DVD95 - Through Enemy Eyes vol.4

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. 4 (Two Disk DVD Set)

DISK 1: Jan 2, 1941 - Feb 26, 1941

NEWSREEL 539: Germany's and Italy's Ambassadors Attend Ceremonies Commemorating the Formation of the Tripartite Pact in Tokyo; Marshal Petain Warmly Received by a Large Crowd in Lyons; Soviet Ambassador Dekanozov greeted by Hitler at Reich Chancellery; Reich Labor Service Role in the Battle of Britain Hailed; Extensive Grading Work Along the Vistula River in Occupied Poland; Former Luxury Hotel in Zakopane now Shelters Berlin Children; Nazi Leaders and the German People Celebrate their Second Wartime Christmas;

NEWSREEL 542: Japan Celebrates the Twentysixth Centenary of its Imperial Dynasty; Third Reich and Soviet Union sign Four New Agreements in Moscow; Heavy Snowfall Reported Throughout Europe; Dutch National Socialist Rally in Utrecht; Reich Marshal Göring Receives Congratulations and Gifts on His 48th Birthday; Motorcycle Riflemen on Maneuvers in Occupied Southern France; Adolf Galland Shoots Down a British Plane - His 57th Kill.

NEWSREEL 543: Norwegian Workers Depart to Germany; Reconstruction Projects in Occupied Poland;. Franz Léhar Conducts one of his Operettas in Paris; Ceremonial Meeting of the German Academy in Prague; Japanese Military Delegation in Berlin; Luftwaffe Bombs Valletta, Malta; Aircraft Carrier H.M.S.Illustriousis Hit;
NEWSREEL 544: Hitler Attends the Funeral of Justice Minister Gürtner; Heavy Bombers Raid Scottish Coastal Shipping; Auxiliary Cruiser on a Combat Mission in Tropical Waters; A Hitler Castigates the Versailles Treaty as the Greatest; Injustice in History and Issues a Warning to Germany's Enemies.

NEWSREEL 545: Funeral of Hungary's Foreign Minister Csâky; Reich Youth Leader Axmann Visits Oslo; A Grandiose Nazi Party Ceremonies in Silesia; Submariners on a Skiing Holiday; Minesweepers Patrol the English Channel; Bombing Raids of British Positions in North Africa;

NEWSREEL 547: Meeting of Mussolini and Franco in Bordighera, Italy; German Film Stars Attend Festivities in the Reich Film Chamber; Police Sports Festival in Berlin; World Champ Boxer Max Schmeling Volunteers for Airborne Duty; SS General Sepp Dietrich Inspects the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler; An Auxiliary Cruiser on the Prowl in the Atlantic.

DISK 2: Mar 5, 1941 - Apr 30, 1941

NEWSREEL 548: Hitler Speaks at the Party Founders Day Celebration in Munich's Hofbräuhaus; Bulgaria Signs the Tripartite Pact in Vienna; Hitler Receives Tripartite Delegation at Belvedere Palace; German Troops are Allowed in Bulgaria to Prevent British Intervention in the Balkans; Infantry Units on Winter Maneuvers; German Air Defense Exercises;

NEWSREEL 550: Sports Events in Berlin and Stuttgart; Vienna Celebrates Third Anniversary of Anschluss; A Celebration Rally in Linz, Austria; Heroes Memorial Day Rituals in Berlin; Victorious U-boat Crew is Decorated; Combat Engineers Manuever in France;

NEWSREEL 552: Initiation Ceremonies of Hitler Youth and German Girls League; Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka Welcomed in Berlin.

NEWSREEL 553: Second Anniversary of Bohemia and Moravia Celebrated in Prague; President Tiso Reviews Slovak Army Parade; Ethnic Germans Flee Yugoslavia; First Enlisted Man Decorated with a Knight's Cross; Afrika Korps on the Offensive in North Africa; German Shipyards Launch New Submarines; Germany Attacks Yugoslavia and Greece;

NEWSREEL 554: Afrika Korps Units Capture Agheila and Benghazi; Combat in Croatia and Slovenia; Waffen SS Units Approach Belgrade; Metaxas Line Breached in Greece; Key Port of Salonica Taken by German Troops.

NEWSREEL 556: Afrika Korps Advance to Sollum; The Führer Welcomes Bulgarian King Boris and Hungarian Regent Horthy; Yugoslavia Capitulates; German Troops in Historic Sarajevo; Greek Islands Thasos and Lemnos Captured by a Daring Sea Assault; Greece's Epirus and Macedonia Armies Capitulate;

12 Original German Wartime Newsreels with English Subtitles.

255 Minutes - Nearly 4 Hours on Two DVD Disks.

January 2, 1942 - April 30, 1941

SPECIAL PRICE REDUCTION!

