Hacker Cinema
Your Job in Germany
1945 · Film · documentary · 11 min
Directed by Anatole Litvak, Frank Capra
Your Job In Germany is a short film made for the United States War Department in 1945 just before Victory in Europe Day (VE). It was shown to US soldiers about to go on occupation duty in Germany. The film was made by the military film unit commanded by Frank Capra and was written by Theodor Geisel, better known by his pen name Dr. Seuss.
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"Goebbels had thus demanded all German soldiers, having stayed in Paris for six months, be transferred to the Eastern Front to negate any “adverse” effects of billeting in the French capital."
Corrupted by the enemy, always a problem with occupying forces.
The American version of this is "Your Job in Germany".[1] This was made for US occupation troops in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra and written by Theodor Geisel ("Dr. Seuss"), an unexpected collaboration that seems to work. The message: "You are in an enemy country. Take no chances. No fraternization with any of the German people."
It's become harder to view this video. The YouTube version, uploaded directly by the US National Archives [2], is now "age restricted". Of the Internet Archive versions, only the Ogg Vorbis version is still playable.
See it now, before the Thought Police delete all the copies as "hate speech".
Understanding what went wrong after WWI is helpful in understanding what went wrong in Afghanistan. It's not directly comparable, but it's important to know that the US had, in the past, changed minds and societies by military force, successfully.
[1] https://archive.org/download/YourJobInGermany1945/YourJobInGermany1945.ogv
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=821R0lGUL6A