HISTORICAL MOVIES: GERMANY
Medieval Times:
Midoeva;The Flame and the Arrow (1950) -- 12 c. Lombardy under German overlord
X Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen (Iron Hand) (1979) – Germany in the Middle Ages
Flesh and Blood (1985) -- 1501 story of Landsknechts (mostly German mercenaries including pikemen & supporting foot soldiers, late 15th to late 16th century)
REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
X John Hus (1977) -- Czech burned at the stake in 1415; had influence on Martin Luther
X Jan Žižka (1955) -- Hussite Wars
X Proti všem (Against All Odds, (1957) -- Hussite Wars
Luther (2003) -- of the Reformation
X Luther (1973) -- of the Reformation, 1520
X Der Reformator (1968) – German film about Martin Luther
X Martin Luther (1953) -- of the Reformation
X The Radicals (1990) -- the story of the radical Anabaptists
GERMANY
X Zwölf Meter ohne Kopf (12 Paces without a Head) (2009) -- 1401, German sea pirates Klaus Störtebeker and Gödeke Michels
Il Principe di Homburg (The Prince of Homburg) (1997) -- Prince disobeys orders and leads a cavalry charge against the Swedes and is court-martialed during 17th century Prusso-Swedish Wars (Hitler's favorite play?)
X Der Choral von Leuthen (The Anthem of Leuthen) (1933) -- German film depicting Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1740–1786) (no subtitles)
X Maria Theresia (1951) -- (1717-1780) the Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and a Holy Roman Empress by marriage to Francis I; son Joseph II ; daughter Marie Antoinette
X Maria Theresia (1980) -- ditto
X Der große König (The Great King) (1942) – Nazi film glorifying Prussian King Friedrich II during the battle of Kunersdorf (Russians and Germans versus Austria)
Barry Lyndon (1976) -- Stanley Kubrik; set against the 7 Year's War 1756-1763
Immortal Beloved (1994) -- speculation on loves of Beethoven (1795-1815)
X Beethoven's Great Love (1936)
X Spring Symphony -- composer Robert Schumann
Germany Labor Troubles:
Desertir (The Deserter) (1933) -- labor struggle in Germany and Russia
GERMANY: BEFORE WWI
Germany:
Fall of Eagles (1974) (TV miniseries) -- part of it deals with Bismarck and the unification of Germany and the fall of the Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary
X Bismarck (1940) -- about Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) (done by the Third Reich)
X Bismarck (1990) -- West German TV mini-series
The Shaping of the Western World. Bismarck: Germany from Blood and Iron (2008) -- a docudrama about Otto von Bismarck who was the most responsible man in uniting Germany into a single nation
X Die Entlassung (The Dismissal) (1942) – about Bismarck (sequel by the Third Reich)
Wagner (1982) -- Hitler's favorite composer
X Rosa Luxemburg (1986) -- labor agitator in Germany
X Kuhle Wampe oder: Wem gehört die Welt? (Wither Germany?) (1932) -- left-wing politics in Weimar Germany (written by Bertolt Brecht); banned by the Nazis -- (currently unavailable)
Abschied - Brechts letzter Sommer (The Farewell) (2002) – Bertolt Brecht's last summer and the women in his life with the Stasi watching it all
GERMANY -- WORLD WAR I
Fall of Eagles (1974) (TV miniseries) -- part of it deals with Bismarck and the unification of Germany and fall of Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary
Rosa Luxemburg (1986) -- labor agitator in Germany
The Blue Max (1966) -- the air war
Der Rote Baron (The Red Baron) (2008) -- Baron Manfred von Richtofen with 80 kills
Von Richthofen & Brown (a.k.a. The Red Baron) (1971) -- Baron Manfred von Richtofen, the German air ace during the World War I
Crimson Romance (1934) -- fly the World War I sky with the Luftwaffe
HITLER'S RISE
X Novemberverbrecher - Eine Erinnerung (1968) – German Revolution 1918 to the formal establishment of the Weimar Republic in August 1919
Good (2008) -- "evil triumphs when good men do nothing"
Der Rat der Götter (Council of the Gods) (1950) – industrialists cooperate with the Nazis for goods and profit
Max (2000) -- A Jewish art dealer helps a struggling artist named Adolf Hitler
Hitler: the Rise of Evil (2003)
X Cabaret (1972) -- German decadence during Weimar Regime
X I am a Camera -- precursor to the Movie "Cabaret"
Christopher and his Kind (2011) -- real story of "Cabaret"
The Damned (1969) -- a German family declines as the Nazi party rises; covers "The Night of the Long Knives"
X Bent (1997) -- a homosexual chooses the wrong night to have sex with a storm trooper because he gets caught up in the Night of the Long Knives
Tin Drum (1980) -- Post-Hitler German recognition of the madness of Fascism.
