Product Details

• Actors: Albert Speer, Robert Ley, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels
• Directors: Michael Klof
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
• Language: English, German
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
• DVD Release Date: August 19, 2008
• Run Time: 54 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0019Z3P66
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #41,495 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

TELEVISION UNDER THE SWASTIKA - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nazi TV way back when, November 30, 2008

By 

E. D. Deuss "FilmFan" (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Television Under the Swastika (DVD)

I thought this DVD, (Television Under the Swastika) was very well handled. My only real complaint was that it was not anywhere near long enough! They had thousands of feet of film to possibly use, so I think that cutting all down to about an hour is just too much! The quality of what they did use was great, and the narration was very good. It was good of them to include English sub-titles so we could actually understand what was being said. I recommend it, though it could have been a lot longer.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is not PBS...., March 5, 2009

By 

Michael Valdivielso (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Television Under the Swastika (DVD)

In March, 1935, the Greater German Television started broadcasting and didn't stop until around September 1944. As you can guess some of it was propaganda, racial messages and news about the party. But what they also show is sports, cooking shows, a behind the scenes look as a hairdresser school and other shows that make you wonder if they had any idea what to do with the strange box. In fact, because of the cost, they could not reach the wider public like they could with radio or the movies. In others words, it failed from a propaganda point of view. But from looking into the mind of the German people in a time of war it is a gem. Not just because of what they show but because of what they do NOT show. At 52 minutes it seems short yet packs a huge amount of information for those interested in the subject. Not much in the way of extras, sad to say.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Television Under the Swastika, January 19, 2012

By 

Matthew G. Sherwin (last seen screaming at Amazon customer service) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Television Under the Swastika (DVD)

Before I saw this documentary, I had no idea that Nazi Germany had any television whatsoever! This film is very educational. The Nazis started their televised broadcasts (usually three times per week) in March, 1935 and they continued to air television shows, often in what was called a "television parlor" where people could watch a show, until Autumn, 1944 when it was obvious that they were going to lose the war to the Allied forces.

As others note, this is interesting to watch. We see clips of cooking shows; propaganda telling German people what to think; very rare and brief footage of Berlin in 1943; female dancers on display and something that particularly attracted German viewers' attention, the 1936 Olympic Games. However, just another reviewer notes, we DON'T see the horrors of the concentration camps; any broadcasts of the failure of the Nazis to conquer the former Soviet Union and the consequences for the Germans; and we also don't see the cost of Nazi Germany's alliance with Japan and Italy during World War 2.

I would have liked more footage; at 54 minutes this runs a bit short but what we do get is fascinating; we also see an extremely rare vintage television camera made before World War 2 in addition to the clips. There are interviews with men who were television reporters at the time and brief extra features.

Overall, I highly recommend this for anyone studying the history of television, The Third Reich in Germany and/or even World War 2. It could have been longer but it's still a well done documentary.