This is the "UfA Tonwoche" newsreel, issue 468, aired on 23 August, 1939.

One week later, Germany launched the Poland offensive.

Subtitled by yours truly, just for you goats.

EDIT: Updated links with numerous typo fixes and small edits. Download again if you grabbed them before.

• Short version: WEBM MKV
• Full version: WEBM MKV

_{The short version is just the good stuff. The full version is the entire newsreel and has a few minutes of random segments before the good stuff. A curious glimpse of history. The WEBM versions have the subtitles baked in and are a bit more compressed. The MKV versions have embedded soft subtitles, so they can be turned on and off, and the video and audio didn't need to be re-encoded and are the best quality I could find. You'll probably need to download the mkv version to view it.}

To my knowledge this has never been available in English to the general public. Not before the war, not during, and not after.

Not until now.

Why did Germany invade Poland?

A question that often comes up when discussing WW2. Even here, people rarely know or have good answers. Even more rare than answers are sources. As with any war, the victors put a lot of effort into burying and discrediting any just cause their enemy might have had.

This video lays out the German perspective, the situation they were in, the history that led up to it, and why they had to act.

It explains how the territories in question, that Germany "invaded", were still Germany merely 20 years prior, before the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, and had been German for hundreds of years before that. It shows that Germans still lived on that land, and spoke German, and wanted to be German, and part of Germany. They had no interest in being Polish. They were just told one day that they must be. It shows German refugees fleeing those regions, their own homeland, that their ancestors had lived on for hundreds of years, because of the hunger and poverty and violence they suffered under Polish rule. Many of them testify that they are forbidden from teaching their children German, their own language, or sending them to German schools. Those who disobey are imprisoned or sent to Russia.

Is it all just Nazi propaganda and lies? Maybe. I can only show it to you. It's up to you to decide what's true.

But ask yourself: Why has nobody shown this to you before? Why was it hidden away? Why would sharing this in Germany likely land you in a cell next to Mrs Haverbeck?

PS: No hard feelings for any Poles or Brits here. If you're reading this, you probably weren't around back then. And, bear in mind, they didn't have internet or places like Voat back then. If you never saw this until today, imagine how hopelessly clamped down and controlled the information available to the average Pole or Brit was back then. They had no chance to see the other side of things. That's how they were able to pit us against each other. Let's not let that happen again.

PPS: I don't plan to share this anywhere else, except maybe Poal, as a housewarming gift. But that's largely the same crowd anyway. So, if you want more people to know about this, then that is up to you.

It is not enough to merely believe. If you want to change the world, then you must be willing to act.