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4 DVD SET: SOVIET WARTIME NEWSREELS 1-4 (2013) * with switchable English subtitles *

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Discounted set containing all 4 parts of SOVIET WARTIME NEWSREELS.  

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  DISC 1   

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The DVD begins with a documentary film directed by Dovzhenko: The Liberation of Western Ukraine and Byelorussia from the Yoke of the Polish Lords. Filled with rare films of the Soviet invasion of the Polish borderland in 1939, this is an invaluable testimony to Soviet aggression against the Polish state, whose back was up against the wall fighting the Hitlerite invaders. Told from their perspective, the propagandistic speeches and monologues of the film shed much light on a way of thinking utterly alien to the thought processes of those living in the West.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. EXCELLENT DIGITAL QUALITY. TINNY SOUND. APPROXIMATELY 60 MINUTES.

This 60-minute documentary is then followed by a German newsreel from 1939 showing the opening stages of the invasion of Poland.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. UNSHARP VIDEO QUALITY. APPROXIMATELY 21 MINUTES.

Newsreel Nr. 60 (June 1941): Made less than a week after the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, the film’s strident rhetoric betrays a feeling of shocked surprise and outrage over the invasion of the country. Slogans like, We will answer the enemy’s blow with one three times larger!, reveal a false bravado in a country still not recovered from the Purges to respond in an effective military way to the invaders. Allegedly spontaneous speeches and demonstrations by Soviet citizens are shown, as well as masses of Soviet men joining the ranks of the Red Army. Kolkhoz workers (women) tell their husbands and sons to go off and fight the fascist invaders. The women will work the farms from now on and bring in the harvest. Young men of “uncultured” background from Moscow are inducted into the Red Army to do their part in “repaying their debt to the Motherland”. And finally, there is a rousing, if somewhat overdramatic speech, by an Ukrainian writer declaring that the people will unite as one to defeat the fascists.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. UNSHARP BUT DECENT VIDEO QUALITY. SOME TINNINESS IN THE SOUND. APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one detailing the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. EXCELLENT DIGITAL QUALITY. APPROXIMATELY 24 MINUTES.

The situation on the USSR’s western front is at its worst point in the history of the Great Patriotic War. The enemy stands before Moscow and is everywhere triumphant. Convinced that intelligence reports provided by the Allies prior to June 1941 detailing the impending German invasion are mere provocations, Stalin, for once, allows himself to be convinced by his top spy in Japan, that the Japanese have no intention of invading Siberia. This allows Stalin, in December 1941, to move crack Siberian divisions to Moscow to meet the German threat.

Newsreel Nr. 103 (November 1941): As was the fashion with Soviet news reporting during the first years of the Second World War, defeats on the battlefield were often not reported until a good two to three weeks after the defeat and were usually portrayed as strategic withdrawals carried out in a leisurely fashion. Thus opens this newsreel from November 1941, in which the defeat at Odessa, having ended two weeks before, is shown as a “triumph in defeat”, with the Red Army being ordered to re-deploy after a resistance to the German-Rumanian forces being offered for the previous two months. Detailed and glorified are not only the tireless work of Soviet paramedics and nurses on the battlefield, but the recovery of “hundreds” of enemy planes shot down from the air. That the situation is indeed desperate by this point is reflected in the incredible admission (for the Soviets), that the Red Army suffered unimaginably high losses against the German and Rumanian attackers.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 7 MINUTES. UNSHARP WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

This newsreel is followed by a contemporary German newsreel.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 31 MINUTES. EXCELLENT DIGITAL QUALITY.

