Revisionism Real History

NEWS DESK 12^th JUNE 2000

MICHAEL WALSH: BEHIND THE HEADLINES

SOMETHING OF AN ENIGMA

THE U-571 AND RUFFLED FEATHERS

The Brits or the Yanks? The furore surrounding the high seas capture of Germany’s Enigma decoding device suggests that Britain’s film industry was above such misrepresentation. In fact there is little between Pinewood and Hollywood as far as celluloid distortion is concerned.

Nigel Hamilton, the biographer of Viscount Montgomery of Alamein said: "The official film footage made during war is always for propaganda purposes. Anyone who believes otherwise is being naïve."

Desert Victory; The Battle of Alamein, the Oscar-winning Second World War film was typically described by one newspaper as, ‘the finest factual film ever made’. In fact night time battle scenes were difficult if not impossible to film so much of the footage was shot at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. General Montgomery also arranged for ‘action’ scenes to be filmed well behind the front lines – before the 1942 battle commenced.

THE SICKEST FRAUD OF ALL

One of the sad and sickest frauds of the wartime movie makers is the celebrated footage of the D-Day landings. This was doctored for US General Eisenhower. This footage was filmed during ‘training exercises’ at Slapton Sands in Devon when during the landings American troops opened fire on their own compatriots struggling ashore from landing craft. It is estimated that just fewer than one thousand GIs were killed during this exercise. The US infantrymen’s bodies seen by cinemagoers floating in the waves were killed by their own side, not by German troops.

Jerome Kuehl, the leading television producer and author, an associate producer on the Thames Television World at War series, has revealed many wartime film frauds. He admitted that even he has been taken in by film footage and believes that film from the Battle of Stalingrad was stage-managed after the Russian victory.

THE HOLO-HOAX MUSEUM

Experts at London’s Imperial War Museum supported Kuehl’s findings. The museum is now responsible for setting up the notoriously questionable ‘holocaust’ museum. The museum’s keeper of the film and video archive agreed: "Some of the most famous war footage and war images have been, at the very least, ‘improved’ and, not infrequently ‘faked for the camera’ he admitted.

The Sunday Times revealed that ‘the camera does lie. Much of the most famous historical film from the 20^th century, which is repeatedly shown to people around the world on respected documentary and news programmes, was faked.’

CONCENTRATION CAMP FILM WAS FAKED

The Sunday Times revealed that ‘Footage from celebrated battles of the first and second world wars, the Nazi concentration camps and Charles Lindbergh’s first solo flight across the Atlantic are among film clips that historians and film-makers now believe were stage-managed. In some cases, battle scenes purporting to be genuine were shot in film studios and mixed with less dramatic footage from the frontline.’

Dozens of documentaries purporting to show the Nazi death camps are also misleading, according to Kuehl. The pictures normally shown are of Westerburg, a German camp in the Netherlands, or from a Polish film showing Auschwitz a year after the war ended.

These scam’s, according to Sunday Times correspondents Nicholas Hellen and Andrew Alderson, ‘were contrived by over-creative cameramen and film editors, combined with the desire of political leaders to see film of famous victories, were often responsible for misleading the public over the authenticity of acclaimed footage of key events.’

Other faked images include that of the White Star liner, Lusitania, torpedoed by the German Imperial Navy when they learned that contrary to agreement the liner was carrying arms. In fact no film exists of this ship and the images shown are those of her sister ships, the Mauritania and Aquitania.

Jerome Kuehl also expressed doubts over the authenticity of other historic footage. He is concerned that film of Sir Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain Speech’ delivered in America in 1946 may be library pictures of the English-American autocrat, spliced with a radio recording.

He also believes footage of the fall of Berlin in 1945 was faked. The famous charge of Red Army soldiers up the steps of the Reichstag were filmed the day after its capture.