See and hear the entire war from the German perspective!

DVD95 - Through Enemy Eyes vol.4

Details: Germany, 1941, B&W, Total running time: 255 minutes, German with English subtitles.

$40.00 $30 +s/h

The epoch brought back to life by real-life images from these period-newsreels was pivotal in the course of World War Two. January to April 1941 witnessed the introduction of the Deutsche Afrika Korps and Germany’s conquest of the Balkans. Both historic events are visually chronicled in Volume 4 of “Through Enemy Eyes”, first with the departure of Wehrmacht forces from Italian ports.

We see Bersaglieri troops wearing their distinctive plumed helmets help load crates of ammunition aboard Ju.52 cargo-planes. There are some superb close-ups of the Junkers tri-motors on the ground and flying low over the Mediterranean Sea. They pass over an Italian convoy escorted by a trim destroyer from the Regia Marina. In Libya, the Ju.52s land to disgorge their supplies and men into long truck columns through the trackless desert.

They join up with fresh German armor, affording us detailed perspectives of the famous Kubelwagen and Panzer IV Ausf. D tank. The men are shown putting on their Afrika Korps uniforms for the first time. They fall in for mail call, and two are married to brides back in the Reich via a proxy ceremony in the desert. Motorcyclists halt at a signpost indicating, “Berlin 3,553 kilometers”. Perhaps the greatest fieldpiece in military history, the 88-mm Flak, is shown to good advantage, blasting away at distant targets near British-held Agheila. Even before the artillery barrage is complete, DAF armor, including 16-wheeled armored cars, roll toward the targeted town. Rommel appears for the first time at the head of his troops, as always, as the camera pans to some spectactuarly demolished enemy vehicles. Agheila falls, yielding the first few thousand English prisoners. Most are smiling, apparently glad the worst is over. An early Afrika Korps’ song, “Heija, Safari”, accompanies the German troops while they race to the capture of Bengasi and the vital harbor at Cyrenaica.

RAF aircraft counter-attack, but 88s shoot them down. A gently descending parachute shows that the pilot escaped his Beaufort medium-bomber, its flaming wreckage strewn across the desert. The haul of prisoners swells, as Rommel takes Sollum. Great footage of his Fieseler Storch liason plane.

Back in Europe, Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels announces the Wehrmacht invasion of the Balkans. A pre-dawn barrage is beautifully photographed, with tracers bouncing all around Yugoslav bunkers. The few that survive this onslaught are burst open by Stuka dive-bombers dropping their thousand pounds of ordinance with pin-point accuracy. These are some of the best Ju-87 images ever taken, as the “Stormtooper of the Skies” climbs over high mountains through broken clouds. They are joined by Italian tri-motors, the magnificent SM-79 Spaviero, and lesser known, but more graceful CANT bombers. For aviation historians, close-ups of these rarely seen aircraft will be especially enlightening.

On the ground, German infantry ford swiftly flowing rivers choked with the debris of huge bridges blown up by retreating Serbs. On the opposite bank, close-quarter shelling pounds the enemy, as troops hurl handgrenades and SS units invest Belgrade.

Bosnia falls to the all-conquering invaders, while Italian mortar battalions pummel the Greeks’ Metaxas Line of powerful fortifications. Gun-cameras mounted aboard Messerschmitt-110s reecord the obliteration of the Yugoslav AirForce on the ground in perhaps the most exciting scenes of the Campaign. A long trail of smahed, over-turned armor is left by the British in their headlong flight toward the Aegean Sea, where Stuka reappear to blast retreating ships.

German troops pass beneath the summit of Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods who this time withheld their favor from the Allies. Elite warriors of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler march into Athens, where their leader, Sepp Dietrich, accepts the English surrender.

While the North African and Balkan campaigns dominate Volume 4, both its discs feature a great deal of other materials worth seeing again and again. Foremost among these are the earliest Luftwaffe raids on Malta, where the aircraft-carrier HMS Illustrious is severely hit; the former world champion boxer, Max Schmelling, goes through parachute training; a Kriegsmarine auxilliary cruiser in tropical waters sinks and captures enemy shipping; and the Fuehrer celebrates Heroes Memorial Day in Berlin with solemn ceremonies and an impressive march-past of flags from all the armed services.

Viewers of Volume 4 will find on either of its discs more than two hours of fast-paced World War Two action and contemporary imagery that preserves forever the atmosphere and tempo of 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