Newsreel Nr. 104 (November 1941): This last Soviet newsreel on the DVD concerns itself entirely with the last minute preparations to meet the German attack on Moscow. The newsreel was shown to the public exactly one day before the city saw its worst day of the War: German tanks were to reach their closest point to the Kremlin the very next day after this film was shown. The anxious panic and the obvious belief that the Germans are going to take Moscow, in spite of the false bravado in the newsreel, are clear to see and hear. The local populace digging trenches and the untrained militia being sent out to fight the Germans remind one of the last newsreels of the Third Reich, when old men and children were sent out to meet the tanks of a now victorious Red Army converging on the Reich.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 8 MINUTES. UNSHARP WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

This newsreel is followed by one showing the march of the Red Army in Red Square on the same day (07 November):

By the 24th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in the USSR, the Germans were literally at the gates to Moscow, the country's capital. It was perhaps the lowest point for the Soviets in their struggle against the Germans from 1941 to 1945. With most of the Soviet government fleeing in great haste and disorder to the East, it appeared the Germans were going to take Moscow -- and perhaps finish off the USSR -- in a very short time. It was at this low point in the War that Stalin did perhaps his greatest service to the Soviet Union by refusing to flee the capital and by taking time off to show the soldiers his presence at the annual celebratory parade for the Revolution in November 1941. It was to be another month before the Germans were definitively and forever stopped before Moscow and the first successful Soviet counterattack launched, which pushed the Germans back over 200 miles. But at the time of this film, those soldiers whom you see on the screen marched straight from the parade to the front lines and into German fire.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 7 MINUTES. GOOD QUALITY; SOME UNSHARP AND SOFT PARTS.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 27 MINUTES. OVERALL, VERY GOOD QUALITY.

DVD-R TOTAL TIME: APPROXIMATELY 158 MINUTES

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  DISC 2  

 

Soviet Newsreel (January 1942): The worst days of the German invasion seem to be in the past (they aren’t actually: the summer of 1942 will be much worse). With the Germans pushed back from Moscow, the news takes the time to honor the 18th anniversary of Lenin’s death and to use the occasion to push the people on to further victories against the fascist invaders. The newsreel crews then visit towns liberated in the winter offensive by the Red Army. For the first time, conclusive proof of atrocities against the Soviet population are confirmed and filmed. Rostock is also (temporarily) liberated and the drive westward continues.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 11 MINUTES. UNSHARP AND WITH SOFTNESS.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 22 MINUTES. VARIABLE QUALITY, BUT OVERALL GOOD.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 79 (November 1942): The tide is about to turn for the Soviets in Stalingrad … but not quite yet. The worst summer of the Campaign has just past. The Germans are in the Caucasus and have captured 90% of Stalingrad. The newsreels no longer have the desperate tone of a year ago, but the situation is not much better. Still, this newsreel takes the time to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. It tells us about the efforts of the Soviets’ allies in North Africa and the efforts of Soviet soldiers on the Leningrad Front and in Novorossiysk to repel the invaders.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 11 MINUTES. UNSHARP AND WITH SOFTNESS.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 19 MINUTES. SOFT QUALITY WITH SOME SNOW.

1943 marked the beginning of the end for the Germans in the East. By February, the Germans trapped in Stalingrad would surrender. The taking of 90,000 soldiers and officers into captivity at Stalingrad, and the retreat from the Caucasus to avoid another huge trap by the Red Army, were to have a psychological effect, which would be matched by a strategic defeat five months later at Orel. Those combined events truly marked the end of Hitler’s ability to ever again launch a significant offensive on the Eastern Front.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 6 (January 1943): This newsreel starts off with a commemoration of Lenin’s death 19 years earlier. Unlike the same event commemorated a year earlier (see Soviet Wartime Newsreels 2), the edge of panic is now gone, replaced by a well-deserved confidence in the abilities of the Red Army and its leadership. Though the Soviets did not completely raise the siege of Leningrad until a year later, they did manage to open a narrow corridor to the city in January 1943, and that is also relayed in this newsreel.

