Germany under British occupation - as portrayed in Humphrey Jennings' film 'A Defeated People.'

6th January 2007

Next Saturday 13th January, I will be giving a brief talk on my research at a conference for postgraduate students at the German Historical Institute in London.

The talk summarises the work I have been doing in the past year or so, much of which I've been writing about in this blog.

So as this is my first posting of the New Year, here is a copy of the talk. Next week I hope to write about any comments and questions from those attending the conference.

The British Occupation of Germany - as portrayed in Humphrey Jennings' film 'A Defeated People'

My area of interest is the British Occupation of Germany after the second world war. In particular, to what extent did the British and Americans succeed in 'winning the peace' as well as the war? And how did people, on both sides, become reconciled to the former enemy and even, in many cases, become friends, allies and partners?

I am currently in the second year of a part-time MA in Contemporary British History and for my dissertation, I am researching how British policy and actions in Germany were presented by the government, to people back home, in the eighteen month period between June 1945 and December 1946. In particular I am looking at how the British Occupation of Germany was portrayed in two specific contemporary sources: Humphrey Jennings' documentary film 'A Defeated People' which was filmed in Germany in September and October 1945 and first shown to the public in Britain in March 1946, and an exhibition which opened in London in June 1946, called 'Germany under Control.'

I have chosen these two sources because they were both sponsored by the British Ministry of Information and both received the full support of the British Military Government and Control Commission for Germany. They therefore show, not only a personal view of the film's director, or the exhibition organisers, but an official British view of Germany after the war, in the first few months of Occupation.

When I started looking at the subject, I thought the British Occupation of Germany was a neglected area, and in some ways it is, especially in Britain. But it soon became apparent that a great deal of historical work has been done on this period, especially in the 1980s, most notably, the project sponsored by the German Historical Institute, completed in 1993, to catalogue and create an inventory of the British Control Commission files held at the National Archives in Kew.

In the past ten years, since 1995, less work appears to have been published, but I have been pleasantly surprised to find several other postgraduate students are now working on various aspects of the subject, some of whom are here at this conference, so perhaps it is now due for a revival and maybe also a re-assessment. 

As a student of Contemporary British History, it seems to me that a significant gap in our knowledge lies, not in understanding the period of occupation in terms of international diplomacy, or as part of the history of Germany, but in what it can tell us about British history, society, politics and culture.

For five years, and with reserved powers in some areas for longer, the British ruled an area half the size of their own country and had direct responsibility for a population of over 20 million people.

With very few exceptions, such as the recent article by Matthew Frank in Twentieth Century British History on 'The New Morality - Victor Gollancz, 'Save Europe Now' and the German Refugee Crisis', this episode in British history is largely ignored in surveys of Britain, except in so far as it contributed to increased global tensions and the cold war, or was an economic burden on the British treasury.

My dissertation aims to show that the British occupation of Germany can tell us as much about how the British saw themselves, as about how they perceived Germany and the Germans.

Progress to date

Up to now, most of my time has been spent researching the film 'A Defeated People' and the film's director, Humphrey Jennings.

Humphrey Jennings was probably the greatest of all the British wartime documentary film makers. Angus Calder, for example, in "The Myth of the Blitz" refers to him as "Britain's most remarkable maker of official films." His wartime films include well known classics such as London can Take It, Listen to Britain and Fires were Started, the last of which has been described by the film historian Jeffrey Richards as "one of the key works in creating the mythic image of the London Blitz."

His films were remarkably popular, at a time when film was still a mass media, and the British documentary film movement was at its peak. In addition to cinema showings, the Ministry of Information arranged so called non-theatrical film shows in factories, village halls and clubs, reaching an audience of twenty million people over a two and a half year period. In the heightened emotional atmosphere of wartime, these non-theatrical audiences sometimes wept, or broke out into spontaneous applause, when they saw Jennings' films. For example, Roger Manvell, who worked for the Ministry of Information as a regional film officer, and later became a well-known film critic and writer, organised over 25,000 showings during the war and included a film by Humphrey Jennings in nearly all of them. He has told how "I do not exaggerate when I say that members of audiences ...(especially during the earlier, more immediately alarming years) frequently wept as a result of Jennings' direct appeal to the rich cultural heritage of Britain ... going back to Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, to Purcell and Handel."

It is therefore intriguing to ask what did this Englishmen, who some historians say created the mythic image of the London Blitz, and whose audiences sometimes cried when they saw his films, make of Germany after the war.

The film 'A Defeated People' was intended to show an accurate and realistic picture of Germany at the time. As far as we know there was no formal brief, no rules as to what could and could not be filmed and no official censorship. Humphrey Jennings wrote the script as he went along and was expected to tell it like it was, which was the way he worked on all his films, both during and after the war.

