"Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate Art) exhibition; BDM; farming; Reichsarbeitsdienst
Creator(s)
- Library of Congress - Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS)
- Julien H. Bryan (Director)
- Julien H. Bryan (Camera Operator)
Biographical History
Julien Hequembourg Bryan (1899-1974) was an American documentarian and filmmaker. Bryan traveled widely taking 35mm film that he sold to motion picture companies. In the 1930s, he conducted extensive lecture tours, during which he showed film footage he shot in the former USSR. Between 1935 and 1938, he captured unique records of ordinary people and life in Nazi Germany and in Poland, including Jewish areas of Warsaw and Krakow and anti-Jewish signs in Germany. His footage appeared in March of Time theatrical newsreels. His photographs appeared in Life Magazine. He was in Warsaw in September 1939 when Germany invaded and remained throughout the German siege of the city, photographing and filming what would become America's first cinematic glimpse of the start of WWII. He recorded this experience in both the book Siege (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1940) and the short film Siege (RKO Radio Pictures, 1940) nominated for an Academy Award in 1940. In 1946, Bryan photographed the efforts of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency in postwar Europe.
Scope and Content
INT "Entartete Kunst" (Degenerate Art) exhibit, "Nehmen Sie Dada ernst" in Munich. 00:20:47 BDM girls place flag in ground, write letters. Landscape with ploughed fields, oxen and cart, between Nuremberg and Leipzig. Road between Nuremberg and Dresden with BDM girls, marching and singing with banner. CUs faces, braids, white blouses. While resting at roadside, two girls perform a singing act, flirtatious, very animated. Others seated, write in diaries, then march on. Ages range from 8 to 12, most in braids or bobbed hair. BDM girls eating, with group leader, CU BDM flag, reading magazine, resting. 00:26:25 Antiquated, shaking threshing machine. In Saxony, CUs, hay. Various people/peasants working. 00:28:09 Huge pipelines, pylons, industrial installations in BG. 00:28:55 RAD - Reichsarbeitsdienst in the Bavarian Alps: Young men training, calisthenics, mountains in BG. Running through pine trees and hills. Digging ditches, WS, working, water, and wheelbarrows.
Note(s)
For the continuation of this reel (FEB 7132) see Story 2675, Film ID 955. See also Film ID 3012 USHMM Bryan Collection. The exhibition in Munich opened July 19, 1937 and closed in November, 1937. Julien Bryan filmed in Germany in September 1937 for The March of Time production, "Inside Nazi Germany." From the catalogue of the exhibit prepared by the LA County Museum of Art, it is clear that this footage of the Degenerate Art Exhibit was taken at the Munich exhibit, in the Archaeological Institute, which was almost opposite the House of German Art. The LA County Museum of Art catalogue identifies the artists and "Room 3" of the Munich exhibit which had written on the wall "Nehmen Sie Dada ernst. Es lohnt sich." Please see departmental subject files for more information. Additional photographs are available in the USHMM Photo Archives.
Subjects
- MARCHING
- WORKERS
- ALPS
- GERMANS
- SWASTIKAS
- INDUSTRY (GERMAN)
- RAD (GERMAN LABOR SERVICE)
- GERMANY
- ART
- BDM (LEAGUE OF GERMAN GIRLS)
- BRYAN, JULIEN
- CIVILIANS
- LABOR
- FARMERS/FARMING
- DADA
- BANNERS
- SINGING
- EXHIBITIONS
- MACHINERY
- AUTOMOBILES
- ART (DEGENERATE)
- SPORTS/GAMES
Places
- Munich, Germany
- Bavaria, Germany
Genre
- Film
- Unedited.