Documentary footage shot in Munich by Cronauer and his team just a few weeks after it was taken by the American troops on April 30, 1945. We see the enormous damage of the bombings which destroyed about 90% of the center of the city.
Source: edition-filmmuseum.com
On the 30th of April, 1945, American troops marched into Munich. One week later, on the 8th of May, came the unconditional surrender of the German Reich under Admiral Dönitz. Munich was one of the cities that had suffered the greatest devastation. 90% of the inner city lay in ruins, it had lost 22,346 soldiers in battle, 6,632 people to bombings, and the injured and homeless came to, respectively, 15,000 and 30,000. Though most movie houses had been either destroyed or damaged, screenings had still taken place in 15 Munich cinemas at the end of April. Likewise intact was the premises of Bavaria-Film at Geiselgasteig, where work had still proceeded into spring 1945 on productions such as Erich Engel's Emil Jannings comedy WO IST HER BELLING?, the Theo Lingen films PHILINE and LIEBESHEIRAT and Robert A. Stemmle's GELD INS HAUS, with Hans Moser all films that had not been completed by the end of the war.
On the 10th of May the Bavaria-Film studios (Geiselgasteig) were put under the control of the 6870th District Information Services Control Command of the Information Control Division (ICD). Although Information Control regulation No. 1, that came into force on the 12th of May, allowed for exceptions to the ban on German film activity, subject to registration and licensing, at first no German productions were permitted. The only exception seems to have been Willi Cronauer, who in June 1945 was already able to shoot footage in the ruined city for his privately financed documentary film project MÜNCHEN 1945. Filming begins on the 3rd of June, 1945, when, for the first time in years, a Corpus Christi procession goes through Munich. Cronauer never finishes editing his material, only occasionally showing a rough cut, "without music or words or stars," as the Süddeutsche Zeitung put it. Bavaria-Film in Geiselgasteig is forbidden production activity. Trustees are put in charge and only technical services may be offered. On the 25th of July, a few Munich cinemas that have not been destroyed are reopened though only for the entertainment of U.S. soldiers. Not until the 1st of August does a cinema for civilians open in Munich. Subtitled American films, all emanating from the Allgemeinen Filmverleih (AFI), set up on the Bavaria grounds and subservient to the ICD, monopolise the schedules. The WELT IM FILM newsreel, produced since May in London, precedes the features. When production of the newsreel is transferred from London to Geiselgasteig in August, 1945, there is a significant increase in items about Munich and its surroundings.
