9/10
Fascinating look at the birth of TV broadcasting
9 June 2005
This excellent documentary shows clips from 1935-1944. Clips include interview programs with Labor Minister Robert Ley, footage of the 1936 Olympics, light entertainment programs (vaudeville, etc.), plays, exercise shows, propaganda documentaries, cooking shows, and coverage of the 1938 (I think) Nuremberg rally. There's also a documentary of how amputee vets are being rehabilitated with artificial legs.

It also interviews some of the German TV pioneers who explain how some of the early technology worked (camera trucks at the Olympics, for example, had automatic film-developing machinery inside the truck.) Also fascinating is the political background behind the broadcasts, the technology, distribution of TV sets, how the war affected the planned and actual use of broadcasting, etc.

I guess it's no surprise that we were never taught in school that TV (the greatest invention in the history of the universe, if you ask any kid) was largely developed by the Nazis. They were no doubt afraid it just might have turned us all into Hitler Youth.
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