Lugers in combat
 

Found this - Die Deutsche Wochenschau - 1941-07-23 - Nr. 568 - this was the German WWII weekly propaganda show. At the 9:40 mark a segment starts about a Waffen SS unit taking a Russian village against heavy resistance (previous segment is very nasty about civilians executed by retreating Russians) - There are Lugers shown during house clearing. The statement at the end tells the photographer was killed while filming this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBk0zWZlCs

Even though NAZI propaganda leaves me quite cold.

It's a very interesting historic document. Thank you.

Impressive film - the Nazis sure knew how to put something like that together.

Besides seeing our Lugers in action, I particularly enjoyed seeing "real" vehicles of all types without all the stinkin' "technology" we're saddled with these days. Nice!

Randall

Interesting document, although all that Nazi propaganda gives me the creeps...

No question about it being propaganda - I watch that series so much that I recognize the reporters and many of the individual soldiers. I just posted it for the Lugers though.

These are interesting historical films. As to propaganda, well most certainly there is a strong element of propaganda. All nations do this particularly during war times; some do it better than others. The home front needs motivation and encouragement to continue to sacrifice and support the government's war effort.

As for now looking back, and peeling through the propaganda, this serves as a very interesting historical work and window into the Nazi perspective on these battle events.

Roadkill, thanks for sharing.

The initial scenes of countries sending their young men to war like this were filmed in every nation with the enthusiasm typically felt before the deadly conflicts to come.

The production quality of the weekly newsreels from Germany dropped as the war progressed. This one is filmed with skill and care...

It is always interesting to analyze the voice over wording in late war Nazi propaganda, when the truth was getting harder to hide from the populace. "Our glorious troops today effected a skillful strategic consolidation of its forces two miles behind where they had previously been entrenched in order to lure the Soviets into a trap along the new line of resistance".

Propaganda films are similar all over the World, especially if they are released by dictatorial regimes by controlled media, for example here in Italy in the same period the Fascist Regime used to extoll the amazing feats by "our glorius troops in Russia", but in reality those poor soldiers had been sent there only to meet the ambitions of the "dictator", without proper chothing, they were lacking everything, from ammo to food... and in fact thousands and thousands of them didn't manage to come back any more. :mad:

I have an old book about air war in WW2, all made with official dispatches from all sides.

It's quite interesting to see the totally opposing takes about the same operation.