IN RUSSIAN, BUT WITH GERMAN VOICE OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 9 MINUTES. UNSHARP, BUT DECENT QUALITY. A LOT OF SNOW.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES. UNSHARP AND SOMEWHAT WASHED OUT.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 8 (February 1943): The time of triumph has finally arrived for the Red Army. While there will be bloody defeats in the future, this is a time to celebrate. The newsreel starts off with the announcement, that the German fascists have been completely exterminated at Stalingrad. The newsreel then goes on to show the victories in the Don River bend, which prevented relief columns from reaching the trapped Axis forces on the Volga.

IN RUSSIAN, BUT WITH GERMAN VOICE OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 8 MINUTES. UNSHARP, WITH SERIOUS PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. A LOT OF SNOW.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 12 MINUTES. UNSHARP, BUT VERY GOOD QUALITY.

 Soviet Newsreel (Spring 1943): This newsreel opens with a visit by government officials and the Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia visiting a number of towns to document atrocities committed by the German fascists and their allies. Dzhatsk, Vyazma, and Rzhev are walked through and the pictures and descriptions of these atrocities are rather gruesome. The depressing news from this first part of the newsreel is offset by the triumphant display of booty won at Stalingrad. The events in North Africa are briefly covered before a return to Stalingrad, where the cameramen visit an orphanage for children of Stalingrad fighters.

IN RUSSIAN, BUT WITH GERMAN VOICE OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 9 MINUTES. SOFT, BUT DECENT FILM QUALITY AND HAS PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 5 MINUTES. UNSHARP, BUT GOOD QUALITY.

Soviet Newsreel 40-41 (June 1943): Very brief (and most likely, incomplete) newsreel from June 1943 covers an exhibition of captured German war trophies from the frontlines. All kinds of tanks, artillery and other weapons are on display

IN RUSSIAN, BUT WITH GERMAN, HARD SUBTITLES AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 3 MINUTES. UNSHARP FILM QUALITY AND HAS SERIOUS PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 19 MINUTES. SOFT WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

Soviet Newsreel 47-48 (July 1943): The German defeat at Stalingrad may have been the psychological turning point of the war in the East; but the failure of the Germans to break the Soviet lines to any significant extent at Kursk was beyond doubt the strategic turning point. This newsreel opens innocently and coyly enough with cultural news, but then eventually goes to the real matter of interest at hand: The Battle of Kursk

IN RUSSIAN, BUT WITH GERMAN VOICE OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 11 MINUTES. RELATIVELY SHARP WITH SOME SNOW AND PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 14 MINUTES. UNSHARP WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

 Soviet Newsreel 49 (July 1943): This newsreel opens with the rather official, and dubious, celebration of the incorporation of the Baltic States into the USSR. Then there are laudatory reports about the work of kolkhozes doing their part to help the Motherland and the fronts. A report about Stalin making a Guard Regiment out of an Air Force unit; and more concluding news about the spectacular halting of the Germans at Orel/Byelgorod.

IN RUSSIAN, BUT WITH GERMAN VOICE OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 9 MINUTES. RELATIVELY SHARP WITH SOME SNOW AND PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

Unlike the first disc of this series, this time, the Soviet newsreel has the last word.

DVD-R TOTAL TIME: APPROXIMATELY 151 MINUTES

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  DISC 3   

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Soviet Newsreel Nr. 1-2 (January 1944): A justifiably proud USSR crows its achievements in the ending year of 1943 in this newsreel: the siege of Leningrad was pierced by a small landbridge to the isolated city; the Caucasus, the Don, the Volga and Voronezh are cleared of Germans; the Germans suffer a huge psychological defeat at Stalingrad and the Red Army goes over to the offensive; the strategic defeat of the fascists in the East is completed at Kursk; Orel and Byelgorod are liberated; Kharkov is re-taken again (for the final time); the important industrial region of the Donets is conquered back; the never-ending threat to Moscow is broken forever; Bryansk is liberated; the Dnepr is crossed and the right bank taken after fierce battles; Poltava and Kyiv are wrested from the Germans; Gomel and other parts of Byelorussia are won back; the foreign ministers of the three Allied nations meet in Moscow, which is followed by the Big Three conference in Teheran; the USSR signs a pact of friendship with the future Czechoslovak state; the First Baltic Front defeats the Germans south of the Neva; Zhitomir is taken back from the fascists. 1943 is a year of almost unbroken triumph; and the new year seems to herald a continuation of the mighty victories.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 15 MINUTES. UNSHARP WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 7 MINUTES. UNSHARP WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

