Holidays on Sylt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Holidays on Sylt
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1957
length 18 minutes
Rod
Director Annelie Thorndike
Andrew Thorndike
script Annelie Thorndike
Andrew Thorndike
production DEFA studio for newsreels and documentaries
music Paul Dessau
camera Walter Fuchs (new admissions)
cut Ella Ulrich
occupation

Urlaub auf Sylt is a compilation film from the series Archives say from the DEFA studio for newsreels and documentaries by Annelie Thorndike and Andrew Thorndike from 1957 .

action

If you want to spend an undisturbed and relaxing holiday in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957, you can go to the North Sea via the Hindenburgdamm on the North Frisian island of Sylt , to which the municipality of Westerland also belongs. The cameraman films Mayor Heinz Reinefarth in his office, who was elected to this office in 1951 with the votes of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the All-German Bloc / Federation of Displaced Persons and Disenfranchised Persons , which he largely ignores from the world, although he does more Should have deserved attention, because he was not always mayor.

Almost two decades of his life, until May 8, 1945, he was the SS number 56634. The black corps , the newspaper of the SS, wrote on November 16, 1944 about the SS-Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the Police Reinefarth that he was proven Fighter emerged from the old guard of the Gaus East Prussia and received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from the Führer Adolf Hitler during the western campaign . But he was still intended for higher tasks, so he became General Inspector of Administration at the Deputy Reich Protector in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . The Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler appointed him senior SS and police leader of the SS upper section Warthe , which was covered with mass graves during this time.

Since the Red Army crossed the Polish border, the highest German leadership in Warsaw has become visibly nervous. The machinery of extermination is in full swing, one manhunt follows the next, transport on transport leaves Warsaw, now in its fifth year, with an unknown destination. Now the time has come for the remaining citizens to prepare an uprising in order to put an end to the annihilation by the German occupiers. Pictures from a German newsreel show how the German troops brutally fight the Warsaw uprising, which began on August 1, 1944, with heavy offensive weapons , and then storm the remains of the building. SS units are also deployed with armor-piercing weapons, the overall management of which is in the hands of Major General of the Police Reinefarth. The handwritten testimony of former German sergeant Willi Fiedler, which he wrote down in a prisoner of war camp in Brussels , including drawings of the crime scene, is read out to prove the participation of Kampfgruppe Reinefarth in the subsequent massacres against Polish civilians . According to Fiedler, around 5,000 Poles were murdered here alone and he knows that there were several such places in Warsaw. On September 30, 1944, the Führer awarded the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross to Heinz Reinefarth as the 608th soldier.

After the Second World War , the Polish government demanded the extradition of the war criminal Reinefarth. On July 24, 1950, she received an answer from the English major Buchanan from Bad Salzuflen that extradition was out of the question for security reasons.

production

Urlaub auf Sylt was shot as a black and white film and had its premiere on September 1, 1957 as the first film in the Archive Saying series .

On September 10, 1957, the film was broadcast for the first time on German television .

criticism

In the Critique of New Germany , HB wrote:

“Authentic image material with the 'Secret' seal is displayed in front of the viewer. Documentary strips from Poland, the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany and other countries occupied by the fascists. The life path and rise of a German fascist is followed, namely the jovially smiling head of the house, Heinz Reinefarth. Wherever sirens wailed, grenades burst, houses sank into rubble and thousands of civilians were liquidated, we meet Major General and SS Officer Heinz Reinefarth again. "

MH from the Berliner Zeitung says:

“In this film we see image documents that show Reinefarth's work as SS and police leader of the 'Warthe' section. Hitler's letter informing Reinefarth that he was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and Lieutenant General of the police. In between, recordings are shown that were filmed by Polish patriots during the preparations for the Warsaw Uprising and that are being shown to the world for the first time. An original Nazi weekly report about the brutal use of the SS and Wehrmacht units in the suppression of the uprising, film and photo recordings of the murder of thousands of Polish citizens and an original protocol of the former NCO W. Fiedler, who reported about the gruesome murders of the SS men of the combat group Reinefarth reports, round off Reinefarth's debt account in this sensational film. "

publication

  • Andrew Thorndike, Annelie Thorndike, Karl Raddatz: Holidays on Sylt . Kongress-Verlag, Berlin 1958.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of September 6, 1957, p. 8
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, September 7, 1957, p. 6
  3. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of September 10, 1957, p. 3