French Minister Henriot Speech in Berlin

Video size: 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) - 74 MB
Date: Tuesday, 6 June 1944
Place: Berlin, Germany
Cameraman: unknown

Philippe Henriot addresses French workers in Berlin. French Minister of Information enters hall and delivers speech (live) to audience of thousands, which climaxes in call for collaboration between France and Germany: "you will understand as I do how moving, pathetic and improbable it is [pointing to tricolour and swastika linked on backdrop]. In 1940 would you have thought this possible?" Henriot reportedly told French prisoners that they would have been home long ago had the treacherous generals kept their word. He thanks (live) "the head of the German nation, Adolf Hitler, who heads the European crusade against Bolshevism"; some members of audience clap, others look impassive.

Nowhere has propaganda played a more powerful role than in the theatre of war of 1939-1945, when a sustained propaganda war was fought between the Allies on the one hand, and Vichy and Berlin on the other, with radio as its principal weapon. On that stage, the most notorious and skilful French voice in the war of words belonged to Philippe Henriot, known as the 'French Goebbels'. Understanding the complexities, the methodology and the impact of Vichy's propaganda necessitates analysis and evaluation of the prominent part played by Henriot as the regime's official voice. A high-profile pro-collaboration propagandist from the early days of the Occupation, Henriot rose in January 1944 to become Minister for Information and Propaganda, just as Vichy entered its final and most disreputable stage. From then until his assassination by the Resistance on 28 June 1944, he delivered a relentless programme of 270 self-authored broadcasts on Radio Vichy, playing persistently on the fears and prejudices of a people suffering the pressures and anxieties inflicted by the events that were unfolding, and conversing in forthright terms with his broadcasting adversaries in London and Algiers. This is the role for which Henriot remains best known, on account of his mesmerising rhetoric and delivery. The broadcasts provide a valuable window on Vichy's endgame and an important insight into the themes and strategies of its propaganda. In 1944, Henriot's public presence was huge and he was a media star well before the modern concept had been developed. Whether they admired him or loathed him, the French, quite simply, could not escape him.


Source :
Die Deutsche Wochenschau No. 720 - 21 June 1944
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-DzDJmt5F8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrwDehP8bzc
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FH034072%2F1
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060004235

Panzer-Regiment 11 Celebrates its First Birthday

Image size: 1600 x 1068 pixel. 396 KB
Date: Wednesday, 12 October 1938
Place: Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia
Photographer: Unknown

Panzer-Regiment 11 celebrates its first birthday, 12 October 1938, in the recently-occupied Sudetenland. Oberst Dipl.-Ing. Wilhelm Philipps (Regimentskommandeur) stands in his m.gl.Pkw. (mittlerer geländegängiger Personenkraftwagen) a.k.a. Kfz.12, flanked by Panzerkampfwagen II tanks, behind the two battalion's standards. Philipps (29 July 1894 - 13 February 1971) was the first Commandeur of the regiment (12 October 1937 - 1 January 1940), and the two Abteilung (Detachment) commander at the time are Major Friedrich Stephan (I.Abteilung) and Major Richard Koll (II.Abteilung). Panzer-regiment 11 Formed on 12 October 1937 with two Abteilung of three Kompanie each as independent Heerestruppen. The regiment was expanded to eight Kompanie on 10 November 1938. Mobilized with two Abteilung each with two light and one medical Kompanie and assigned to 1. leichte-Division on 1 August 1939. Assigned to 6. Panzer-Division on 18 October 1939. 4. And 8. Kompanie formed from elements of the disbanded Panzer-Abteilung 65 on 3 June 1942. I. Abteilung converted to Panther Abteilung with four Kompanie on 5 May 1943. I. Abteilung was sent to Eastern Front as an independent unit in 1944 and initially attached to 8. Panzer-Division. I. Abteilung returned to the regiment on 15 December 1944.

Source:

Helmut Ritgen photo collection

Book "The 6th Panzer Division: 1937-45" by Oberst a.D. Helmut Ritgen