Special Film Project 186

Bomb dropped on a German city

As part of the Special Film Project 186 , cameramen of the United States Army Air Forces filmed first the advance of American troops into Germany from March to mid-July 1945 and then the immediate post-war period in Europe.

Assignments and history

On behalf of the United States Army Air Forces, under the code name Special Film Project 186 , more than a dozen cameramen were on duty from March to mid-July 1945. These were equipped with 16 mm narrow film cameras and Kodachrome color films, which were new at the time . They documented the performance of the American Air Force in low-level aircraft attacks and bombing. However, the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps were also among her motifs .

On April 25, 1945, American and Soviet troops met for the first time on the Elbe (see Elbe Day for more details ). The first meeting was at 1.30 p.m. in Kreinitz near Strehla; another at 3:30 p.m. in Torgau . On April 27, Lieutenant Robertson and Lieutenant Silwaschko shook hands for the official photo.

After the end of the war, they filmed everyday scenes and the victory celebrations in Paris and London ( VE Day ). In a suburb of Augsburg, photos were taken on May 15, 1945 with Hermann Göring , who was under arrest and who had gone into American captivity on May 6, 1945. A week after the filming, Göring was transferred to the assembly camp for German war criminals in Bad Mondorf . Another film team shot scenes with the composer Richard Strauss in Garmisch-Partenkirchen . After the American troops their sector based in Berlin, the teams of 8 to 14 July filmed in Berlin . The recordings comprise a total of 60 hours of silent color film material on over 260 rolls. Cameramen included Carter, Stindt, Mack, Kelley, Haglund and King.

The material has been in the National Archives in Washington since 1972, with the exception of the photos of the Dachau concentration camp , which initially remained in the storage rooms of the US Air Force and have only been accessible since the end of the 20th century.