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Mueller is the German equivalent of Miller, so I'm including this 1929 photo of Hein Mueller,
1903-1945. (That's not a typo as his name was Hein, not the more common Heinz.) Mr. Mueller
was a boxer who escaped the draft early in World War II due to a detached retina. That was not
enough, however, to keep him out of the last ditch Nazi home guard known as the Volkssturm.
He was killed defending Berlin from the Red Army just three days before the city surrendered.
My mothers uncle on her mothers side of the family was a Hungarian motion picture film technician working in Berlin at that time (he was there from 1925-1949, the stories he could tell you!). Going back and forth to the studios Tobis-JOFA , UFA, and Terra in Berlin, Radlitz, Hostivar and Barrondovy in Prague,Sascha and Vita in Vienna ,the Geyer and Afifa copie works, the AGFA color film labs, all during that CHAOTIC time. (!933-1945). Working at the studios at that time was no picnic, he himself had very negative opinion of the Nazis, you had to watch what you said to anyone, lest you be INORMED on.
ReplyDelete(the studios were rife with informants ie. actors actresses even the maids!)
Making his way from Prague back to his home in Berlin by motorcycle, first to Zossen ditching the motorcycle and taking an electic tram from Zossen to Marienfelde/Berlin and finally to his wife and house in North Berlin.(almost getting killed 3 times by fire from both sides German and Russian)
They were safe only because while working in Prague he told his wife to let all the trees and shrubs overgrow their house to obscure it from view from any and all soldiers (German and Allied not to mention the dreaded Gestapo boys)
Once home he was very careful about walking in Berlin so as not to be quadrooned into the Volkssturm. (you only moved about when ABSOLUTLEY necessary). The reason they made films in Prague was Berlin was getting pummeled by Allied air raids (esp. from 1943 onwards) and some film production HAD to be moved there. Later, towards the end of the Battle for Berlin (May 45), he was at the UFA studio in Potsdam/Berlin when the Russians showed up and he was scared to death of being shot, only to be warmly received (luckily a employee at the studio knew the Russain language and smoothed things over). As far as air raids he told me they happened off and on and you "learned to hear" for the bombers through your own intuition. They did a lot of damage to the studios, Tobis and UFA/Staaken were partly destroyed, UFA/Templehof was completely destoyed, and at UFA/Potsdam the Tonkreuz sound studio was heavily damaged and the
film archive destoyed taking with it 75% of all German film material from the 1890's thru the 1940's. -Rj in the IE