Sieg im Westen

Exceptionally, this film was produced under the aegis of the High Command of the German Army rather than by Joseph Goebbels' so-called 'Ministry of popular enlightenment and propaganda'. Very likely, if Goebbels' outfit had been responsible, a few heads would have rolled. I have never seen a cruder, more primitive piece of junk. Even the Germans of the early 1940s must have noticed that 'Sieg im Westen' could in no way stand up to the comparatively sophisticated propaganda spread by the ugly little doctor and produced by people like for instance Riefenstahl. This piece begins with a good 15 minutes of potted Germany history from the Thirty Years War onward. The next bit claims that the English and the French of the 1930s - lead by appeasers of the calibre of Chamberlain and defeatists like Gamelin - were out for war with Germany. The occupation of Poland, Denmark and Norway are quickly dealt with, and then follows the western front. I suppose the Wehrmacht was worried about giving away their military secrets; that's the only explanation I can think of for why the Sichelschnitt-plan is presented as an inept copy of the Schlieffen-plan or why the account of the taking of Fort Eben Emael is fantasy from start to finish. And so it goes on. Is this in any way interesting? Perhaps because it demonstrates the attitude of the German army command: They must truly have despised the viewers of this garbage.