The picture it shows of Germany after the war is grim. Many British observers were openly shocked at the scale of destruction they saw when they crossed the frontier into Germany, especially in the cities and above all, in Berlin. This was far worse than anything they had seen at home, even in Coventry, Bristol or London during the blitz. As British soldiers were told in the 64 page pocketbook given to them before they crossed the frontier into Germany, (recently republished by the National Archives), more tons of bombs were dropped by the Allies on one German city, Duisburg, in just two days on 14th and 15th October 1944, than were dropped on London in the eleven months from September 1940 to July 1941.

The film shows not only the physical destruction, of the cities, the railways and factories, but its effect on the people, who were shown as stunned, dazed, as if they didn't know what had hit them. In the words of the commentary: "Place and time meant nothing, because the people; the links between the people, were smashed too. They were just left wandering, looking for food, looking for their homes, looking for each other."

Most historians and other commentators have largely ignored Humphrey Jennings' post war films, preferring to discuss his films about Britain during the war, rather than the one about Germany after the war. One well-known British historian however, Nicholas Pronay, refers to the film in the context of writing about how a defeated Germany was presented in British newsreels at the end of the war. The initial attitude of the newsreels was, to quote Pronay, "The Germans were a guilty people with an inborn compulsion to war." This reflected long held views in Britain, going back to stereotypes presented during the first world war. Then, as Pronay says: "Any lingering doubts about the thesis of the collective guilt of a whole nation were ... crushed at the end of April by the footage from the concentration camps" which was shown very widely, both in Britain and in Germany. This meant that whenever German people were shown in the newsreels as suffering and in distress, this was always presented in the collective context of Germany as a guilty nation, receiving its just deserts.

Pronay goes on to argue that the left-wing idealist documentary film makers, and  Humphrey Jennings' film 'A Defeated People,' in particular, presented the same hard-line image of Germany after the war as the right wing commercial newsreels, and this reflected a basic consensus in Britain about Germany.

In my dissertation I argue that Pronay may have been right about the newsreels, but was wrong about 'A Defeated People'. Far from presenting the same picture as the newsreels, the film shows that attitudes in Britain to the former enemy were varied and complex and changed with the transition from war to peace, as the British occupying forces found they had to deal with people as individuals, rather than collectively as the enemy. While the script tells one story, the images show a different and more complex picture. On the one hand, the film shows a grim picture of destruction, with a voice-over commentary that has no hesitation in blaming the Germans for "the war they started." But the images also show German people as individuals, not as a collectively guilty nation; men and women looking for lost relatives, children playing in the rubble on the bomb sites, people living underground in cellars because that's all that remains of their houses, old women sawing up logs to take home for fuel because they have no coal.

Not only, I would argue, has Pronay misunderstood the film, but he has also underplayed several important and contrasting aspects of the British view of Germany and the German people in the first year after the war, which are clearly evident in the film. Firstly the energy and determination with which the British Military Government tackled the process of reconstruction, their desire to get on with the job and get the place working again. Secondly, their perceived need to explain to people back home that that they were doing this out of self-interest, not altruism, to prevent disease and prevent a resurgence of fascism which could lead to another war. Thirdly, the unquestioned belief of the British in their own superiority and moral self-righteousness. And fourthly, and this is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the film, sympathy with the undoubted suffering of the former enemy, recognition that life goes on in the midst of destruction, and hope for the future.

What evidence is there to support this case? Of course we can watch the film. I am one of those who believes that sources speak for themselves, without requiring too much interpretation by the historian, which sometimes serves to confuse as much as it illuminates. But we have to question the film's value as historical evidence, because, especially when referring to images rather than the script, we are dealing with a work of art and different people will respond to it in different ways. When we watch the film now, our reactions may tell us more about our own personal experience and beliefs, and about popular memories in the society in which we grew up, than what were the original intentions of the director, or whether the film reflected official policy or popular attitudes at the time it was made.

Fortunately there is other evidence available. Firstly when the film was first shown in London in March 1946, it was extensively reviewed by the Press, which helps us understand how it was perceived when it was first released. Secondly, while filming in Germany in September and October 1945,  Jennings wrote a number of  letters to his wife and these provide an indication of his state of mind, his reactions to what he saw in Germany and the ideas he intended to convey in the film. And thirdly, we can compare how certain themes were treated in the film, with the presentation of similar themes and images in other historical sources.

What the film reviews said in 1946

The film was first shown to the public at the Tivoli cinema in London on March 17th 1946, after a private press showing earlier in the week. The publicity material stated that, as the "first official film record of life in Berlin and Hamburg under the British Control Commission," it would answer the question everyone was asking: "What is it like inside Germany today?" It would show the scale of the destruction, but also how a curl of smoke emerging from the rubble showed someone, still living in the cellar of a destroyed building, trying to make a home out of chaos. The role of the British Control Commission was stressed in bringing order out of ruin and despair. And in the final sentence, there was a glimmer of hope for the future as, "In the wintry sunlight the children are beginning to laugh and dance again, the horrors of war behind them."