Mephisto (1981) -- a German actor thinks true art can triumph even if it's the Nazis who are in charge
The Hindenburg (1975) -- doomed flight of the Zeppelin; George C. Scott
X Triumph of the Will (1935) -- Hitler's effective use of propaganda at Nuremberg rallies
X The Jesse Owens Story (1984) -- American track star who upsets Hitler at 1936 Olympics in Berlin
X The Joe Louis Story (1953) -- the heavy weight champion fights German Max Schmeling
X Olympia (1936) -- in Berlin
X The Great Dictator (1940) -- Charles Chaplin mocking the actions of the dictator Hitler
The Sound of Music (1965) -- singing group escapes from Austria after Nazi takeover
Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl - the Final Days) (2005) -- a few students at Munich University oppose Hitler's fascist regime
Die Weiße Rose (The White Rose) (1982) -- a few students at Munich University oppose Hitler's fascist regime
Edelweiß piraten (Edelweiss Pirates) (2004) – group of young men resisting Hitler's regime
X Bauhaus -Broken Wings (2006) -- March 23rd 1933, students at the Bauhaus School for Arts and Architecture try to save their art from the Nazis
X Fünf letzte Tage (Last Five Days) (1982) -- a few students at Munich University oppose Hitler's fascist regime
Hitler: Beast of Berlin (1939) -- use of torture, imprisonment and concentration camps by Hitler's Germany
Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil (1985) – two brothers come to regret their involvement with the Nazis
Enemy of Women (1944) -- Joseph Goebbles, propaganda minister
Taking Sides (2001) -- Berlin orchestra director thinks politics and art won't mix under Hitler
X die Manns - Ein Jahrhundertroman (The Manns - Novel of a Century) (2001) -- biographical trilogy of the Mann family set during rise of fascism in Germany
X Jump! (2007) -- anti-Semitism in Austria leads to quick conviction of a young Jewish man for supposedly killing his father
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) -- ex-convict attempts to go straight but is hindered by the troublesome and corrosive Weimar-era Germany (mini-series)
X Um das Menschenrecht (1934) -- rise of fascism in Germany
Pramen zivota (Spring of Life) (2000) – German SS program to build an Aryan race of supermen and superwomen
X Dny zrady I& II (Days of Betrayal) (1973) -- Munich Conference agreement of September 1938 gives Germany the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia (occupied October 1938)
X Der Bockerer (The Butcher) (1981) -- Viennese butcher doesn't like the Nazi occupation of Austria, says so and gets in trouble; acts like an idiot to survive
X Livrez-nous Grynszpan (Bring Us Grynszpan) (2008) – a young Jew kills a German diplomat in Paris in desperation, giving the Nazis an excuse to launch "Kristallnacht" Nov, 1938
X Hitler - ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler: A Film from Germany) (1977)-- seven hour long film exploring why the Germans deified Hitler
The Nightmare Years (1989) --
tv mini-series: story of
American journalist William Shirer observes up close the increasing extremism of
the Nazis; Shirer wrote the book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"
La Niña de tus ojos (The Girl of Your Dreams) (1998) -- Franco's Spain makes movies in Hitler's Germany
WORLD WAR II -- GERMANY
Casablanca (1942) -- love in 1940 Martinique under French Vichy government
To Have and to Have Not (1944) follow up to Casablanca, this time Martinique
Inside the Third Reich (1982) -- Randy Quaid
Hitler (1962)
Das Boot (1981) -- U-boats in 1941
To Be or Not to Be (1949) -- occupied Poland; Jack Benny
The Last Lieutenant (1993) -- resistance to the Nazi invasion of Norway
Dunkirk (1958) -- escape of the trapped British forces in France, June 1940
Weekend at Dunkirk (1965) -- seen from the French perspective
Mrs. Miniver (1942) -- Dunkirk & their effects of the war on an English family
In Which We Serve (1942) -- based on experiences of Lord Louis Mountbatten
Battle of Britain (1969) -- never have so many owed so much to so few, July-October, 1940
Dark Blue World (2001) -- Czech pilots flee to England and help in the Battle of Britain
Angels One Five (1952) -- pilots in the Battle of Britain
Hope and Glory (1987) -- British family sticks together in spite of German bombings
Assignment in Brittany (1943) -- efforts of the Free French
NAVAL WARFARE:
49th Parallel (1941) -- a Nazi U-boat crew shipwrecked in Canada try to flee to the neutral United States
