Bei unseren Helden an der Somme (1916/1917)

With Our Heroes On the Somme

This three-act propaganda film, produced by the state Bild und Filmamt (BUFA), focuses on the fighting between British-French and German troops from July to November 1916 on the Somme, in one of the costliest battles of the First World War.

"Bei unseren Helden an der Somme" is the German response to the British feature-length film and enormous audience success "The Battle of the Somme" (1916), which was intended to show the civilian population, with patriotic impetus, how their own soldiers fought and suffered. Accordingly, "Bei unseren Helden an der Somme" provides a counter-narrative and is intended to strengthen the German fighting community. In the film, the omnipresence of death is only hinted at in symbolic images such as of a military cemetery, while "The Battle of the Somme" shows images of the fallen and wounded.

Despite many re-enacted scenes and the commenting as well as dramatizing intertitles, "Bei unseren Helden an der Somme" was perceived by contemporary audiences as a documentary report. The accompanying press campaign also helped to make the film appear as an authentic testimony from the front.