02-26-2012, 05:04 PM
i like to see this propaganda film.
It's the most bizarre telling of the Titanic story – a Nazi film overseen by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Titanic, conceived in 1940, was meant to depict Britain as a society ruled by greedy plutocrats.
Now the incredible full story of its making has finally come to light. Made on a vast budget equivalent to £100million today, the film was intended to boost German morale as the Nazis prepared for the invasion of Britain.
But like the doomed liner, the film itself met a calamitous end.
Never shown in Nazi Germany, its director was found hanged by his own braces (suspenders) and is suspected of having been murdered by the Gestapo.
And the ship that took the role of the Titanic, the Cap Arcona, was later sunk with 5,000 concentration camp prisoners on board, a vastly greater loss of life than the 1,517 who died in the Titanic disaster.
A new Channel 5 (UK) documentary, Nazi Titanic: Revealed, tells the story of the film using Goebbels’s private diaries and unseen home movies shot behind the scenes.
Goebbels demanded an 87-day shoot, the building of nine huge stages for interior filming in Berlin and a 30ft replica of the liner.
For exteriors, he insisted the Cap Arcona was taken to the Baltic naval base Gotenhafen. Vital military personnel were pulled from the front to act as extras.
Filming was delayed by fog, storms, a model ship which kept breaking down and director Herbert Selpin’s insistence on shooting the sinking at night. Soldiers hired as extras were often drunk and disruptive.
A frustrated Selpin launched a furious, expletive-filled outburst against German officers at a private dinner, which was quickly relayed to the Gestapo.
Sent to Berlin by Goebbels for interrogation, Selpin was found hanged in the basement of Gestapo HQ. The film was finally completed by another director.
It depicts Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic, as a callously greedy figure. In a fictitious scene Ismay boasts that the record-breaking maiden voyage will make him rich.
He tells the captain: ‘For arrival on schedule in New York I will pay you $5,000 and for every hour ahead of schedule another $1,000.’
Completed in 1942, it was far from the masterpiece Goebbels had waited two years to see. Fearing Nazi citizens under attack by Allied bombers would be frightened by the sinking, he banned its release in Germany, although it was shown in occupied Europe.
Near the end of the war the Cap Arcona was used to transport concentration camp prisoners. It was repainted as a troop carrier. Water, food and lifeboats were removed and it was filled with gas canisters. When, as the Germans predicted, the Allies sank it, just 350 of the 5,500 passengers survived.
Steven Luckert, of America’s National Holocaust Museum, says: ‘The film portrays the Titanic as a microcosm of British society, in which a small group endangers the safety of the vessel to reap financial reward. Its sinking is blamed on Britain’s corrupt ruling elite.’
![[Image: article-0-11E58521000005DC-40_253x353.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/25/article-0-11E58521000005DC-40_253x353.jpg)
![[Image: article-2106550-11E96E4C000005DC-470_472x444.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/26/article-2106550-11E96E4C000005DC-470_472x444.jpg)
daily mail
It's the most bizarre telling of the Titanic story – a Nazi film overseen by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Titanic, conceived in 1940, was meant to depict Britain as a society ruled by greedy plutocrats.
Now the incredible full story of its making has finally come to light. Made on a vast budget equivalent to £100million today, the film was intended to boost German morale as the Nazis prepared for the invasion of Britain.
But like the doomed liner, the film itself met a calamitous end.
Never shown in Nazi Germany, its director was found hanged by his own braces (suspenders) and is suspected of having been murdered by the Gestapo.
And the ship that took the role of the Titanic, the Cap Arcona, was later sunk with 5,000 concentration camp prisoners on board, a vastly greater loss of life than the 1,517 who died in the Titanic disaster.
A new Channel 5 (UK) documentary, Nazi Titanic: Revealed, tells the story of the film using Goebbels’s private diaries and unseen home movies shot behind the scenes.
Goebbels demanded an 87-day shoot, the building of nine huge stages for interior filming in Berlin and a 30ft replica of the liner.
For exteriors, he insisted the Cap Arcona was taken to the Baltic naval base Gotenhafen. Vital military personnel were pulled from the front to act as extras.
Filming was delayed by fog, storms, a model ship which kept breaking down and director Herbert Selpin’s insistence on shooting the sinking at night. Soldiers hired as extras were often drunk and disruptive.
A frustrated Selpin launched a furious, expletive-filled outburst against German officers at a private dinner, which was quickly relayed to the Gestapo.
Sent to Berlin by Goebbels for interrogation, Selpin was found hanged in the basement of Gestapo HQ. The film was finally completed by another director.
It depicts Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, which owned the Titanic, as a callously greedy figure. In a fictitious scene Ismay boasts that the record-breaking maiden voyage will make him rich.
He tells the captain: ‘For arrival on schedule in New York I will pay you $5,000 and for every hour ahead of schedule another $1,000.’
Completed in 1942, it was far from the masterpiece Goebbels had waited two years to see. Fearing Nazi citizens under attack by Allied bombers would be frightened by the sinking, he banned its release in Germany, although it was shown in occupied Europe.
Near the end of the war the Cap Arcona was used to transport concentration camp prisoners. It was repainted as a troop carrier. Water, food and lifeboats were removed and it was filled with gas canisters. When, as the Germans predicted, the Allies sank it, just 350 of the 5,500 passengers survived.
Steven Luckert, of America’s National Holocaust Museum, says: ‘The film portrays the Titanic as a microcosm of British society, in which a small group endangers the safety of the vessel to reap financial reward. Its sinking is blamed on Britain’s corrupt ruling elite.’
daily mail