Willem and Frieda: Defying the Nazis

Mar 24, 2023

1h 8m

★ 7.5

Overview

Willem was an artist who lived openly as a gay man at a time when few did. Frieda was a well-connected musician who became the first woman to lead an orchestra. We learn of their early lives and the selfless decisions that informed their devotion to the anti-Nazi cause, often at great personal risk. The gentle revelation of these extraordinary lives is gradually revealed through archive footage, skillfully combined with photographs and interviews with experts, journalists and family members.

Genres

History

Documentary

Production Companies

Channel 4 Television

Willem and Frieda: Defying the Nazis Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Stephen Fry

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

No Image Available

0.0

FDR: A Presidency Revealed

Apr 17, 2005

For twelve years he stood as America's 32nd President, a man who overcame the ravages of polio to pull America through the Great Depression and WWII. From his legendary Fireside Chats to his sweeping New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt revolutionized the American way of life. FDR: A Presidency Revealed examines one of history's most compelling figures. Inspired by his cousin Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt rose to the nation's highest office during the depths of one of its darkest periods. A man of few words, he brought a nation together through his revolutionary Fireside Chats. He introduced vast reforms like Social Security and work relief for the unemployed. At the same time, his administration hid a dark underbelly teeming with covert maneuvers, spy rings, and powerful enemies.

8.6

Schindler's List

Dec 15, 1993

The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.

7.5

Fascism in Colour

Jan 1, 2006

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

7.5

The Bridge

Oct 21, 1959

A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.

6.6

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

Apr 7, 2005

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

7.6

Manouchian et ceux de l'Affiche rouge

Feb 20, 2024

No overview available.

6.0

Attack! The Battle for New Britain

Jun 20, 1944

Actual footage by the United States Signal Corps of the landing and attack on Arawe Beach, Cape Glouster, New Britain island in 1943 in the South Pacific theatre of World War Two, and the handicaps of the wild jungle in addition to the Japanese snipers and pill-box emplacements.

6.9

The Tin Drum

May 2, 1979

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

6.9

Pearl Harbor

May 21, 2001

The lifelong friendship between Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker is put to the ultimate test when the two ace fighter pilots become entangled in a love triangle with beautiful Naval nurse Evelyn Johnson. But the rivalry between the friends-turned-foes is immediately put on hold when they find themselves at the center of Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

6.9

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

Apr 21, 1938

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

6.7

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Jun 2, 1938

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

7.6

The Last Emperor

Oct 4, 1987

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

6.9

Battle of the Bulge

Dec 16, 1965

In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent it, Hitler orders an all-out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp.

0.0

Same Difference

Apr 1, 2011

Following the debate over California's Proposition 8, this short film is an exploration of how modern American families are constructed, not only those within the LGBTQ community.

6.2

Kokoda

Apr 25, 2006

A bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II.

6.2

The Sign Painter

Jan 17, 2020

A Latvian tragicomedy about a young artist who bears witness to the dramatic political upheavals of the WWII era. As brutal regimes come and go, his country, his village, his people, and even his heart are swept up in the inexorable currents of history.

6.4

Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary

Mar 22, 2002

Documentarians Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer turn their camera on 81-year-old Traudl Junge, who served as Adolf Hitler's secretary from 1942 to 1945, and allow her to speak about her experiences. Junge sheds light on life in the Third Reich and the days leading up to Hitler's death in the famed bunker, where Junge recorded Hitler's last will and testament. Her gripping account is nothing short of mesmerizing.

6.9

Nazis at Nuremberg: The Lost Testimony

Dec 5, 2022

Never-before-heard trial testimony reveals shocking new details about World War II and the inner workings of the Nazi war machine.

Willem and Frieda: Defying the Nazis

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Willem and Frieda: Defying the Nazis Trailers