The Nazis Strike (1943). US War Department, Special Services Division. Held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
The Nazis Strike
The second orientation film: the annexations, the Polish campaign, and the doctrine of lightning war explained to men who would shortly meet it.
- Year
- 1943
- Made by
- US War Department, Special Services Division
- Directed by
- Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak
- Free to use because
- A work of the United States government — no copyright, anywhere
The note
The second film narrows from argument to mechanism. It is about how the thing was actually done — the rearmament, the annexations that drew no shot, and then September 1939. Litvak, a refugee from exactly this history, shares the direction. The soundtrack is dense with captured German audio, which gives the audio-only listening a strange doubled quality: an American voice explaining, in real time, a German voice you are also hearing. Federal work, no copyright.
The Nazis Strike, 1943. US War Department, Special Services Division. Directed by Frank Capra and Anatole Litvak. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
The soundtrack