Abstract
To confront members of the seemingly unaware German population with
the deeds of the Nazis, Allied occupation forces showed them documentary
films made when the Allies entered the concentration camps. Shown in
several places, these so-called atrocity pictures aimed to document the
criminal character of the Nazi regime and to awaken feelings of
individual and collective responsibility among the people. The British
army sensed a particularly strong resistance to these measures from the
residents of Burgsteinfurt (northwest of Münster) and named it the
“village of hate” in response. In May 1945, when British Movietone News
showed a newsreel of images from the Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen
concentration camps, the people of Burgsteinfurt exhibited very little
interest in seeing it. Thereafter, the military authorities made viewing
the newsreel mandatory; on May 30, 1945, British soldiers forcibly
escorted residents to the show.