Here's a World War One documentary that is different. Journalists and film-makers accompanied the German Army into Poland, covering the taking of Warsaw and the storming of the New George fortifications, held by over 80,000 Russian troops.
Although it isn't usually recognized, the British were masters of propaganda during the First World War, attributing such barbarities to the Germans that when Germany was behaving barbarously during the Second World War, no one really believed it. With Rudyard Kipling a major force in their efforts, with D.W. Griffith going Over There to make war films for the British, the Empire's forces were portrayed as ordinary lads, Tommy Atkins, sticking it out with bulldog courage and good humor. the Germans, on the other hand, produced fiction films about freeing Poland and documentaries like this one. During the Second World War, German apologists would have their audiences believe the Germans were fighting our battles for us, against the Communist Russians, half-civilized outlanders who would wreck Western Civilization.
So the movie begins in Berlin, where American jockeys and Jane Addams are to be seen, where derbies go on as normal, and thousands of troops are wandering around. "Germany isn't half trying" is the message. The only sign there's a war on are the relief efforts, raising money for the Red Cross, and the huge Prisoner Of War camps, where English and Russians are glad to be. Oh, the POWs get sent out for labor, but everything is strictly by the Geneva Conventions. The Germans are civilized.
Then the expedition begins, with an easy trek to Warsaw, where the Russians have wrecked the bridges over the Vistula, but the ever efficient Germans have put up pontoon bridges, and the locals are happy and anxious to be in the movies. The only sign of a war, aside from occasional military maneuvers, and the occasional wounded soldier, is the wrecked castles, and the elderly nobleman and his wife, who are tending to the wounded personally.
It is with the assault on the New George fortifications which, we are told, were considered impregnable, and were taken by the Germans in a week that this movie makes its main point. It's a well run battle from the German viewpoint, and the movie supports that..... until you realize that some of these shots had to have been staged. After 90 minutes, we finally hear mention of the military censors and see in the distant background, the dead being carried off. Until then, you would have thought the German soldier unstoppable and unkillable.
Well, it becomes clear that the German soldier can be killed, but the German army, in all its efficient splendor, cannot be stopped.
And that's the propaganda message of this film: give up now, because we're going to win, and kill a lot of you along the way.