Exhibition Video

These are US propaganda themes from the final weeks of the war and the first weeks of occupation in West Germany from March/April 1945. We first see scenes from Duisburg, Limburg, Osnabrück and Münster: destroyed streets with US soldiers, dead civilians, German prisoners of war, people plundering, as well as former forced laborers and liberated prisoners of war. The scenes from Heidelberg show US soldiers at the castle and University Square with the plaque of honor for Americans who donated for the New University building in 1930/31.

This shows scenes from the Heidelberg Grenadier barracks at Kirchheim Way, which were used as a camp for former Soviet forced laborers: arial shots of the grounds, festivities on 1 May with dancing and speeches by Soviet army officers, marching young men practicing for their service in the Red Army, small children, a soup kitchen, the front line in the last days of the war on a large-scale map, and women improvising as they cook and iron in the open.

This shows scenes of the mourning ceremonies for US General George S. Patton. He died in a Heidelberg military hospital on 21 December 1945 after a car accident. The population looked on with great interest as a military parade accompanied his body through the city to the old train station (now the Carré shopping arcade). From there he was transported by train to Luxemburg, where he was buried in what later became the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial.

Here we see children in Heidelberg houses requisitioned for American families. Probably they are orphan children of forced laborers from eastern (central) Europe. The first sequences show two girls and two boys in the house of US military chaplain Rev. Anderson. The husband is praying with the children at the table; his wife sits with a girl at the piano. In another house, five girls are playing cards. The wife of Major G. L. Campbell and two girls are visiting the thermal swimming pool in Bergheim, which at the time was only accessible to Americans.