Goerings Green Folder - The Hunger Plan - 20th Motorized Infantry Division - Operation Barbarossa

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This video is really a follow up to an interesting comment that was posted related to the last video which showed captured Russian soldiers from July of 1941 who were in a terrible state. The clip is part of an incredible collection which includes the 20. Motorized Inf. Div. which we’ll be continuing with that soon enough.

The viewer stated that the footage presented was in fact pro-German propaganda because it intended to show that the Soviet soldiers were starving because they had not been given enough food by the Soviet army. Also that the German captors were being portrayed as being gracious by providing them with food. The nuanced interpretation made me think. I needed more evidence.

So what I’ve found is more footage from the same ravine, from the same time period, and from what I would assume, without really knowing, is the same cameraman. Here behind me we can see screenshots of both clips which show the same location. But this time the Propaganda Company had edited the footage and portrayed the event in a deliberate manner that was shown in a Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel. This one. Having these two points of reference gives us something to contrast.

What we’ll do is watch both film clips side by side and listen to the propaganda newsreel’s original sound. Seeing the contrast between the the raw film footage that the propaganda company received and what they then produced with it in the newsreel gives us the ability to better understand the message that they wanted the German public to receive. I hope that you guys will give your opinions in the comment section below. Please remember, be respectful.

The German leadership’s intention of destroying the Bolshevik armies in massive battles of annihilation is becoming a reality. The number of captured soldiers is rising without an end in sight. In the first weeks alone 100s of thousands of Bolsheviks put down their weapons and surrendered.

The dramatic Wagnerian music sets the stage for showing all the captured guns, tanks and finally masses of captured Russian soldiers. It was around this time that the Germans first began declaring that the war in the East was already won and that there was only a bit of mopping up left to do. Discussions had begun about which units should first be removed from the east.

This scene doesn’t fit with the spirit of the newsreel. At first the cameraman focuses on the women and mens’ shabby appearance mockingly and then films them as they throw their food to the captives. The whole sequence is chaotic and undignified and isn’t in tune newsreel’s desired message. It needed to have an orderly, dramatic, victorious feeling.

It’s true that the logistics of adequately supplying the huge number of captives with food was probably impossible, but it’s not that the Nazi leadership was unprepared. The official plan was to let 20-30 million Soviets die of starvation and export the food to the west. If you are interested in learning more about this Google Goering’s Green Folder or the Hunger Plan.

So at this point in the war there was no need to show that the Russians were better off as captives than they were in the Soviet system. The official policy was that it simply didn’t matter if they lived or died and showing scenes of them being fed was senseless. For the German public they would quietly just disappear.

So that’s what I think, so please write what you thing in the comment section below. If you like this type of content please remember to subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching.