DVD94 - Through Enemy Eyes vol.3

Go behind enemy lines on a journey that traces the rise and fall of German military fortunes... the great battles, the desperate hours captured via authentic uncut newsreels, exactly as presented to German wartime cinema audiences.

Now see the Second World War as you've never seen it before: Through Enemy Eyes.

All newsreels have been transferred from original 35 millimeter and 16 millimeter German prints and have been accurately translated and electronically subtitled in English.

Through Enemy Eyes Vol. 3 (Two Disk DVD Set)

DISK 1: Aug 23, 1940 - Nov 6, 1940

NEWSREEL 520: 28th German East Trade Fair in Königsberg Attracts Hundreds of Thousands; Chemical Fertilizers: Germany s Indispensable Weapon; Salvaging Wrecked Vehicles from Western Campaign; Strength through Joy Sponsors Soldiers Factory Tour; Arms Workers see their Products in Action; German Flak Batteries Deter Enemy Bombing Raids; Field Marshal von Brauchitsch Visits Wounded Soldiers; Hitler Awards Field Marshals with Jeweled Scepters; Italian Bombing Raids Open Campaign against British Somalia; Testing New Long-range Artillery; Luftwaffe Steps up Bombing Raids Against Britain; Total Blockade of Great Britain Begins.

NEWSREEL 524: Labor Corps Spearheads Germanization in Eastern Territories (Wartheland); Ethnic Germans Return to Alsace-Lorraine: German Virtues Prevail; Baden Hitler Youth join Young Germans in Strasbourg; Clearing British Mines from Norway s Fjords; U-Boots Return to Harbor; 4.3 million Tons of Enemy Shipping Sunk in First Year of War; Germany Fortifies the Channel Coast; Coastal Artillery bombards Dover; Coastal Air Defense: Messerschmitt Fighter Planes Intercept RAF in Channel; RAF Bombardier Reaches Berlin; Germany vows Revenge; Germany's New Air Strategy: London now the Key; Raid on London: Inside a Ju 88 Divebomber; Luftwaffe Unloads Monumental Destruction on London.

NEWSREEL 525: Fascist Labor Corps in Norway; Hitler grants Hungary Disputed Romanian Territory; Horthy celebrates; Franco's Envoy visits Hitler at Chancellery; Italy's Colonial Minister Teruzzi meets Hitler, tours Western Front; Festive Saarbrücken greets Repatriated Germans; Todt Organization in Saarbrücken; Mine Warfare: from Factory Assembly to Minelaying at Sea; Italian Bombers raid British Base at Sollum, Egypt; British Air Raid Kills German Children; Göring tours Air Fields in northern France; Luftwaffe Squadrons take Revenge upon London; Stuka Fighters in Action;
NEWSREEL 528: Mussolini rebuilds Rome; Reich Education Minister Rust awarded Honorary Degree in Rome; Madrid Arena hosts Reichswehr Band Concert; Spain invades Tangiers; French Authorities capitulate; Bulgaria seizes Contested Dobruja Province; King Boris hailed in Sofia; Ethnic Germans from Bessarabia repatriated by Resettlement Commandos; Oslo Fascists declare Norway Needs More Quislings ; Occupied Warsaw prepares for Hitler's Visit; Vichy Outrage as RAF Night Pirates bomb LeHavre; Fastest Gun in the West : Messerschmitt 109; Spectacular Aerial Dogfights over southern England; Germany's Navy Girds for Battle.

NEWSREEL 531: Bountiful Vegetable Harvest in Germany; Autobahn Construction in Austria; SA Officers Tour Liberated Eastern Districts; Cross Section of Activities in France Under German Occupation; Japanese Bombers Attack Burma Road; Victorious U-boats Return to Bases; Reich Marshal Göring reviews Richthofen and Horst Wessel Fighter Wings.

