Germany | Wanderings and ... wonderings.

Apr 05 2017

Kolberg (1945) – last looney propaganda piece of the Third Reich.

Kolberg (1945) is frankly bonkers.

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The most expensive German film of World War II at eight million marks, and shot between October 1943 to August 1944, this monstrosity depicts the defence of the eponymous fortress town against French troops at the height of the Napoleonic Wars (1807). It’s a kind of metaphor for German fortunes after the failures of Stalingrad and Kursk; with strategic initiative lost, the remainder of the fight on the Eastern Front became a series of attritional, reactive operations with no chance of success.

The extras comprised 187,000 people and 50,000 soldiers, apparently the second-highest cast of all time behind Gandhi (1982).

The city of Kolberg itself was declared a fortress town a mere month after the film’s opening, this consisting of regular showings in Berlin whilst air raids pummelled the capital.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFRs0G5fO_g

Imagine the ideological fanaticism of a regime that, as ultimate annihilation beckoned, it still felt the need to plough such ludicrous resources into a movie of epic undertaking, resources that could have been of immeasurable human and material value in the war effort. This Nazi-opus Gone with the Wind (1939) just serves to highlight the tenuous grip on reality exhibited in the last years of the Third Reich, and an overbearing emphasis on *will* as the essential component in turning the tide of war.

Verisimilitude on the Eastern Front.

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I’ve always wondered about this one, and have no way to verify whether it’s a legitimate piece of footage or not. It appears to be shot on the Eastern Front, capturing brutal house-to-house fighting between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. Stalingrad, perhaps? I know re-enactments were commonplace, and especially right after battles. It’s an eerie proposition, though, that a soldier’s passing would one day be played back in an Edinburgh slum on a Friday evening, the viewer drinking Southern Comfort from a ThunderCats mug.

Any further info welcomed.

1:32 on the clip.

Tagged Eastern Front, Fury, Red Army, Stalingrad, Thundercats, Wehrmacht, World War Two, WWII

Feb 25 2017

1 Comment

Germany, Soviet Union, Tourism, Travel, Uncategorized

Holidaying under the Iron Curtain.

A cursory Google search finds voluminous clips and blogs offering snippets of trips to former communist countries before Francis Fukuyama declared the End of History. Many of these comprise vintage polaroids from the ’60s and ’70s or VHS-C camcorder footage from the ’80s. A sequence shot of a Saint Petersburg Metro journey in the time of Brezhnev would ten years ago appear a trip down an irreconcilable lane. Born in ’85, I even whitewashed my early years, banishing the Cold War and its messy aftermath to the dustbin. Not so now.

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Millions of westerners briefly experienced life behind the Iron Curtain and a not inconsiderable number of easterners did the same in the west, this with greater restrictons imposed by their home governments. Hammer-and-sickle enclaves were popular destinations for a kind of ‘police state tourism’, the almighty Soviet Union the predominant attraction.

The Soviets’ need for hard currency was the driving factor in this contradictory embrace of the outsider. Exchange rates were highly inflated, and what you could and couldn’t do was restricted. The visitor was obliged to stick to one’s pre-disclosed itinerary, and, officially, not trade on the black market. This was, however, unoffically permitted as a stimulator of commerce which the often struggling economy needed.

I’d rather travel to the Soviet Union of 1985 than the Russia of today; astonishingly, it appears more hospitable and the people more cordial yet at the same time more exotic. My experiences the past few years have been a mixed bag – so many cities are so alike in their banality that after a mere six hours in them I long for the return flight home as I recall that memorable line in Fight Club (1999): ‘Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.’ I could be in Frankfurt but it may as well be Milan – much-vaunted landmarks aside they both house the same old shit and the same faux-charming narratives, with English the certified Esperanto of the city experience.

We are, however, as a reaction to the ill-thought-out effects of globalisation now less likely to dance around the Schengen fire to kumbaya and exalt in the multicultural utopia. Just east of the EU, Russia as it is today in its hideous incarnation makes those archive clips on YouTube appear a snapshot of a more civilised time. For good or bad, as the European federal project continues to erode from within, we may return to the fully autonomous nation state system our parents dismantled. It perhaps makes travel more purposeful, with destinations the more fanciful. We’re going back to building walls in order to bridge a way foward.

München, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Alkohol.

Guten Morgen.

Arriving in Munich, we wander around the Hauptbahnhof before our 17:54 Salzburg departure, stumbling into an assortment of ghetto eateries (for the booze). What is it about train stations and their surrounding streets that attracts the oddballs and the riff-raff? I’ve never felt entirely safe sparking up a ciggy near a railway. One is invariably sniffed by the local hyenas wishing to devour their carcass of tobacco. We escape a verbose gentleman in green dungarees and find our seats on the train. When I finally conduct my Trans-Siberian Express jaunt, I wish it to be just like this, but with several suitcases filled to the brim with liquor.

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Salzburg.

The delights of Salzburg. They have some cracking pubs – notably Alchimiste Belge – and a fag machine. And a SPAR selling Bacardi Breezers. What more could one want in a city? Oh, and a born-again Christian outside a nightclub gave me a book about God and things. I endowed it to the hotel for a lucky person to devour.

The wee Sunday market left the most memorable impression. Tiptoeing from stall to stall with a beer in each pocket, I got the sense that I was somehow intruding upon this idyllic community gathering. They all appeared so happy and thoughtful, like this was the day to take stock of the week’s events and indulge in a little R&R. There’s an ersatz ‘German Market’ back home in Edinburgh – it mostly consists of teenagers in tracksuits being very loud. No comparison, really.

Morning entertainment.

A spot of Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009) and a Jägermeister chaser performed their noble role as Room 304’s pre-eminent hangover cure. The hotel were showing The Sound of Music (1965) on a loop, but it’s just not graphic enough for my sensibilities. Julie Andrews doesn’t do it for me; I need proper carnage.

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To Obersalzberg.

Driving to Hitler’s notorious crib above Berchtesgaden and peering up awestruck at its twin delights of the Berghof and the Eagle’s Nest and all the tumultuous, tragic history that was made here, left me with a sense of being quite insignificant. The overwhelming splendour of the milieu merely magnified the feeling that I was an ant ripe for a trampling.

Munich (again).

By the time we reach Munich and go our separate ways after a few more drinky-poos, I’m content to conk out on my bed as Richard Wagner emanates from a tacky Bluetooth speaker. I wake up in darkness and feel my way around the room, realising I’m in Munich and not a lucid dream three minutes into this escapade. I crawl to the shower, then luxuriate in another cheeky nap, and depart at the first sound of a cleaning lady (I presume) patrolling the corridor. In the railway station I get visions of an anthropomorphic dog in a leg-cast playing Daft Punk’s “Da Funk” from a boombox. I don’t know why.

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Tagged Austria, Bavaria, Ben Gould, Berchtesgaden, Berghof, Edinburgh, Germany, Jagermeister, Munchen, Munich, Salzburg

Wanderings and … wonderings.

Category Archives: Germany

Kolberg (1945) – last looney propaganda piece of the Third Reich.

Verisimilitude on the Eastern Front.

Holidaying under the Iron Curtain.

München, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Alkohol.