This amateur made home movie dates to the 1960s, and may have been shot by a member of the U.S. Army who was assigned to Germany, or simply by an American tourist. The man (who is never seen in the footage) and a woman who was likely his wife, were on a tour in their red VW Beetle. The soundtrack married to the film was added by the unknown filmmaker.
The film starts with a shot of the sign for the U.S. Army’s Camp Dachau, which was the site of the former SS camp, adjacent to the infamous Dachau concentration camp. The presence of a jeep in front of the base makes it appear that it was still occupied by the U.S. Army at this time — at some later date the camp was turned over to the German Federal Police.
The film shows a brief tour of the concentration camp museum and associated memorials. It includes a visit to part of the vast grounds of the former camp including shots of graves and execution areas, the famous Fritz Koelle statue installed in 1950 depicting an unknown prisoner (1:27), with the text below the statue reading: “Den Toten zur Ehr, Den Lebenden zur Mahnung” translated “To honour the dead, to remind the living”. The film also shows flowers placed by the International Dachau Committee (2:45), additional memorials to the dead (3:50) and at (4:24) one of the crematorium smokestacks. At (4:38) the film shows views of the town of Dachau, Upper Bavaria including the Hörhammer pub (4:56) and other placid street scenes. At (7:22) are shots along a highway or autobahn, on the route to Traunstein and Salzburg. At (9:42) the driver pulls off the highway to go to a Shell petrol station, where his wife uses the restroom. At (10:50) are what appear to be the Alps, along with shots inside a large structure that looks like it contained kilns. At (11:21) the woman walks towards a red VW Bug or VW Beetle. At (12:41) the couple arrives at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps on the Austrian border. They spend some time looking at ruins on a hillside, perhaps remnants of a WWII structure. South of town, Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest retreat, the Kehlsteinhaus, has a restaurant with alpine views (visible in the distance at 14:24).
Dachau was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler’s political opponents which consisted of: communists, social democrats, and other dissidents. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory northeast of the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 mi) northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, in southern Germany. After its opening by Heinrich Himmler, its purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and, eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, Romani, German and Austrian criminals, and, finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded. The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps, which were mostly work camps or Arbeitskommandos, and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria. The main camp was liberated by U.S. forces on 29 April 1945. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands that are undocumented.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