The film was reviewed in all the major British papers, and all, regardless of their political persuasion, followed much the same line as the publicity material. In summary, the reviewers recognised that the situation in Germany was grim, that conditions were bad and people were suffering. The British, as the occupying power, had an obligation to do something about this, but there was no single answer and no easy solutions. As Joan Lester said in her review in Reynolds News, the film dealt with "the vital and complex problems arising out of the economic, political and human tangle created by Nazism in defeat. Mr Jennings has, within certain essential limitations of time and opportunity, brought to his subject understanding, intelligence and humanity."

Humphrey Jennings' letters to his wife while filming in Germany

Humphrey Jennings' own reactions to the situation in Germany are revealed in the letters he wrote to his wife in September and October 1945. These show that he was initially confused and uncertain what to make of it. In his first letter, written on September 1st 1945, he says:

"Well I have been quite overwhelmed by Germany in the past few days and can't really say anything sensible yet - it is quite unlike anything one has been told or thought - both more alive and more dead." A week later he was still none the wiser: "I am still unable to give any sort of reliable picture of Germany - even of the bits (Cologne, Essen, Hannover, Hamm) which we have seen - for the moment the contradictions are too great ..."

In general, the letters are very far from the uncompromising view, claimed by Pronay, as a consensus in Britain at the end of the war, of a guilty people getting its just deserts. There is no doubt in Jennings' mind that the Germans were to blame for the war, but he is also clearly looking beyond this to the plight of people as individuals, to the obligations of the British as occupiers, and even to a Germany that once was a beautiful country, and might become so again.

The theme of the broken clock

I have found it interesting to compare how themes were handled in the film, with the treatment of similar themes in articles, features and letters in other official sources: in particular the British Zone Review, which was a fortnightly review of the activities of the British Control Commission.

To take one example: the theme of the broken clock. Near the start of the film, the commentator says, to a picture of broken clock on a ruined railway station: "And at the finish, life in Germany just ran down like a clock."

The same theme appears in the first issue of the British Zone Review, published on 29th September 1945, the same time as Jennings was filming in Germany, in a feature on page four with the headline "Winding up the Clock" about what the British were doing in Buxtehude, a small town near Hamburg.

The image, of course, is similar to that of 'Stunde Null' - Year Zero. Life had stopped, like a broken clock, and the job the British believed they had to do was to wind it up and get things going again. Many German people have written about their memories of the time, but very few British. So to conclude my talk I would like to quote this official British view of 'Stunde Null' in a small town in Germany. Like the film, it reveals the same strange mixture of sympathy and self-interest, of reconstruction and self-righteousness:

"This is the story of Buxtehude. It is not a sensational story because Buxtehude is one of those quiet little country towns where - even in Germany - sensations seldom happen. But it is the story of what Military Government has done and is doing to restore to the British Zone the essential things of life which were swept away in the collapse of Nazi Germany.... When the British 213 Military Detachment took over the Nazi-run town on May 10, Buxtehude was like a clock with its spring unwound. There was no gas, and there was no electricity. The water was impure. The town's small industries were at a standstill. The flour mills were idle. Road transport had stopped, and no trains ran. Today the Nazi bosses are gone, and the town has a Burgomeister, a social democrat, who was three times imprisoned by them. The public services have been restored. Trains are running, and there is a daily bus for those who have passes to say that their journeys are really necessary... How have these things happened?

'It has just been part of the drill for dealing with such problems', a British Army officer of the Military Government Detachment told me. 'The German people have been obedient and cooperative. We have told them what they must do and they have got on with the job.'"

Finally, and as a way of summarising the aims of the dissertation, I would like to quote Peter Wende, the former director of the German Historical Institute here in London, who said in the introduction to a symposium held in May 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the Unconditional Surrender of German armed forces in Europe: "May 1945 marked the transition from decades of conflict to an era of peace and cooperation. Focusing on this decisive historical event from different angles may provide a starting point for discussion of its wider implications."

Christopher Knowles
January 2007

Comments

[Elizabeth]

This is so interesting.
I am researching life for expellees from Breslau who ended up in the British zone. It is an uphill task.
I must try to get hold of a copy of this film.
The post war experience seems much over shadowed by the actual war - though the aftermath was almost as appalling.

[Christopher Wright]

I would be very interested to know where you can get hold of the Jennings film. I have not come across it.

Interesting German language material I am currently reading (as a former Hamburg resident) includes Bahnsen/von Stuermer "Die Stadt, die leben wollte," dealing with the final days of the war and the British entry into the city.

[Chris Knowles]

As far as I know the film has not been released on DVD, but you can view it over the web on "Moving History" http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk/archives/iw/films/iw6defeated.html or (if you are a subscriber) via Screenonline http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/711414/index.html
You can also arrange to see it at the Imperial War Museum in London, by making an appointment to do so with their Film Archive.

[john dudarz]

my father who was polish worked for the british military police in westfalen after ww2. finding any info is almost impossible . any advice.

[Harry Leslie Smith]

I would be most interested to find a DVD copy of this film. I currently completing my second volume of memoirs which pertain to my RAF service in in Hamburg, from May 1945-47. Living conditions, in Hamburg, for most Germans were abysmal.