Action in the North Atlantic (1943) -- before Dec. 7, 1941, the US merchant mariners brought supplies to the Russians
Atlantic Convoy (1942) -- war on U-boats attacking Allied ship convoys
The Battle of the River Plate (1956) -- destruction of the Graf Spee, Montevideo, Uruguay, December 1939
Sink the Bismarck! (1960) -- sinking of Germany's most powerful battleship, May 27, 1941
Attack on the Iron Coast (1968) -- British raid on large ship dock at St. Nazaire, France, March 28, 1942
Above Us the Waves (1955) -- a British midget submarine raid damages German battleship Tirpitz, September 1943
GERMANS KICKED OUT OF AFRICA:
Sundown (1941) -- Nazis in East Africa
Desert Fox (1951) -- Field Marshal Rommel
Sahara (1943) -- British troops facing Germans in north Africa
Tobruk (1967) -- attempt to destroy Rommel's fuel supply in North Africa
Rats of Tobruk (1944) -- one of Australia's greatest wartime legends
Desert Rats (1953) -- Tobruk seen from Australian side
Desert Patrol (1958) -- British patrol in Africa before battle of El Alamein
El Alamein (2002) -- the battle that finally stops Rommel in North Africa seen through the eyes of an Italian unit, October- November, 1942
El Alamein (1968) -- Italian troops left behind by their German allies
The Story of G. I. Joe (1945)
Patton (1970) -- from North Africa to Sicily (July 1943) to France and Germany
Big Red One (1980) -- Sam Fuller's WWII diary of squad in First Infantry Division
ALLIED INVASION OF ITALY
Anzio (1968) -- French-Italian-Spanish movie dealing with the beach landing, January to May, 1944
Darby's Rangers (1958) -- assault troops in N. Africa & Italy
Bold and the Brave (1956) -- WWII soldiers fighting in Italy
RUSSIAN FRONT:
Talvisota (The Winter War) (1989) -- the Soviet Union attacks Finland; Finnish resistance
A Rukajärven tie (Ambush) (1999) -- Finnish resistance 1939-1940
Come and See (1985) -- resistance to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Byelorussia
The North Star (1943) -- a Ukrainian village under Nazi invasion, June 1941
Stalingrad (1992) -- the real turning point of the war; choice of German or English and using or not using subtitles
Enemy at the Gate (2001) -- Russian sniper vs. German sniper at Stalingrad
Italiani brava gente (Attack and Retreat) (1999) -- Italian army up against the Russians at the Battle of the Don during the Stalingrad counteroffensive
ALLIED INVASION OF FRANCE:
Yanks (1979) -- love stories involving American troops in England
Patton (1970) -- George C. Scott
The Last Days of Patton (1986)
D-day, the 6th of June (1956) -- June 6, 1944
The Longest Day (1962) -- D-Day
Band of Brothers (2001) - Easy Company of the 101st Airborne in many battles, including Bastogne during Battle of the Bulge
Saving Private Ryan -- D-Day
Breakthrough (2000) -- D-Day
Dieppe (1993) -- worst defeat of Canadian forces in World War II
Guns of Navarone (1961)
Force 10 from Navarone (1978) - follow-up to Guns of Navarone
To Hell and Back (1955) -- Audi Murphy
Go for Broke! (1950) -- Japanese-American troops fight in Europe; the 442, the first all-Nisei (Japanese- American) Regimental combat team
Bridge at Remagen (1969) -- Allies plan to blow the bridge at Remagen, March 7, 1944
Jackboot Mutiny (2001) -- attempt to assassinate Hitler, July 20, 1944
Plot to Kill Hitler (1990)
A Bridge Too Far (1977) -- Allied defeat in Operation Market Garden, Sept 1944
GERMAN COUNTER-ATTACK:
When Trumpets Fade (1998) -- Battle of Hurtgen Forest (second phase beginning Nov. 10, 1944)
Battle of the Bulge (1965) -- Hitler's famous counter-attack that ultimately failed (Dec. 16, 1944 - Jan. 7, 1945)
Battleground (1949) -- 101st Airborne's defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge
Midnight Clear (1992) -- anti-war drama about mission in Ardennes Forest near end of WWII
AIR WAR:
Memphis Belle (1990) -- air raids over Dresden
Twelve O'clock High (1949) - US bomber pilots over Germany
Catch 22 -- comedy set during air war over Europe
Journey Together (1946) -- RAF air war
The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) -- black airmen
Spitefire (1942) -- story of the designer of the superior RAF fighter plane, the Spitfire
Appointment in London (1952) -- air war seen through eyes of a wing commander of a British squadron of Lancaster bombers
OTHERS:
The Great Escape (1963)
Stalag 17 (1953)
