Swastika

The documentary is built entirely from footage shot during the Nazi period: propaganda films, newsreels, broadcasts and private home recordings made by people around the regime. The film shows how, between 1933 and 1945, this production seeped into the daily life of German society. Because the material is presented without commentary the work caused argument when it was shown; the images carry the way the regime told itself, and the viewer has to watch knowing that. What the film does is not to endorse that account but to make visible how it was built. The most uncomfortable part of the account is that private home recordings from around the regime sit alongside the official propaganda; both stand inside the same flow. How far a regime seeped into daily life is seen most clearly there. Philippe Mora’s ninety six minute documentary was completed in 1974.