Glimpses of Western Germany

In the final Traveltalks, James Fitzpatrick turns his Technicolor gaze and flat voice on West Germany.... an interesting choice of adjectives, since Eastern Germany was established as a separate country, not to be reunited for more than a third of a century. We see pictures of Hamburg, with a lot of time spent at the zoo; Bremen, with time at the docks; Munich; then over the autobahn to Heidelberg

At a time when London still held buildings scarred by the Blitz -- indeed, as I write this, land mines from the First World War are still being pulled out of the battle fields of France -- everything in Germany seems to be in fine shape, from Heidelberg Castle to apartment buildings. It should always be remembered, when looking at the Traveltalk travelogues, that Fitzpatrick's other job was running a travel agency. Tourists prefer looking at working clock towers where mechanical knights fight medieval buildings than laborers removing the remnants of a once-handsome building.

Glimpses of Western Germany (1954)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This TravelTalks entry takes us to Munich, Bremen, Hamburg and Heldefberg to see how the country has changed since the end of WWII. The movie plays a few minutes in each city and covers the Berlin Zoo, famous churches, the colleges of Heldefberg as well as some of the streets damaged during the war and what they look like now. This is pretty much right on target for this series as we get some great Technicolor as well as some nice narration by FitzPatrick. As you'd expect we get our history lesson and it's a pretty good one but at the same time I think the film really could have centered more on the country and the various changes that has happened from the war. I think this is the most fascinating aspect of the film yet this is only covered in a very short time.

It's less than a decade after the war. This TravelTalks episode visits Hamburg, Bremen, Munich, and Heidelberg. The rubble has been cleared and there is plenty of reconstruction. It's not all finish as many empty lots would attest. Many of the buildings still have their burn marks and other war scars. This is a very fascinating snapshot of post-war Germany. It's a specific time and place. The zoo hasn't necessarily changed but everything else is in flux.