A Generation (1954) -- 1st in trilogy of Polish resistance
Kanal (1957) -- 2nd in trilogy; Warsaw uprising in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944
Ashes and Diamonds (1958) -- 3rd in trilogy; Polish film of Resistance movement in Poland during WW II's closing days
The Battle of Neretva (1970) -- Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and 1943 victory of Tito's partisans
U-571 (2000) -- mission to capture a German Enigma coding machine from a U-boat
HITLER'S LAST DAYS:
Downfall (2004) -- of Hitler that is ; Bruno Ganz as Hitler
The Bunker (1981) -- last days of Hitler ; Anthony Hopkins as Hitler
Hitler -- The Last Ten Days (1973) -- the last ten days of the life of Hitler in his bunker in Berlin; Alec Guiness as Hitler
X Der letzte Akt (The Last Ten Days of Adolf Hitler) (1955) --
The Death of Adolf Hitler (1973) -- from his birthday on April 20, 1945 until his death by desperate suicide; Frank Finlay as Hitler
X Nuremberg (2000) -- war crime trials
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) -- war crime trials of the German Nazis
X Nuremberg Trials (1947) -- war crime trials
X Nuremberg: Goering's Last Stand (2006) – Goering makes friends with the prison guards to help him get what he wants
Ich war neunzehn (I Was Nineteen) (1968) – 19 years old born originally in Germany reaches the outskirts of Berlin as part of the Red Army's scouting team
Die brücke (The Bridge) (1959) -- German teen-age boys drafted to help stop the Allied invasion
X Die Letzte Brücke (The Last Bridge) (1954) -- anti-war themed German movie about Hitler using boys to fight for the fatherland (starring Maria Schell and Bernhard Wicki)
Der Unhold (The Ogre) (1996) -- a French POW rounds up children for a German military academy, who are ultimately sacrificed to stem the oncoming Russians
Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin (A Woman in Berlin) (2008) -- Russians take revenge for German atrocities in Russia by wholesale raping of the women of Berlin
HOLOCAUST:
Prelude:
Jew Süss (Power) (1934) – anti-Semitism in Württemberg (Nazis loved the film)
Europa, Europa (1991) -- anti-Semitism in Germany
X Gentleman's Agreement (1947) -- anti-Semitism in USA
X The Shop on Main Street (1965) -- Czechoslovakian film about anti-Semitism
X Commissar (1967) -- anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union
X The Fixer -- the time of the pogroms in Russia helps lead to a false accusation of murder against an innocent Jewish man
X Levins Mühle (1980) – East German film about anti-Semitism
X The Holocaust (1978) -- Meryl Streep; family members suffer extermination under Anti-Semetic Nazi Law until only one son remains
Sunshine (1999) -- three generations of Hungarian Jews from c. 1900 to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
X Cold Days -- anti-Semitism in Hungary (massacre of Jewish and Serbian people of Novi Sad in 1942)
X Jump -- anti-Semitism in the 1928 murder trial of famous and innocent photographer Phillippe Halsman in Austria
X Spalovac mrtvol (The Cremator) (1969) -- in Czechoslovakia a friend of a cremator convinces Kopfrkingl to emphasize his supposedly German heritage, to send his son to German school & to distance himself from his half-Jewish wife
Planning of the Holocaust:
X Conspiracy (2001) -- banal, but downright evil at the same time; the design of the implementation of the Holocaust
X Wannseekonferenz (1984) -- planning to implement the idea of a final solution
Auschwitz (a complex of camps in southern Poland):
Sorstalanság (Fateless) (2005) -- teenage Hungarian boy is sent to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz concentration camps
Out of the Ashes (2003) -- concentration camp survivor Dr. Gisella Perl
Ostatni etap (The Last Stage) (1948) -- a Polish woman's experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camp
X La tregua (The Truce) (1997) – Italian Jews returning home from Auschwitz after the war
Bergen Belsen:
X The Relief of Bergen Belsen (2007) -- British military shocked upon seeing the conditions at Bergen Belsen
Buchenwald (on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, Germany)):
X Nackt unter Wölfen (Naked among Wolves) (1963) -- last weeks at Buchenwald before its liberation
Dauchau (16 km northwest of Munich, Bavaria):
Der NeunteTag (The Ninth Day) (2004) -- a Catholic priest from Luxembourg is held in the Dachau concentration camp and yet gets a 9-day leave; what? why?
Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg, n.e. Germany):
X Pastor Hall (1940) -- German pastor Martin Niemoller thrown into Sachsenhausen concentration camp for speaking out against the Nazis
Sobibor (Sobibór, s.w. of Warsaw, occupied Poland):
Escape from Sobibor (1987) -- the biggest and most successful escape of Jewish inmates from a death camp
Treblinka (n.e. of Warsaw near Treblinka, Poland):
X Korczak (1991) -- Dr. Janusz Korczak runs a Jewish orphanage in Poland; he and his orphans are sent to Treblinka on August 6, 1942
Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising (Warsaw, Poland):
The Pianist (2002) -- Jewish survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising
Uprising (2002) -- uprising in the Warsaw ghetto
Urodziny mlodego warszawiaka (The Birthday) (1980) – life of a young man from Warsaw is greatly changed by the German invasion of Poland and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
X Jacob the Liar (1974) -- Jacob uses story-telling to keep up the spirits of the resident of the Warsaw ghetto even if he has to lie now and then
X Samson (1960) -- man released from prison is imprisoned again in Warsaw Ghetto for being Jewish
X Ulnica Graniczna (Border Street) -- four people join in the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis
X Ninas resa (Nina's Journey) -- Nina spends three years in the Warsaw ghetto while the people around her keep vanishing
X Akcja pod Arsenalelm (Operation Arsenal) (1978)-- rescue of 31 prisoner being transported to the Pawiak prison by the underground Polish Home Army in occupied Warsaw
X Jeszcze tylko ten las (Just Beyond This Forest) (1991) -- a Jewish woman hires an Aryan woman to take her young daughter to the countryside until the war is over
Other Concentration Camps:
X Two Thousand Women -- 2,000 women are inmates in a WWII German concentration camp in France
X Kapò (1961) -- Edith, a French Jewish girl, is transferred from a Nazi concentration camp to a Polish labor camp where she becomes a kapo in the camp
Resistance:
X Rosenstrasse (2003) -- early 1943, courageous German non-Jewish wives protest against the imprisonment of their Jewish husbands
The Grey Zone (2001) -- revolt of the Jews who fed the Holocaust ovens at Auschwitz II - Birkenau
X Hanna’s War (1988) – Hungarian Jewish martyr Hannah Senesh executed by the Nazis in 1944
X Kapo (1959) -- in a concentration camp a young Jewish girl decides to lead an escape attempt
X Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace (2003) -- German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of the first clear voices of resistance to Adolf Hitler; he openly challenged his church to stand with the Jews; hanged April 1945
X Sophie Scholl (2006) -- Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine
X Invincible (2002) -- a Jewish strongman performer in Germany sees himself as chosen by God to warn his people of the impending danger
X In Our Own Hands (1998) -- story of the only all-Jewish fighting unit in World War II
X Ostre sledované vlaky (Closely Watched Trains) (1966) -- in Czechoslovakia a young man ignores the war, the occupation and the resistance to concentrate on his personal problems
Saving or Failing to Save Lives:
God Afton, Herr Wallenberg (Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg) (1990) -- Swedish national saves Hungarian Jews
X Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (2 DVD set) -- the hero saving Jews
X Perlasca. Un eroe italiano (Perlasca: The Courage of a Just Man) (2002) – working with Wallenberg Italian fascist Giorgio Perlasca uses fascist credentials to save more than 5,000 Jews from extermination (in Italian only film)
X Divided We Fall (2000) -- in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a couple agree to hide a Jewish friend
X Zelary (2003) -- a nurse and her lover in the Czech resistance are found out and she hast to hide in a very old-fashioned Czech village
The Hiding Place (1975) -- Corrie ten Boom recounts her and her family's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbrück, n. Germany holding mostly women
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) -- Jewish girl and family hide from Nazis
X The Diary of Anne Frank (2008) -- ditto
X The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988) -- Miep Gies (Mary Steenburgen) aids Jewish refugees
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) -- the story of Anne Frank hiding in the Netherlands from the Gestapo
Das Boot ist Voll (The Boat is Full) (1980) -- destruction of the myth of the Swiss "lifeboat" for the persecuted
The Aryan Couple (2004) -- Himmler makes a deal with a rich Jewish-Hungarian steel industrialist: his vast fortune for his and his extended family's freedom
Amen (2002) -- the decision of the Vatican to remain neutral on all political matters, especially the Holocaust
