British propaganda: anti-German
Jiri Weiss assembled this documentary footage which he brought from Czechoslovakia to Britain after fleeing German occupation. Film shows images of agriculture, people in folk costumes, and a church Sunday. The narrator describes Czechoslovakia as a "nation of freedom and peace" for nearly 1,400 years. Scenes of Prague during narration about the development of a Czechoslovak democracy in 1918 under Pres. Masaryk, similar to Great Britain's. Czechoslovakia's virtue as a "bastion against fascism" is demonstrated by its "education for freedom, education for peace". Images of the social project of Masaryktown with its homes for orphans, sick children, and the old as well as industrial growth and exploitation of rich natural resources. Scenes of a mass event of the sports organization Sokol [Hook] in July 1938. Konrad Henlein, leader of the Sudetendeutsche Partei [party of ethnic Germans living in the Sudetenland], is described as a "puppet" of Nazi Germany. After "months of constant provocation" from the German side, Czech troops mobilize on September 27, 1938. The Germans annex the Sudetenland without a fight a few days later, an event that is compared to the fate of Austria half a year earlier. After annexing the remainder of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, the Germans erect their rule of "brute force, racial hatred" with SS and Gestapo terror. Wehrmacht troops march through Prague while refugees flee. Hitler is shown with the sound of the German national anthem. Czech emigrants subscribe to the Czech exile army. The film closes with an appeal to remember the Czech "friends and allies" and to support the ongoing "war against conquest" fought by the Allied powers.
- EHRI
- Archief
- us-005578-irn1001665
- Film
- Prague, Czechoslovakia
- VOLKSDEUTSCH
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