Inside Nazi Germany is a 1938 documentary short (16 minutes) directed by Jack Glenn.
It is an episode of the "March of Time" newsreel series that ran in American movie theaters in the 1930s and 1940s (and was memorably parodied in Citizen Kane). Unlike most "March of Time" newsreels, which provided bite-sized digests about multiple subjects, this one focused on a single subject: Nazi Germany. And while most of Hollywood was unwilling to take an anti-Nazi stand due to fear of losing the German market, this short is stridently anti-Nazi in tone.note This made this particular edition of "March of Time" quite controversial; Jack Warner of Warner Brothers refused to show it in WB theaters.
Julien Bryan, the photographer who shot the scenes actually filmed in Germany, later made another documentary short, Siege, about the 1939 siege of Warsaw.
Tropes:
- Documentary: An episode of the "March of Time" series documenting life in 1938 Germany.
- Dramatization: The footage taken by Julien Bryan in Germany proved insufficiently disturbing, and indeed verged on
Broken Aesop, with all the shots of happy, healthy Germans enjoying outdoor life and leisure. So the filmmakers worked with anti-Nazi Germans in Hoboken, NJ to dramatize more overtly anti-Nazi content, filming scenes of a German family at home listening to propaganda broadcasts and being forced to contribute to the government Winterhilfe charity. Other scenes that are obvious dramatizations include dissidents being executed and nuns jailed. - Million Mook March: Shots of various Nazis marching around in the Nazi manner—stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and possibly most creepily, teenaged girls in the BDM, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth.
- Narrator: Westbrook van Voorhis narrates with the bellowing Large Ham style that he used for all the "March of Time" shorts.
- Propaganda Machine: One of the main themes, as the film demonstrates how Joseph Goebbels' propaganda machine controlled German media, dictating the content of every newspaper and magazine, as well as education, training little kids to be good Nazi loyalists.
- Spreading Disaster Map Graphic:
- Sort of, with the graphic that demonstrates the foundation of pro-Nazi German-American "Bund" groups in the USA with a shot of swastikas popping up around America.
- A straighter example with a map showing the spread of fascism across Europe.
- Those Wacky Nazis: There certainly were a lot of them in 1938 Germany.
- Title Drop: As with every "March of Time" short, the narrator ends the show by saying "Time...marches on!"