Au revoir les enfants (Goodbye, Children) (1987) -- a Catholic school in France hides three Jewish boys from the Gestapo
Le Dernier Métro (The Last Metro) (1980) -- a gentile wife conceals her Jewish theatre director husband from the Nazis during the German occupation of France
X Ghetto (2006) – saving the lives of Jews and others in Vilna, Lithuania in 1942
X The Assisi Underground (1985) -- rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943 Assisi
X Lacombe Lucien (1974) -- in occupied France, a young Frenchman is conflicted over his work for the German police and his Jewish girlfriend
Schindler's List (1993) -- rescues his Jewish factory workers from death
X Perlasca, un Eroe Italiano (Perlasca, an Italian Hero or Perlasca, The Courage of a Just Man) (2002) – Italian film about Giorgio Perlasca, who saved five thousand Jews
X Divided We Fall (2000) -- in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a couple agree to hide a Jewish friend
X Zelary (2003) -- a nurse and her lover in the Czech resistance are found out and she hast to hide in a very old-fashioned Czech village
The Hiding Place (1975) -- Corrie ten Boom recounts her and her family's experiences in a Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbrück, n. Germany holding mostly women
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) -- Jewish girl and family hide from Nazis
X The Diary of Anne Frank (2008) -- ditto
X The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988) -- Miep Gies (Mary Steenburgen) aids Jewish refugees
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) -- the story of Anne Frank hiding in the Netherlands from the Gestapo
Das Boot ist Voll (The Boat is Full) (1980) -- destruction of the myth of the Swiss "lifeboat" for the persecuted
The Aryan Couple (2004) -- Himmler makes a deal with a rich Jewish-Hungarian steel industrialist: his vast fortune for his and his extended family's freedom
Amen (2002) -- the decision of the Vatican to remain neutral on all political matters, especially the Holocaust
Au revoir les enfants (Goodbye, Children) (1987) -- a Catholic school in France hides three Jewish boys from the Gestapo
Le Dernier Métro (The Last Metro) (1980) -- a gentile wife conceals her Jewish theatre director husband from the Nazis during the German occupation of France
X Ghetto (2006) – saving the lives of Jews and others in Vilna, Lithuania in 1942
X The Assisi Underground (1985) -- rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943 Assisi
X Lacombe Lucien (1974) -- in occupied France, a young Frenchman is conflicted over his work for the German police and his Jewish girlfriend
Schindler's List (1993) -- rescues his Jewish factory workers from death
X Perlasca, un Eroe Italiano (Perlasca, an Italian Hero or Perlasca, The Courage of a Just Man) (2002) – Italian film about Giorgio Perlasca, who saved five thousand Jews
Edges of the Lord (2000) -- in Poland, Christians hide a Jewish boy from the Nazis
The Man Who Cried (2000) -- Russian Jewish immigrant is endangered in a Paris, France dance troupe because of her heritage
X Voyage of the Damned (1976)-- Jewish passengers unable to disembark
X Varian's War (2000) -- an American Schindler Varian Fry saving European intellectuals from the Nazis
Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) (2001) -- Jewish refugees establish a new life in Kenya during the Hitler reign
X The Round Up -- French police help in a big round up of French Jews, night of July 16, 1942
X Hidden in Silence -- a Polish teenage girl risks death by providing refuge for Jewish people
Lena: My 100 Children (1987) -- a woman adopts 100 Jewish Holocaust orphans, but then her problems of defending the children gets really tough
Defiance (2008) -- true story of three brothers taking on the task of defending a multitude of 1,000 Polish Jews from the German occupation force
X Miracle at Moreaux (1986) -- a Catholic nun works to save Jewish children from the Nazis
X Désobéir (Aristides de Sousa Mendes) (2008) – Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes helps save war refugees fleeing from invading Germans
X I slik en natt (It Happened One Night) (1958) – a young woman doctor who in 1942, helped several Jewish children escape for the border to neutral Sweden
X A Day in October (1992) -- Danish resistance helps 7,200 Danish Jews escape to Sweden
Debajo del mundo (Underground; Under the Earth) (1987) -- a family hides underground for six years to escape the Nazi's plans for them
X Boxer a smrt (The Boxer and Death) (1963) -- in a Nazi concentration camp, the commandant, a former prize-fighter, saves an inmate from execution because of his amateur boxing ability
X The Assisi Underground (1985) -- the monasteries and convents of the city of Assisi provide haven to Jewish refugees
