiting family. Westward also goes tens of thousand of French civilians who had been condemned to work as slaves in Germany. Some come home by ship. Two thousand of them, from German prison camps in Poland, arrive now at Marseille. Some come home by air. This is the moment they and the French people at home had been waiting for. Three million Frenchmen had been held in Germany. All bear the marks of suffering, of sickness of hunger. Thirty thousand arrive every day. Nearly three hundred thousand have already come back. They come back to their loved ones, to the warmth of home and to Liberty.
U.S. Congressmen View War Atrocities At German Concentration Camps
A delegation of American Congressmen was invited by General Eisenhower, to visit the liberated Concentration Camp of Buchenwald. They came as the elected representatives of the American people to see for themselves, to see for America, the incontrovertible evidence of Nazi inhumanity. The pitiful living remnants they saw, the dead they saw, were in many cases, the Artists, the Teachers, the Scientists, the Thinkers, the Humanitarians, of a Nazi-dominated Europe. They and the people of now free Europe, will not forget.
Gardelegen - the night before American troops arrived, SS guards herded the prisoners into a barn, poured gasoline on floors and set fire to the building. Those who tried to escape, were fired on with machine-guns. There remained only charred and riddled corpses, which the SS had no time to remove, which the people of Europe, will not forget.
Near the captured city of Nuremberg, the SS and Gestapo had hurriedly buried many of their victims in mass graves, to keep the bodies from falling into Allied hands. They were not successful. German civilians were forced to dig them up and give them decent burials. This too, the Free World, will not forget.
American And Russian Troops Meet At The Elbe River
The false security of Berchtesgaden from where so much of the World's tragedy was planned and directed, was shattered in April by a force of Allied heavy bombers. Arriving at daybreak, they attacked Hitler's notorious mountain hideout and the chalet and valley below, with 12,000 pound bombs - fused for deep penetration. The SS barracks nearby, also received accurate attention.
One among the thousands of German prisoners pouring daily into Allied hands, is Hans, the brother of Joseph Goebbels. He seems embarrassed by his family connections - nervous in his replies. Unlike General Dittmar, famous on the radio as the German military commentator - who surrenders to the Allies at Magdeburg.
The first German spy to tried by the American 7th Army, has received his sentence. Investing himself a soldier in civilian clothes, engaged in sabotage, he meets his swift justice.
And still the Wehrmacht pours in, down the main street of Kalba on the Elba, nearly a thousand of them are led into captivity. Silent and disillusioned, they continue their journey to the prison cages. While the children learn a lesson of war - not taught in German schools.
Meanwhile, the Allies sweep on into what still remains of German-held Germany. Dillingen is reached and captured and left behind on the other side of the Danube. And at Torgau on the Elbe, an American General poses for a Russian cameraman. The moment the World has been awaiting so long, when Ally from West meets Ally from East and the two halves of Germany fall apart. The meeting was achieved on April 26, when a detachment of the American 69th Infantry Division, under Maj. Gen. Reinhardt, was rowed across the Elbe to the Russians assembled on the far bank. American troops get acquainted with their Russian allies and are given a homemade Flag as the Generals from both sides confer. All ranks celebrate this long awaited meeting. There is music and dancing. Russian WACS and American women war correspondents dance with "Joe" and "Ivan". While one and all toast the unity that has brought them so far to Victory and will carry them still further to a lasting Peace.
