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Episode 113
Die Wehrmacht 1939
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Campaign in Poland
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This rare 1935 footage shows military maneuvers in Bückeberg Germany, filmed directly after Hitler’s proclamation of the restoration of military sovereignty and the integration of the Reichswehr into the new Wehrmacht. As this footage was taken, the process of transferring the body of Paul von Hindenburg to the Tannenberg Memorial in East Prussia was under way. The association of these two events is closer than might seem.
This series will cover how the nazi Propagandists managed to weave the mythos of German militarism together with their plans for future expansion, specifically domination in the east. Here in part 1, I’ll use primary historical sources to show how the image of Hindenburg and Tannenberg were manipulated and expanded for their purpose.
This is a complete collection of the periodical Die Wehrmacht for 1939. On the cover of the issue 17 which was published in mid August of 1939 is a photograph of Tannenberg memorial. Notice the Wehrmacht honor guard positioned at the entrance opposite the statues of the permanent honor guard, a bridge between past and the present. Below the photograph, a large rally celebrating the military is announced which will be held at the memorial on August 27, just 4 days before the start of the war. The official line was that on September 1, Polish soldiers had attacked the Germans but this was an invented pretext. None of this coincidence, everything had been timed carefully to prepare the population.
After the campaign, Goebbels propaganda ministry even produced this ridiculous film. As long as the German army was successful and the population was being told what they wanted to hear it didn’t really matter how believable the information was. Later in the war producing effective propaganda was much more difficult.
Back to 1935 we see the ceremony for the interment of Hindenburg’s body into the war memorial. He had been the Field Marshal who, in 1914, was given credit for defeating the Russian armies that had advanced into East Prussia. This association made him an important figure with the “stab in the back” theory, supported by right-wing nationalists which believed that it was not the German armies that had lost the war, but rather the liberal elements of the home front. In 1919 he had stated
“The concern as to whether the homeland would remain resolute until the war was won, from this moment on, never left us. We often raised a warning voice to the Reich government. At this time, the secret intentional mutilation of the fleet and the army began”
This was very much in line with the program of the NSDAP however, the Nazis believed that those supposed back-stabbing liberals, were jews. Although not openly anti-semitic, Hindenburg was willing to turn a blind eye believing that the WW1 corporal with a silly mustache could be controlled. To many conservatives the fact that Hindenburg had been willing to do business with Hitler, making him Chancellor in 1933, gave hm and his movement an air of respectability which opened the way for both politicians and industrialists to began cooperating with Him.
Without Hindenburg’s support, the NAZIS most likely wouldn’t have come to power. He also was instrumental in tacitly approving of the dissolution of democracy and the death of the Weimar republic.
This postcard show Hitler greeting Hindenburg, on March 21, 1933 in Potsdam, the day the Reichstag was reopened after it had been burned. Hindenburg had not wanted to be interned in the Tannenburg memorial but rather wished to be buried at his estate Gut Neudeck. But that didn’t fit in with Germany’s newly revitalized militarism and Hitler was the new man in charge.
During the war in the east, German soldiers heading to the front often were taken on a pilgrimage to the Tanenberg memorial to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of their responsibility in bearing arms for the German nation.
We are looking at footage from a soldier who was part of rocket launcher Regiment 51. It was taken just before they moved into their designated position in Army Group Center to take part in the initial attack on the Soviet Union. If you’d like to see other videos about this unit and their involvement in the Russian campaign there is a link at the end of this video.
Notice the Russian graves marked with orthodox crosses that were left around the Tannenberg memorial. This really was meant to be some kind of Germanic Valhalla shrine.
Many of the collections of soldiers private film footage from the Eastern Front start at the Tannenberg memorial. This for example is from a soldier’s collection who was part of a mobile hospital unit that operated in Russia in 1941.
