Berlin 1945: Tagebuch einer Großstadt

I certainly hope that this 2 part documentary will find a larger audience as it was a simply stunning document in a critical year of a city as told (via voice actors) of first person accounts of what happened in and around Berlin in 1945. This was not a paint-by-numbers documentary - it could be put up against any of the best historical works in documentary by such notables as Ken Burns. So glad I had a chance to see this on Germany television (on ARTE) - again this will hopefully receive a wider release as many would undoubtedly enjoy the thoroughness and artistry on display.

This is a stunning series with mostly professionally recorded archival footage, and voiceover diary entries from an amazing array of people who experienced this history - ordinary Berliners, some Jewish, mainly Russian and German military (and some French and American). Nazi officers and leaders. At the time the Russians sent 39 professional filmmakers to record these people and events - and the footage is stunning, reflecting the artistry of these crews. The suffering presented ranges from ordinary people living in horrible circumstances, to hundreds dying in artillery fire. Almost no death camp footage is included, though the Holocaust is clearly reflected in the experience of these people. A unique and must-see document.

This documentary series uses archive footagae coupled with contemporaneous ddiary entries to give us a flavour of life in bombed-out Berlin in 1945. It must have been an extraordinary time to live through, as residents faced with physical and economic ruin, national defeat and the collapse of the ideology that had driven the war. The pictures are amazing; the diary excerpts are all (in the English version) read in uniform flat monotone (I understand the choice not to over-dramatise, but it does flatten the effect). An interesting question is how Berliners were coming to terms with their own involvement with Nazism; mainly, one senses, though denial (few loved Hitler once he had destroyed the country, but this is of course missing the point). Reflections with perspective have their own problems, of course, but they can provide insight that a terse journal can not. The program is still worth watching, however, especially for those of us sufficiently fortnate not to have to have witnessed anything like the scences that it depicts.

This is so much different from most war documentaries. Instead of focusing on the psychopathic war criminals who fed their young boys into the meat grinder and managed to get millions of women and children pointlessly killed in the bargain, this series presents the perspective of people who were living in Berlin and the foreign armies who conquered the city.

The narrative is created out of the personal journal entries of Berliners, army vets and others. Read by voice actors. And matched up with some amazing film footage that are, at times, frank and disturbing, but always fascinating.

It's like a ''Rubble Film" shot in real time.

I couldn't recommend this highly enough. I guarantee most people have never seen anything like it.

While this was an excellent series on an often overlooked aspect of WW2 I wish there had been translations of the many newspaper articles they posted. I also wish there had been translations of various radio speeches etc rather than "Foreign language being spoken". Other than finding that frustrating, it was very informative.

I have been an avid viewer of WW2 documentaries for decades and this series did contain film footage of images I have not seen before. The fact that 2 million people lived in that bombed out town was astounding. Berlin was absolutely obliterated. Interesting to watch in terms of recent geopolitical situations.