Death Mills

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The Death Mills
Directed by	Billy Wilder Hans Burger
Written by	Hans Burger
Editing by	Billy Wilder (supervisor)
Distributed by	United States Department of War
Release date(s)	1945
Running time	22 min.
Country	US
Language	English/German
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The Death Mills, or Die Todesmühlen, is a 1945 American propaganda documentary film directed by Billy Wilder and produced by the United States Department of War. It was intended for German audiences to educate them about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. For the German version, Die Todesmühlen, Hans Burger is credited as the writer and director, while Wilder supervised the editing. Wilder is credited with the English-language version.

[edit] Synopsis

The film opens with a note that the following is "a reminder that behind the curtain of Nazi pageants and parades was millions of men, women and children who were tortured to death - the greatest mass murder in human history," then fades into German civilians at Gardelegen carrying crosses to the local concentration camp.

Most of the film is simply footage of the newly liberated camps over a score of stark classical music. The narrator notes that people of all nationalities were found in the camps, including people of all religious or political creeds. There is no mention of the particular fate of Jewish people. The film states that 20 million people were killed and describes many of the familiar aspects of the Holocaust, including the medical experiments and the gas chambers.