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This film, directed by acclaimed documentary film-maker Humphrey Jennings, looks at Germany in the period immediately after the end of the Second World War. The film, set in the British-occupied zone of Germany, examines issues surrounding the rebuilding and restructuring of post-war Germany and its people – a task explained to its mainly British audience as a necessary measure to remove the risk of further conflict in the future. The film covers issues such as the displaced population, establishing legal systems, dealing with the rebuilding of the country's infrastructure and addressing the attitudes and values of the German people. The attitudes of the western allies towards the citizens of occupied German evolved rapidly, from the outright hostility of “non-fraternization” and “war guilt”, through resentment and suspicion, to the attempt to build up a “democratic” west Germany as a partner in the new Cold War. This evolution can be traced in the Imperial War Museum’s holdings of the newsreel series ‘Welt im Film’, screening of which was compulsory in the cinemas of the British and US Zones of Germany until the end of the 1940s. ‘A Defeated People’ is one of a small number of English language films reflecting the earlier attitudes, but was made by a director whose interest in, and concern for, common humanity cannot be repressed even in such a context. The Imperial War Museum Film and Video Archive collection contains many other notable films by Humphrey Jennings including, for example, 'London Can Take It' (1940) on the effect on London during the German blitz bombing attacks and 'Fires Were Started' (1943) following the work of the Auxiliary Fire Service. The archive also holds the film ‘The Good Life’ (1951) on which Jennings was working at the time of his death. |
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