Hitlers Titanic

[John Arton]

A very interesting program on Channel 5 in the U.K. last night regarding Nazi propaganda.
Hitler realised very early on that even before he started WW2 he would need to get the German people on his side as his army alone could not win without the backing of the people, so he appointed Goebbels as his chief propaganda Minister and his department churned out many films depicting the Arayan Race as the only true race and incited hatred against all others (Jews, Gypsies, Homos etc.). After conquering Europe he turned his attention to that pesky little Island just off the French Coast and commissioned his most prominent film maker to make a film that would should them dam Englanders that they were ruled by a corrupt bunch of industrialists who were only in it for profit, coupled to the landed gentry.
The film maker hit upon the Titanic and given a budget of $100 million (in todays money) proceeded to come up with a script that had Ismay bribing the captain of the Titanic to go as fast as possible in order to break the record for an Atlantic crossing. They invented the heroic German 1st Officer who warned the Captain about icebergs but his warnings were dismissed.
Huge interior sets were built along with a 20 ft model of the Titanic (still in existence to this date I believe, the model that is). Shooting the Film was to take 87 days which is a long time even by todays standards.
All went to plan till they came to shooting the exterior scenes where the director demanded a real ship for him to film on. He was given the San Marco? for his exterior shots and naval personnel were drafted in to play the roles of passengers etc. Here it was where it all went tits up as most of the time the Naval personnel were drunk or could not remember their lines and shooting was constantly interrupted by the passage of naval vessels. Eventually the famous director lost his rag and cursed all the Nazi's. Result, he was thrown in jail and was either murdered or committed suicide. The person who split on him for his outburst was his great friend, his screen writer. (As an aside in the film archive footage of the pair seemed to me to show a bit of an affair going on between the two of them).
Anyway a new director was appointed and the film eventually finished. The actual sinking scenes were shot on a lake and a huge ramp was built that the model was pulled down on to show it sinking under the water. This required the use of divers to assist the electrics' to pull the model under the water.
Eventually the film was finished but by this time the tide of war had turned. German cities were being bombed to hell and back, there armies were in retreat on both fronts and the high command realised that showing this propaganda film depicting people dying due the greed of share holders and industrialists would not go down well with the public who were now suffering a similar fate, so it was never shown.
Two further notes on this film, one very tragic.
In the final days of the war the Nazi's decided to kill off all the concentration camp inmates in order that there would be no living witness to the horrors. To this end they crammed around 5000 jews onto the ship used in the film and anchored it at a naval base that they knew the allies would attack, after first filling the fuel tanks of the ship with gas and also packing it with explosives. The allied aircraft duly obliged and bombed the place and hit the ship (it was not marked as a hospital ship or anything, just looked like a troop carrier). The ship exploded and caught fire and the prisoner's w ere machine gunned by troops on the shore line and in boats around the ship as they tried to escape the burning wreck. A number of prisoner's did escape (cannot remember how many) and some were even given shelter by German fisher people who knew the game was up for Germany.
The other thing of note is that many scenes of the sinking from the Nazi film were actually used in the British Film " A Night to Remember" that was made about the Titanic's last voyage.
If you can get 5 on demand, look it up, its quite fascinating but horrific at the same time.
rgds
JA

[Keith Tindell]

That was the lesson used on control of the people, and used very effectivly by governments of today, all over the world KT

[j.sabourn]

There must be many many stories that will now never be told about the war years. All my uncles fought in different theatres of war. The only one that I can remember with certainty was what my Father said about an exchange of prisoners via a Hospital Ship to which he had been seconded, I think this was through the Swedish red Cross who I think were neutral at the time. Funnily enough he said the German prisoners were not too healthy looking ( must have been on British rationing) but the UK prisoners had been well looked after. However there were 2 escapees that were smuggled on board and hidden by the crew. A german U-Boat surfaced in the Kattegat and demanded them back and the ship had no way of refusing. About Burma he would never talk. One of his brothers my uncle was at Monte casino, and one night over a bottle of whiskey he came out with some of the horrors of his best friend having his head shot off in a slit trench alongside him, he never spoke to his immediate family about such things. For those that died and even for those that survived the last world war some saw horrors beyond imagination. These plonkers in Parliament who wantonly give everything that was fought for and scarring a whole generation, I have no time for. John Sabourn