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In April 1945, the German soldier Willi Herold is separated from his group. He finds a decorated captain's uniform in an abandoned car and decides to use it. Using the authority of this captain persona, he gathers a group of soldiers around him in the Emsland region near Papenburg and the border with the northern Netherlands, where he commits a range of war atrocities.
Status
Released
Original Language
DE
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".