X Divided We Fall (2001) -- a couple in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia hide their Jewish neighbor at great risk to themselves
Haven -- Complete Series -- In Nazi occupied Europe, Ruth Gruber risks her life to help around 1,000 survivors of the Holocaust to escape to the USA
X On pouvait pas savoir (Monsieur Batignole) (2002) -- Batignole gets to take over the apartment belonging to the Bernstein family after they are arrested by the Gestapo; young Simon Bernstein escapes and returns to the apartment; Batignole decides to hide him
X Conspiracy of Hearts (1960) -- in Italy nuns regularly smuggle Jewish children out of a nearby concentration camp
X Me and the Colonel -- a humble Jew and an arrogant Polish colonel have many differences but they better get along because they both seek escape from Nazi-occupied Paris
War Criminals Escape and the Search for Them:
The Statement (2003) -- war criminal Pierre Broussard escapes justice for many years because of an intricate web of protection, including the French clergy
The Debt (2011) -- a woman and two men working for Mossad capture the Butcher of Birkenau and then the intrigue really starts
X Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (1989) (TV) -- the Nazi-war-criminal-hunter and catcher
X Kessler - Complete Series -- very cruel Gestapo officer sneaks out to a fascist colony in Paraguay, but anti-fascists come looking for him
X La traque (Manhunt) -- the Klarsfelds pursue Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon" to South America
Aftermath:
X La tregua (The Truce) (1997) – Italian Jews returning home from Auschwitz after the war
X Krajobraz po bitwie (Landscape After the Battle) (1970) – Polish film about the after-math of living in a concentration camp on a young couple
X I Love You, I Love You Not (1997) -- a Jewish prep school student shares stories of anti-Semitism with her grandmother, an Auschwitz survivor (with Jeanne Moreau and Claire Danes)
X Under the Domim Tree (1996) -- 1953 Israel has to deal with orphans damaged because of the Holocaust
X For my Baby -- a young man is forced by his mother to wear female clothes to resemble his sister Hannah, who died in a concentration camp
X Un secret (A Secret) (2007) -- 1953, a 15 year old gentile boy finds out that his parents and he are Jewish; the parents passed for Aryans to avoid the Holocaust
X Skin - 16 year old son of a Jewish father traumatized by the events of WWII, becomes a skin head neo-Nazi and in 1983 ends up killing a 13 year old boy
Other:
Devil's Arithmetic (1999) -- a young Jewish woman cares little about her Jewish heritage until she gets a taste of life in a concentration camp
Mr. Klein (1976) -- the non-Jewish Klein exploits the Jewish people in occupied Paris, World War II, only to be mistaken as Jewish
Look to the Sky (1993) -- Jonah, an innocent young Jewish Child from Amsterdam, tries to survive life in a concentration camp
Rotation (1949) --- laborer for the Nazis quits his job after his Jewish neighbors are taken away
X Daleká cesta (Distant Journey) -- Czech Holocaust film about a Jewish eye doctor in love with a Gentile plagued by anti-Semitism
X Pasazerka (The Passenger) (1963) -- on a cruise ship a former Auschwitz camp overseer thinks she sees someone who once was her prisoner (Polish film)
Bent (1997) -- two gay men come to the attention of the Gestapo in Germany; the survivor of the two falls in love with another inmate
X Prisoner of Paradise (2003) -- German-Jewish actor who co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in "The Blue Angel" is sent to a concentration camp
X Me and the Colonel -- just before the German invasion of Paris, a Jewish refugee tries to escape in a car and picks up an anti-Semite & his girlfriend
X A Boy in Striped Pajamas - in a concentration camp a German boy becomes friends with a Jewish boy with consequences
X Rondo (2009) -- father and son Jewish Refugees in England come closer emotionally as they learn their relatives died in German concentration camps
X A Friendship in Vienna (1988) -- two friends, one Gentile and one Jewish, are disturbed by Hitler's take-over of Austria
X A Son's War (2009) – Prague, 1939, a young Jewish man faced by the Nazi occupation of the city, has to choose between his freedom and his mother
X Gebürtig (2002) -- a Jewish virtuoso, is pressured to return to testify against a concentration camp leader, while a German newsman has to deal with his father having been an important SS doctor
Operation Daybreak (1975) -- plot to kill the "Butcher of Prague" SS-General Reinhard Heydrich (who was a driving force of the Final Solution)
X Hangmen Also Die (1943) -- after the assassination of SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, young Czech woman is enlisted by shady Dr. Svoboda
