William Held Film: Hunger Blockade Germany
"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.
Intertitles:
1. Pre-War babies in a German nursery
2. Havoc raised by milk shortage
3. Attempts to save blockade babies
4. Across the boarder - the land of plenty
5. Empty show windows bespeak want
6. Show windows contain worthless decorations
7. Stock yards before the war
8. - and during the war, goats only
9. Horses too were underfed
10. Danish horses
11. Bread for one day - such as it was
12. Butter for one week
13. Sugar for one week - some months none at all
14. Lack of soap caused skin diseases
15. "Lousoleum"
16. Lack of proper footwear
17. Frozen and amputated toes
18. Starvation produced softening of bones
19. Stairclimbing caused them pain
20. "Hungeroedem" another starvation disease
21. X ray view of effected bones
22. From the army of blockade victims
23. Five normal brothers and two strange normal children
24. Never knew what it was all about
25. Three typical german blockade children and a normal child
26. Shattered hopes
27. Peace time death rate
28. Noncombatant's death rate during blockade
29. America offer to help with 70 000 tons of meat but the allies demanded 125 000 tons from Germany so what was the use
30. First to help the war torn, was America
31. Speisung unterernährter Kinder durch die "American Wellfare Association" Vertreter Dr. William Held
32. The Quakers fed many children
33. Trying to be normal children again