Soviet Newsreel (February 1944): The 26th anniversary of the founding of the Red Army is celebrated amidst an air of victories against the German invaders. Rovno in the Ukraine is liberated. German forces at Nikopol are wiped out and over 40 towns in the region liberated.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES. DECENT, BUT UNSHARP QUALITY.

 This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 7 MINUTES. POOR QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 13 (March 1944): The budget for the year 1944 is discussed and ratified in the Soviet. The commissariats of defense and foreign affairs are combined into one department. The highest military award in the USSR, the Suvorov Order, is awarded to a number of generals for excellence in the field. Extensions are built onto the Moscow subway line. Krivoi Rog is taken.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 8 MINUTES. GOOD QUALITY, BUT INCOMPLETE.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 11 MINUTES. POOR QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 19 (April 1944): The news takes the time out to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of Kalinin’s service to the State. A third division in the Polish Army serving in the USSR is formed. A short feature about aviation heroes in the Great Patriotic War. Vinnitsa is liberated.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 11 MINUTES. QUITE GOOD QUALITY.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 8 MINUTES. POOR QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 20 (April 1944): Spring has finally arrived and the newsreel opens with how kolkhozes in various parts of the country are preparing the sowing of the soil. A report on Allied bombing raids in western Europe. The Canadians take Ortona in Italy. Proskurov in the Ukraine is liberated. The Season of Mud has begun, creating as many problems for the advancing Soviets as it is for the retreating Germans.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 9 MINUTES. QUITE GOOD QUALITY.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 14 MINUTES. POOR QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES, AS WELL AS SCRATCHY SOUND QUALITY.

Soviet Newsreel Nr. 29 (June 1944): The newsreel opens up with a rather brief report about the Anglo-American landing in northern France. It then goes on to Marshal Zhukov being awarded a high military order and a report about a kolkhoznik donating a second plane to the Soviet Air Force (this takes up more time than the Anglo-American invasion at Normandy). The Franklin Medal is given to a Soviet scientist in Philadelphia; and a new steel mill is opened in a rebuilding and recovering Stalingrad. There is some time dedicated to a report about American Flying Fortresses at a Soviet airfield (though those same bombers won’t be given permission to land at those airfields in three months, when they hope to drop supplies to the Home Army during the Warsaw Uprising

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 7 MINUTES. GOOD QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

 This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. APPROXIMATELY 16 MINUTES. POOR QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.

 DVD-R TOTAL DURATION: 123 MINUTES

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  DISC 4   

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This DVD begins with the Dovzhenko documentary from 1945, Victory in the Ukraine:

It is September 1943 and the Red Army has begun its massive offensive against the Dniepr Line. The film describes the exploits of the Red Army and the Ukrainian citizens in defeating their occupiers and rebuilding the land. Kiev is liberated as is the rest of the Ukraine to the Carpathians and the film terminates with the Red Army crossing the Prut into Rumania. There is quite a bit more propaganda in this film and it's to be expected: in The Battle for our Soviet Ukraine, the Soviet government and the Red Army was just beginning to be optimistic about their chances of victory in the War. Stalingrad ended in February 1943 ... that was the psychological turning point of the war on the Eastern Front. But the defeat in Kursk marked the physical turning point of the War. After Kursk, there would be no major advance by the Germans and their allies on the Eastern Front again. Still, Kharkov changed hands for a third time in September and Kiev was not yet in Soviet hands. The belief in final victory was cautiously expressed in Soviet governmental circles and this is reflected in the film's tone. In Victory in the Ukraine, this tentative hesitation is nowhere to be heard. For one thing, Kiev and all of the Ukraine is now in Soviet hands. In fact, the film was made at a time when Soviet forces were well into Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. Now the tone is not only very confident; the propaganda is more strident and uncompromising in expressing total Soviet control over the Ukraine.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES.  DIGITAL QUALITY.  SOME TINNY SOUND.  APPROXIMATELY  59 MINUTES.

