John Christopher Bechtler was a U.S. soldier in Berchtesgaden in April-May 1945, serving with the Counter Intelligence Corps. He arrested and interrogated various Germans at the end of the war.
Views of Munich, probably postwar [film stock dates to 1943]. Street scenes show destroyed buildings and piles of rubble. Short clip of the Bürgerbräukeller, the site of the Beer Hall Putsch where Adolf Hitler and the Kampfbund attempted a coup d'état in 1923. 01:01:02 John Bechtler gets into an army truck (labeled 206008425.) A brief clip of a black dog in the grass. Views of a lake and the surrounding landscape. 01:01:49 (John?) exits a CIC building. The CIC, or Counter Intelligence Corps, was used after the war to locate former members of the Nazi regime and combat various forms of illegal activity. Additional shots of the landscape. A brief scene of a uniformed army man and two women. 01:02:26 John lies on an outdoor chair and reads a book. He looks up and smiles at the camera. Short clips of the landscape. 01:02:39 A man in army uniform drives a jeep through the countryside. Camera shows an older man and three young children fishing. Two small children wheel a cart down the street. Views of the landscape and the road filmed from a moving vehicle. Some pedestrians and bicyclists on the road. 01:03:30 Additional clips of destroyed buildings in Munich. (Footage appears shaky here.) A brief clip of a tram passing in front of the camera. Bicyclists, pedestrians and cars on the road. Clips of Rathaus (town hall).
Ruins in Munich