FRIGHTFULNESS OF WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19620, 26 April 1927, Page 13

FRIGHTFULNESS OF WAR.

GERMAN FIL M VERSION. VIV!D HORRORS ON SCREEN. ACTUAL BATTLE SCENES SHOWN. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received April 24, 5.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. BERLIN, April 24. One of the most amazing films ever produced was screened for the first time last evening in Berlin and created a great sensation. This was Germany's official film history of the war. It comprised. 20 reels. It consisted of actual wartime films taken on various battle-fronts by Germany's best and bravest cinematographers. They have been assembled in a manner which presents the war as a continuous, comprehensive story as it is written in the hearts and minds of the German people. .The film reviews the war as they knew it and saw it. The suggestion is that Germany regarded the war as inevitable. It .slurs over the invasion of Belgium and contains nothing to which Germany's former enemies could take"exception. The scenes show men being slaughtered like flies. It reveals the actual sight of British and French shells bursting in crowded German trenches. When the smoke disappears nothing remains but debris. Again the agonised faces of actual troops under bombardment, their distraught eyes and their open mouths, tell their own vivid story. Dim forms are seen writhing and twisting on the scarred ground. Only the piles of corpses lie still. The camera caught the screaming figure of one man who had obviously lost his reason. His comrades are seen to seize him and haul him out of the range of the camera. A singularly vivid picture reveals a soldier who could not face machine-gun fire throwing himself to the gTOund and tearing up the earth in frantic endeavour to find cover for his head. None of these films had previously been seen by the German people. Early mobilisation scenes in London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and elsewhere are included. Von Hindenburg and von Ludendorff are seen planning their remarkable campaign which resulted in the debacle at Tannenberg. Miles of Russian prisoners are shown on the screen. The general effect of the film is to leave the impression that it is the most tremendous argument that could be conceived for the abolition of war.