William Held Film: Hunger Blockade Germany

Summary

"Hunger Blockade Germany" is one of three documentary films made by the American doctor and amateur filmmaker William Held during a stay in Berlin from 1919 to 1922. His films are especially interesting from the standpoint of the state of health in Germany, particularly maladies of deficiency such as rickets and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. In intertitles Held explains their spread as originating in the British naval blockade from 1914 to 1919, which caused considerable shortages in food supply in Germany. In his denunciation of the blockade, the amateur filmmaker displays a pro-German attitude, which may be linked to his origins: Held was born in 1871 in either Vienna or Moravia and emigrated to Chicago in 1891. He may have shown his films at private screenings and distributed them himself, in order to mobilise support for Germany in the USA.

In contrast to his other films, for "Hunger Blockade Germany" Held used not only footage he had shot himself, but also a considerable amount that had been produced for the Messter Weekly. In addition, the propagandistic colouring is here more strongly in evidence than in the other films: "Hunger Blockade Germany" contrasts footage of prosperity and health before the war with scenes of hunger and disease after the war, which the film denounces in statistics and intertitles as resulting from the blockade. An altered version of the film, retitled "The Results of the Hunger Blockade on the Health of the People", was distributed in Germany as well by UFA in 1921.