Post-War Germany
West Germany:
X Drancy Avenir (1997) -- deals with how do German parents tell their children about Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust
Deutschland bleiche Mutter (Germany, Pale Mother) (1980) -- a German woman and her daughter try to survive while the father is away fighting; dad returns and it gets worse
Das schreckliche Mädchen (The Nasty Girl) (1990) -- a German girl researches her town's past, discovers collaboration with the Nazis and earns the enmity of the townspeople
The Tunnel (2001) -- escaping from East Berlin to West Berlin via a tunnel
Heimat - Chronicle of Germany (1985) -- Germany in the years 1919-1982 through the eyes of a woman named Maria
X Heimat II (Home, Vol. 2: A Chronicle of a Generation) (1994) -- portrait of German youth in the wild 1960s
X Heimat III (Heimat, Vol. 3: A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings) (2004) --
Germania anno zero (Germany Year Zero) (1948) -- young German boy suffers from the hard times following the end of WWII
Die Ehe der Maria Braun (The Marriage of Maria Braun) (1979) -- rough times for Germany immediately following the end of WWII
The Big Lift (1950) -- Berlin Air-lift
Die Luftbrücke - Nur der Himmel war frei (2005) -- Berlin airlift
X Im Schatten der Macht (Willy Brandt) (2003) – last days of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, (Chancellor from 1969-1974)
X Stammheim (1986) -- the trial in Stammheim Prison of the left-wing terrorist Baader-Meinhof Group
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (The Baader Meinhof Complex) (2008) – the story of the German leftist terrorist Baader Meinhof Gang
Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) (1975) -- panic over Red Army Faction terrorism in the 1970s Germany
X Meier 19 (Meier Nineteen) -- in Zurich, Switzerland policeman Meier 19 thinks the head of the crime squad stole the money for wages and this gets Meier 19 in deep trouble; he becomes the hero of the 1968 youth movement ($55)
X Est kommt der Tag (The Day Will Come) (2009) -- daughter meets her mother and is disturbed about mom's past with the terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), but mom has no regrets about it
X Die bleierne Zeit (The German Sisters) (1981) – 1968, West German reporter Julianne starts to question the system when her terrorist sister Marianna is treated very badly
Das Wunder von Bern (The Miracle of Bern) (2003) -- troubles for a family following the end of WWII
Rosen fuer den Staatsanwalt (Roses for the Prosecutor) (1959) -- attempts of German society to overcome the shadows of the past (currently unavailable; VHS tape)
Der Schulfreund (The High School Buddy) (1960) -- fellow writes a letter asking for release of a Jewish man recently arrested and now must be declared insane to avoid being executed
Deutschstunde (1971) -- -youth's uncle is an expressionist painter who the Nazis forbid to paint; youth helps hide uncle's newest paintings from his conservative, policeman father (currently unavailable)
X Die Partei (The Party) -- West German resentment grows after 20 years of wealth transfers from West to East Germany
X Der Fall Furtwangler (Taking Sides) -- famous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic undergoes de-Nazification and an American major forces him to re-examine his life during the Third Reich
East Germany:
Las Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) (2006) -- 1984 East Berlin, Stasi surveillance tactics changes the life of one Stasi worker
X Sonnenllee (Sun Alley) (1999) -- 17-year-old boy growing up in communist East Germany in the 1970s ($105)
Good Bye, Lenin (2003) -- after unification of the two Germanys, a son tries to restore East German life so his mother recently out of a coma won't have a relapse
.Berlin Calling (2008) -- East German Martin, after getting out of prison after 12 years, finds it hard to adjust to life in Berlin after German unification
X Das Wunder von Berlin (The Miracle of Berlin) (2008) -- the lives of a young East German, his girlfriend and his parents are changed forever with the coming down of the Berlin Wall, 1989 (English subtitles)
X Wege in die Nacht (Paths in the Night) (1999) -- he was a once-powerful man in East Germany, but after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he is redundant and adrift (English subtitles)
X Der rote Kakadu (The Red Cockatoo) (2006) – union of East and West Germany
X Kleinruppin (Kleinruppin forever) (2004) -- identical twins Ronny and Tim switch places forcing Tim to experience life in East Germany
Die Stille nach dem Schuß (The Legends of Rita) (2000) – a terrorist in West Germany moves over to East Germany but is afraid her cover will be blown, especially when East and West Germany unite
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