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I think this is the right place to post this, if not I will accept a paddling.

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Anyone know of a good WWII documentary made by and for Germans? Preferably that's available on Amazon or the like? It doesn't have to be in English, in fact I'd prefer if it wasn't.

Aside from Soviet Storm: WWII in the East everything I have is made by and for Anglos of one sort or another and I'd like to get a wider perspective. For example, The World at War, my go-to WWII documentary, doesn't mention the Battles at Rzhev at all, while Soviet Storm... spends an entire episode on them. I wonder what a German documentary would include that the Brits and the Russians don't.

I'd also like to know if anyone can recommend a good Finnish documentary on The Winter War. That one would need to be at least subtitled into English.

Thanks, danke, spasibo.

Hello? Is this thing on?

For clarity, I am not looking for a documentary that is sympathetic to Hitler and his Third Reich cronies, what I am looking for is basically Der Untergang/Downfall, but not a movie and regarding as much of the whole 1918-1945 timeline as possible.

I completely feel what you are saying. im 100% german and WWII is my all time favorite thing in history. I will be following to see if anyone has any input or suggestions.

I have not seen a documentary or series akin to Soviet Storm from a German perspective, and I highly doubt you would.

I've certainly never heard of anything like that, and I very much doubt there are many WW2 documentaries from an Axis perspective.

Alrighty, well FWIW there's Die Wehrmacht - Eine Bilanz, which is a five part documentary made by ZDF. That's on Amazon, but I don't think it's terribly good personally.

I think you probably won't find much, largely because Germany seems keen on erasing any ties it had with the past. So a WW2 documentary for a German audience is unlikely.

The only ones I'm aware of are of the "Hitler did nothing wrong" and "this isn't the Jewish version" kind of things, but that just might be because I track the garbage Neo-Nazi's put out from time to time. I'm not really aware of many German documentaries at all actually.

For a number of obvious reasons, I don't think Germans are very keen on making WW2 documentaries. It is a... sensitive subject in Germany (as it should be) and any German channel/producer attempting making a WW2 documentary would probably face lots of criticism either for portraying the Germans too sympathetically, or for making all Germans look like evil villains, or for both at the same time.

I'd be surprised if there were no German focused WWII documentaries, but I wouldn't expect anything like WWII in Color or the like. Documentaries like that really only come to be because the US filmed everything. Germany filmed lots of stuff too, well Berlin got wrecked and whatnot at the end there.

A quick google search only pulls up small documentaries focusing on obscure topics, like the lives of homosexuals during the war (interesting I suppose but not what I suspect you want) and a documentary on the life of Veit Harlan (Nazi movie maker extraordinaire). I'm not finding anything that looks like what you want but that might be an English language limitation.

The old Battle Line series tends to feature two veterans from opposing sides to give their experiences, typically American and german but other nationalities appear too. If you don’t know the series it’s woth seeking out.

You probably won't find much since Germany seems to be on a crusade of practically erasing WWII from existence.

What you need to do is find anything by this guy:



Who is now this guy:



And you'll be set!

I've always been interested in militaria and history from a different perspective; fascist versus communist.

My grandfather (mother's dad) was a colonel in World War 2 serving the Chinese Army led by Chiang Kai-shek.

He was an engineer and they fought against the forces of Mao Zedong, obviously before he became Chairman Mao.

The son of Chiang Kai-shek was sent to Germany where he became a Panzer tank commander !!!





I've been checking out war documentaries on Netflix as the thought just occured to me that I i love docs over movies because:

- Due to the expense of making movies, it is ridiculously expensive to shoot major war movies considering the use of extras and employing makeup, costume, and armourers.

- Then there is more money to be spent on special effects, whether good old explosions and squibs or computer-generated or even both like in "Edge Of Tommorow".

- Insurance companies these days refuse to let the realism of war and major stars carry out their own stunts like in "Apocalypse Now".



With this being said, there are quite a few titles on Netflix; while i have not seen the German documentaries there are a few!

- Concentration camps

- Hitler's personal bodyguard which thwarted nine different assassination attempts

- "Nazi death squads" that were in charge of carrying out specific genocide



I just watched a Korean War documentary made by PBS about the Battle at Choisin; real war footage is included showing close combat ...

Documentaries are also uncensored so injuries, wounds and fatalities and shown as well as hair-raising front-line footage; can't fake death
Did you know that it was so cold like below 40 or 50 degrees Fahrenheit at times that soldiers who had serious wounds would live?

Guys who had their guts shot out or limbs blown off, their blood would congeal and freeze so fast they managed to survive initially;
however once temperatures or their bodies warmed up, blood would start to run from multiple bullet holes and such..

The PBS Ken Burns series about the Vietnam War is even better as it is an entire series and documents French colonialism since the 1800's.

The majority of combat footage used in documentaries was taken for the purposes of news and propaganda, it’s often staged or they point the camera at favourable things. Remember, the cameraman typically isn’t going to stand in the middle of a firefight. They don’t show their own people being mown down and suffering, and they often show silly things like people running along walls and jumping out of windows or whatever, implying it’s mid combat, all things that look great on film but would just expose you to being shot. That said there is a lot of real footage, from aircraft too, that’s genuine combat stuff, but be skeptical of what is claimed to being shown. You also see the same footage being recycled in multiple shows while the voiceover claims it’s in Italy, France, Germany, etc..

I don't know what you have been watching, but as someone who has served in the military i can tell you if it is real or not.



In any case i'd like to hear your recommendation sir.