Worth a watch

[Grendel]

We watched the new series of A House Through Time on BBC. The presenter David Olusoga is an insufferable lefty prick, he started on his slavery thing while appearing in a seque on the the late Queen's funeral on BBC, he just cannot leave it alone. This HTT series examines a building in London and also one in Berlin from the 20s onwards. It is very interesting but David manages to find a black man from Togo who suffered under the Nazi regime as well as the Jewish residents. I suppose I should have expected it really. In the main it is very interesting but the black bit is unnecessary, it is the Jews who suffered.

DWD

As a teenager I read the Sven Hassel books , knowing that they were fiction although the first three in particular seem to have a more plausible storyline. In one of the later books he introduced a character called George who he said was a black German tank driver. At that time I felt any semblance to plausibility was gone . However, fast forward a few decades and the idea of blacks serving in the German military came up again . There is certainly anecdotal evidence that there were some although pictorial evidence is sketchy . There are pictures of black former French colonial troops serving with the DAK as well as written evidence . What is in short supply is pictures of black people in the concentration camps . I have seen one for certain but he was evidently imprisoned for crimes other than having black skin although I can’t recall exactly what . Looking through numerous pictures there seems a distinct lack of black faces . There were estimated to be around 200,000 black people in Germany in the late 20’s early 30’s , some will have left and some went into cinema work but I’ve not read or seen evidence for a black holocaust for want of a better term ( holocaust being purely a word related to Jewish suffering) .
Incidentally mentioning Sven Hassel I feel remiss not to mention the film “Wheels of Terror” supposedly based on his book . It doesn’t deserve to be in this thread as it’s awful and is probably better off in the “ not worth a watch” thread although perhaps we should have a “ so bad it’s worth watching “ thread…

[dewaltdisney]

I enjoyed all the Sven Hassel books but you are right they did become more outrageous as they progressed. I felt the first was fairly spot on; the characters were well formed and it had a ring of reality. I saw Wheels of Terror some years later and although I quite enjoyed it I do not think it captured the spirit of the books, more like a Saturday morning pictures film. I am sure there were a lot of black people in Berlin who soon got out of Germany when the Nazi's were on the rise. The guy he mentioned was employed in Togo by the German Colonial Service but when they lost the territory after WWI reparations he came to Germany with his former employer and when the problems started he could not go back as the French refused him entry because of his German passport. An unnecessary strand to an otherwise good historical story. But it is still worth a watch despite this.

DWD

[Grendel]

I’ve just watched Sambre-Anatomy of a Crime that was shown recently on BBC4. It tells the story of a prolific rapist in northern France , fictionalised but based on a true story of one man who attacked women for 30 years before finally being caught. It also really tells the story of police failings in the case. Subtitled as it’s in French but well worth a watch.

[dewaltdisney]

I could not get on with that series we struggled through the first episode and dumped it. It was far too slow and although it was probably accurate in showing the useless French Police it did not capture us.

DWD

[Grendel]

I tend to find the slower approach more realistic in many respects and for a series of events that play out over a period of 30 years is probably more representative that Hollywood type car chases and shootouts. I’m not sure just how accurate the depiction of the police was , if it was certain aspects were almost unforgivable. Episode 4 concentrated on the work of an analyst who produced a geo profile of the rapist a file that could have helped but went straight to archives. I’m not quite sure why they chose to change the name of the rapist , perhaps because so much of the dialogue and story had to be invented it just seemed logical to go the whole hog. Either way I enjoyed it.