See RG-60.4281 and RG-60.4282 for duplicate parts of this newsreel. See RG-60.0280 for a short segment with narration.
German intertitles. Title on screen: Ozaphan 10/39 Monatsschau [Loosely, October 1939 monthly show]. von Brauchitsch speaks to workers in arms factory in Dusseldorf in August 1939. Tanks. Swastikas. War preparations in London in August 1939. Men load materials in boxes onto a vehicle, dig ditches (street traffic in BG), and move a large gun. Volksdeutsche [ethnic Germans] with suitcases, eating. German soldiers (SS-Heimwehr) prepare to defend Danzig from Polish control by mounting and camouflaging weapons. Shell damage of buildings and homes near the border as the German offense advances. Germans fire weapons at the Polish post building in Danzig."Sudentenlan" tank. Fire."Schleswig-Holstei" ship fires from the harbor. HAS, Kriegsmarine load guns. Polish villages on fire, bombed bridges. Man removes street sign,"Ul. Poln". Crowds cheer in support of German troops parading in street, girls provide refreshments. Polish insignia removed from a doorway. 01:03:02"Krieg in Pole". Scenes from the invasion of Poland. Cannons firing, German soldiers moving across a field. German soldiers develop and analyze aerial photography at a mobile lab in the field. 01:03:27 Goering and other Nazi officers review plans. INT, Goering and Hitler. Back in the field, shots of soldiers with bombs, German airplanes taking off, and destroyed buildings on the ground. A smiling nurse hands grapes to a wounded soldier; a man on a stretcher is unloaded from a train of wounded German soldiers. The camera pans along wagons full of Polish refugees, Polish farmers walking their oxen. An old woman holding a baby accepts bread from a German soldier, while another soldier in the background smiles at a young child that he holds in his arms. Polish man accused of retaliating against the German snipers attacking the Polish city of Bydgoszcz [Bromberg] is forced into building at gunpoint. The city had a sizable German minority. Over 500 Polish civilians, many of them members of the clergy and intelligentsia, were executed in the first few days of the German occupation of the town in September 1939. Men being arrested and searched. More men are lined up with arms upraised. CUs of a disheveled man. Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) outside. Children sit beside a river with a large metal bridge collapsed in the water. They receive and eat food from bowls. Some are wounded. (See Film ID 201, Story 280 for some duplicate footage, with narration.) 01:05:01 A wounded German reviews imprisoned Poles in military uniforms. A man (probably ethnic German) identifies men in the lineup. 01:05:14 Pan, CUs of religious Polish Jews. Crowd of men seated on ground. Jews are forced to perform labor. LS, German soldiers marching across a man-made bridge over the San River; Hitler reviews the troops at the river's edge. Enthusiastic crowds cheer and salute the German tanks, throwing flowers, etc. Hitler proceeds through the throngs in an automobile, followed by more military. HAS destroyed bridge and buildings. HAS houses on fire. Bombings, city buildings in flames. Two Germans carry live geese. A soldier butchers a pig. EXT, official building guarded by troops. INT, several men sit and discuss the demarcation lines. Troops fire weapons against the last Polish resistance in Gdynia. Ships in harbor, firing weapons. Hitler's motorcade through the city streets of Danzig after the German victory. Large crowds line the streets. Banner across the street:"Danzig gruesst seinen Fuehrer" Fighting near Warsaw, Germans fire cannons and mortars, smoke rises from the city. Aerial views of the sites of Stuka bombings in Warsaw. A Polish general reviews and accepts the terms of surrender of Poland to Germany, which took place in a rail car near Warsaw. UFA logo.
Ethnic Germans; German invasion of Poland