DISK 2: Nov 20, 1940 - Dec 28, 1940

NEWSREEL 533: Japan Takes Over Formerly French Indochina.; Dutch Fascists Parade in Amsterdam; Outstanding Armament Workers are invited to Berlin as Guests of Top Nazi Leaders; Molotov Meets with Ribbentropp and Hitler in Berlin; German Housing Settlements in Warta Region; Berlin and Hamburg Children relocated to Safe Havens in Countryside; Flak Batteries Duel English Night Bombers; Memorial Services Honor Fallen Soldiers in Flanders; Coastal Batteries and Luftwaffe Planes Attack British Convoys in the Channel.

NEWSREEL 534: Devastating Romanian earthquake Prompts German Aid.; Italian Front Lines in North Africa; Ethnic Germans Depart Bessarabia for Fatherland; Foreign Ministers of Spain (Serrano Söñer) and Italy (Ciano) Visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden; Hitler Attends Vienna Ceremony as Hungary Joins Tripartite Pact ; Romania's Antonescu and Slovakia's Tuka also sign Tripartite Pact; Victory in the West Exhibit Opens in Vienna; Luftwaffe stages a Massive Raid on Coventry; Daring Exploits of U-boat Lieutenant Kretschmer, Germany's Tonnage King.

NEWSREEL 536: Mountain Troop Artillery Exercise In Austrian Alps; Night Raid on Targets in England: Birmingham in Flames; Admiral Raeder Launches Battleship Bismarck; Exploits of U-boat Captain Endress: a Surface Battle with an Armed British Steamer and the Torpedoing of a Freighter.

NEWSREEL 537: Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch Visits Troops in the East; King Michael of Romania Reviews a Parade of German Advisory Troops in Bucharest; The completion of Oslo-Bergen Highway in Norway; The Old Orient Express Railway Line Rebuilt in France; Reich Leader Alfred Rosenberg Speaks at the Chamber of Deputies in Paris; Wounded Soldiers make Christmas Toys for Children; Hitler Blasts Capitalism and Fake Democracy in an address to German Armament Industry Workers.

NEWSREEL 538: Japanese Planes Bomb Chiang Kai-shek's Supply Lines on Burma Road; Abducted Spanish Civil War Children Return Home from France; Life in Warsaw is back to Normal Again; New Airfields are Constructed in Norway; Rifle Making at a Famous Gunsmith Plant in Steyr; Captured British Submarine is Converted to a U-boat and Commissioned Under the German Battle Flag; German Soldiers on Guard Duty in Stormy Weather on the Channel and Channel Islands.

10 Original German Wartime Newsreels with English Subtitles.

240 Minutes - Nearly 4 Hours on Two DVD Disks.

August 23, 1940 - December 28, 1940

SPECIAL PRICE REDUCTION!

See and hear the entire war from the German perspective!

DVD94 - Through Enemy Eyes vol.3

Details: Germany, 1940, B&W, Total running time: 240 minutes, German with English subtitles.

$40.00 $30 +s/h

The best way to maximize the authenticity of this collection is to watch each installment on the largest screen possible with the volume on high. The resulting audio-visual impact approximates original dramatic effects intended by the German producers. Only then can modern viewers come close to replicating the same newsreels experienced by movie-house audiences in 1940. Volume 3 of "Through Enemy Eyes" particularly illustrates the necessity for big-sound, big-picture viewing, because it features some of the most intense military action scenes so far presented. Disk-1 for 23 August (NSRL 520) shows the British being blasted from Somalia by waves of Italian bombers. For aficionados of the Savoi-Marchetti Sparviero, these close-up scenes of the trimotor in combat over North Africa are a real treat. More aerial operations are on display when Messerchmitt Bf.109 Emils intercept lumbering British Wellington medium-bombers over the English Channel for the 18 September (NSRL 524) newsreel. It concludes with a massive Luftwaffe raid on London, showcasing Heinkel-111s, Dorner-17s, and Junkers-88s, a delight for the modeler's eye.

Unfortunately, the back packaging information falls into error with newsreel number 525 and develops from there into total confusion. This review corrects that series of mistaken identification by restoring each newsreel to its proper date.

