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Wednesday, Mar 29, 1995
The Eye of the Third Reich: Walter Frentz and Changing Roles: Henry V. Jaworsky
The Eye of the Third Reich: Walter Frentz: A biography of the cameraman Walter Frentz, who in the early thirties became Leni Riefenstahl's assistant and was favored by Goebbels, who disliked Riefenstahl. Despite the controversy, Riefenstahl made Frentz chief cameraman for her Olympia films and recommended him to Hitler as personal cameraman. In 1935 Goebbels ordered a "hymn" in honor of Labor Day and Frentz produced the international prize-winning documentary Working Hands-A Song of German Work. From 1939 to 1945 Frentz was part of and documented Hitler's inner circle, making slide and film shows, giving film lessons to Eva Braun, and taking thousands of still pictures-after 1943, in color. Frentz took his last pictures in the "Führerbunker" shortly before Hitler's suicide. Jürgen Stumpfhaus incorporates film and photographic material never publicly shown. (60 mins) Changing Roles: Henry V. Jaworsky: Despite his Jewish background, Henry V. Jaworsky was able to work as "specialist" in aerial photography and was known as "the flying cameraman." Early in his career Leni Riefenstahl had helped him to become camera assistant on The Blue Light; during the war, Jaworsky got into trouble and was again helped by Reifenstahl and by Ernst Udet, with whom he worked on films like Quax the Crash Pilot (1941). At the end of the war, Jaworsky filmed "the march of death" of the concentration camp survivors from Sachsenhausen and handed the material over to the Russians. After the war, Jaworsky changed roles many times, working for the East Germans and then as head cameraman with French newsreel crews in West Berlin. Jaworsky lives in New York City. (60 mins)
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