Soviet Newsreel (August 1944): Resurgent and determined never to allow unfriendly nations to border the USSR again, the true face of Soviet colonialism shows its face in Poland in the summer of 1944, when the National Committee of Liberation is formed in Lublin. The members of the committee, made up exclusively of Polish Communists and Jews, who fled the Nazis in 1939 and sat out the war in the USSR, are, in reality, the Soviets’ version of a Judenrat: they will masquerade as patriots, but kowtow to the dictates of their Soviet masters. They are to ensure that the Polish cow wears its communist saddle and moos only when told to do so by Moscow. In this newsreel, we are introduced to the country’s new nominal rulers and are told that they, and the Polish flag brought from Moscow and now flying over “liberated” Poland, will herald a new age of an independent and just Poland. From there, the scene shifts to Lublin, where the Red Army is now in battle with the Nazis to take the city and, in the same newsreel, will liberate it.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES.  VERY GOOD QUALITY WITH SOME PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. SOME TINNY SOUND. APPROXIMATELY 8 MINUTES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES.  GOOD QUALITY WITH PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. SCRATCHY BACKGROUND SOUND. APPROXIMATELY 6 MINUTES.

Soviet Newsreel (September 1944): This newsreel deals exclusively with the battle for Praga, Warsaw’s eastern suburb, which, by film’s end, will be liberated by the Red Army. The newsreel ends with the statement, that “Warsaw awaits its liberators”. It does not state, however, that by the time this film was released to the public, the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans had begun and the Red Army sat on the banks of the Vistula and did nothing to assist.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. GOOD QUALITY WITH SOME PIXELLIZATION ISSUES.  APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. GOOD QUALITY WITH SOME PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. APPROXIMATELY 8 MINUTES.

Soviet Newsreel (Autumn 1944): General Zhukov and a number of other Soviet generals are awarded with high orders for bravery and excellence in the field. A brief report about the Lavochkin-5 and its use on the battlefield. German General Franek is captured by two 18-year olds in the forest around Warsaw and important battle plans fall into Soviet hands. A report about liberated Lithuania and the martyrdom of Marite Minikaite, a Lithuanian communist partisan. The liberation of Byelorussia is completed. The liberation of Brussels by the western Allies is also briefly shown.

IN RUSSIAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. VERY GOOD QUALITY WITH SOME PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. APPROXIMATELY 7 MINUTES.

This newsreel is followed by a German one from the same time period.

IN GERMAN WITH SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. VERY GOOD QUALITY WITH SOME PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. APPROXIMATELY 12 MINUTES.

Soviet Newsreel (April 1945): The end of the Third Reich is now definitively at hand. In this newsreel, Fortress Konigsberg has fallen to the Soviets.

IN RUSSIAN WITH GERMAN VOICE-OVER AND SWITCHABLE ENGLISH SUBTITLES. VERY GOOD QUALITY WITH SOME PIXELLIZATION ISSUES. APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES.

This is followed by the last German newsreel made less than a month before the previous Soviet newsreel. After March 1945, the Nazis obviously felt there was nothing “newsworthy” to report from the frontlines. As far as the Third Reich was concerned; they were right.

Soviet Newsreel (May 1945): This final newsreel is a report about May Day being celebrated in the Soviet Union and in the various “liberated” lands (all of them seeming, for the most part, to be gathering the most ardent celebrants from the ranks of the local Communist parties). The message in between the lines is clear: in those countries overrun by the USSR, there will be no need to ask, who’ll be running the show in the future.

DVD-R TOTAL DURATION: 136 MINUTES