NSRL 525 (not identified on the back package) belongs to 25 September, when Reichsminister Hermann Goering decorates his fliers on the English Channel coast. Other Luftwaffe coverage includes a seldom-seen view of a reconnaissance balloon at work, followed by exciting, tree-level attacks on English ground targets.

In the newsreel for 16 October (NSRL 528), rare footage of the successful Panzerschiff, Admiral Scheer, shows her on North Sea maneuvers in the company of light cruisers. The return of u-boat ace, Joachim Schepke, is featured. Before his death in combat the following March, he sank 37 ships for a total of 155,882 GRT, and damaged 4 more, for which he was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. A German Army band marches through a tunnel into a huge arena filled with a huge crowd in Spain, making for a most dramatic entrance to a military music concert. Among the audience is Ramón Serrano Súñer, the Spanish foreign minister, who died not long ago, aged 102 years of age. In the Balkans, the Bulgarian masses, army troops and their King Boris are shown ecstatically celebrating the return of Dobruja, formerly lost after World War One, thanks entirely to Adolf Hitler, who pressured Romania to give it up. The Bulgarians felt no obligation of gratitude, however, and later refused to join his attack on the Soviet Union. Especially outstanding are combat scenes over the English Channel, where a Spitfire falls under the guns of a Messerschmitt-109.

Disk 1 concludes with NSRL 531 for 6 November. Aviation enthusiasts will be particularly fascinated by the in-flight close-ups of Mitsubishi G3Ms in action. Better known in the west as "Nell", the Japanese medium-bomber was among the finest of World War Two. NSRL 533 for 20 November opens Disk 2 with Japanese artillery convincing reluctant French colonialists to give uo Indochina, followed by Dutch Fascists parading in Amsterdam. Soviet representative Molotov meets with Hitler in Berlin, but smiles all around thinly camoflage reality behind the diplomacy of buying time for their inevitable showdown.

NSRL 534 (28 November) documents the famous Luftwaffe destruction of Coventry, while
u-boat Commodore Otto Kretschmer returns home with more victories. The 47 ships he sank totaled 274,333 tons, making him the greatest submarine ace of all times. He survived the war to pass away as recently as 1998 --- in a boating accident.

NSRL 536 (11 December) highlights the launching of Germany's greatest battleship, Bismarck, followed by a u-boat duel on the surface with a British freighter returning very close fire.

NSRL 537 (18 December) begins with a terrific military parade in Bucharest before the weak-minded, weak-kneed King of Romania, then has Hitler addressing thousands of munitions workers on so-called "democracy" as a disguise used by exploitative power-freaks to conceal their greedy agendas for world-rule. Volume 3 concludes with 28 December (NSRL 538) coverage of Mitsubishi Ki-21s plastering the Burma Road. Known by the Allied code-name of "Sally", this medium-bomber was renowned for its long range capabilities, so necessary in China. We see a captured British submarine --- much larger than its German counterparts --- re-commissioned under the swastika flag, then follow the guard duties undertaken by German Army sentries in the occupied Channel Islands.

"Through Enemy Eyes" Volume 3 is particularly valuable for anyone interested in detailed close-ups of often rarely documented or lesser known military equipment and uniforms, although by no means lacking in the high drama in a year of great victories for the Third Reich.

Reviewer’s note: While purchasing all fourteen volumes of “Through Enemy Eyes” may be too sizeable an investment for most students of World War Two, they will find nowhere else --- in either the written or spoken word --- original source material that will provide them with a broader, more profound understanding of and appreciation for that seminal conflict. To watch it every day, from first to last newsreel, is a life-changing experience, comparable to seeing and hearing Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Whatever viewers bring with them to this collection will be expanded a thousandfold. In short, the “Through Enemy Eyes” series is by far the most important, single document to have emerged from the Second World War, bar none.

- Marc Roland

Trouble with viewing all these Wochenschau newsreels, I get so excited, I always feel like looking for a recruitment office somewhere. - Marc Roland