This compilation of segments from various weekly German newsreels between 1930 and 1932 reveals how film companies presented to cinemagoers some of the challenges that the Weimar Republic faced during those years of peak unemployment and parliamentary deadlock. In addition to highlighting problems such as the housing shortage and bank closures, however, reports also called the public’s attention to anti-war demonstrations in Berlin, for instance, and to the larger threat to global peace posed by the arms buildup. The year 1932 proved an especially pivotal one, when around 5.6 million Germans registered as unemployed (about 29.9 percent of the total labor force), with an estimated 2 million more out-of-work people who did not even feel it worth their while to register. Foreign lenders withdrew their money from Germany or did not renew their loans. Numerous banks ran into financial difficulties, were forced to close and refuse transactions, partly because many customers wanted to withdraw their money at once. In order to convince the victorious powers of World War I that Germany was unable to make further reparations payments, the Reich government temporarily exacerbated the situation by raising taxes and cutting wages and social benefits. Beginning with Chancellor Brüning, who did not have a parliamentary majority, the Reich Chancellors ruled by emergency decree, bypassing parliament. They had the approval of Reich President Hindenburg to do so. Parliament thus lost its actual functions, namely legislation and control of the government, and as a consequence it met less and less frequently. The election campaign in June and July 1932 was the most brutal in German history, with armed street fighting occurring almost daily and politically motivated murders being committed by both the right and the left.