Death Mills
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''Death Mills'' (or ''Die Todesmühlen'') is a 1945 American-German propaganda film directed by
Billy Wilder Billy Wilder (; ; born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-American filmmaker. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Holl ...
and produced by the
United States Department of War The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, a ...
. The film was intended for
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
audiences to educate them about the atrocities committed by the
Nazi regime Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. For the German version, ''Die Todesmühlen'',
Hanuš Burger Hans Herbert Burger (June 4, 1909 Prague – November 13, 1990, Munich), also known as Hanuš Burger, Hans Burger, and Jan Burger, as well as under the pseudonyms Hans Herbert and Petr Hradec, was a theater, film, and television director, playwrig ...
is credited as the writer and director, while Wilder supervised the editing. Wilder is credited with directing the English-language version. The film is a much-abbreviated version of ''
German Concentration Camps Factual Survey ''German Concentration Camps Factual Survey'' is the official British documentary film on the Nazi concentration camps, based on footage shot by the Allied forces in 1945. The film was produced by Sidney Bernstein, then with the British Minist ...
'', a 1945 British government documentary that was not completed until nearly seven decades later. The German-language version of the film was shown in the US sector of West Germany in January 1946.


Synopsis

The film opens with a note that the following is "a reminder that behind the curtain of Nazi
pageant Pageant may refer to: * Procession or ceremony in elaborate costume * Beauty pageant, or beauty contest * Latter Day Saint plays and pageants, run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or by members local to the area of the pageant * ...
s and parades was millions of men, women and children who were tortured to deaththe greatest mass murder in human history," then fades into German civilians at
Gardelegen Gardelegen (; nds, Garlä) is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Milde, 20 m. W. from Stendal, on the main line of railway Berlin-Hanover. History Gardelegen has a Roman Catholic and three Evangelical chur ...
carrying crosses to the local concentration camp. Most of the film includes footage of the newly liberated camps over a score of stark classical music. The narrator notes that people of all nationalities were found in the camps, including people of all religious or political creeds. There is no mention of the particular fate of
Jewish people Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
. The film states that 20 million people were killed and describes many of the now familiar aspects of the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, including the medical experiments and the gas chambers. The Orson Welles film '' The Stranger'' uses footage of this film during the scene where Edward G. Robinson explains to Mary about Franz Kindler's responsibility for the Holocaust. This film would be included as a supplement on the Kino Lorber Blu-Ray of The Stranger.


Concentration camps

The images from the camps include shots of piles of skeletal corpses, naked skeletal survivors (often supported by fellow prisoners) together with footage of prosperous-looking German citizens being forced to observe their suffering. Some are also forced to carry the corpses to be buried, although most of this work was usually carried out by ex-camp guards (as at
Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentrati ...
). There are shots of mass graves, as well as of individual burials, as at Hadamar, now known to be a
euthanasia Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different eut ...
or Action T4 centre. Some of the footage appears to be of Soviet origin, and includes shots taken at Majdanek death camp which was one of the first camps to be liberated in 1944 by the Red Army. There are shots of the
crematoria Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
at several camps, as well as the infamous slogans erected at the entrances of most camps, such as '' Arbeit macht frei''. Perhaps most moving of all are the piles of stolen personal belongings of gassed victims, filmed by the Russians when they liberated
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, as well as by US troops at Buchenwald. They include piles of clothes, shoes, toys, wedding rings and gold teeth destined for the vaults of the Reichsbank.


See also

*''
German Concentration Camps Factual Survey ''German Concentration Camps Factual Survey'' is the official British documentary film on the Nazi concentration camps, based on footage shot by the Allied forces in 1945. The film was produced by Sidney Bernstein, then with the British Minist ...
'' * List of Holocaust films *'' The Nuremberg Trials'' - Soviet film about the Nuremberg trials *''
That Justice Be Done ''That Justice Be Done'' was a one-reel American propaganda film directed by George Stevens and made in 1945 by the Office of War Information for the US Chief of Counsel at Nuremberg and the War Crimes Office of the Judge Advocate General's Corp ...
'' - American film about the Nuremberg trials


References


External links

* *
Complete film at US Holocaust Museum
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Death Mills 1946 films 1940s German-language films Films directed by Billy Wilder Documentary films about the Holocaust Articles containing video clips American black-and-white films American documentary films 1946 documentary films 1940s English-language films 1940s American films