Firestorm – The Allied Bombing of Nazi Germany (2003/First Run Features DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B
In yet
another strong, rich, historically intense documentary from writer/director
Michael Kloft (The Goebbels Experiment)
about the dark legacy of Nazi Germany and what it took to end it, Firestorm – The Allied Bombing of Nazi
Germany (2003) runs a very satisfying 93 minutes and manages to squeeze
almost everything it can about how the Allies decided (versus the literal
nuclear option) to annihilate the empire of The Third Reich and as many traces
of it as possible.
The need
and reason to do this, if you have more than a five-year-old understanding of
what happened, is inarguable. 1.4
million bombs were dropped and the intent was to make sure morale, spirit and
the very base of the fascist movement that tried to annihilate the world were
ended without any possibility of that horror rising again. It took strategy, bravery, backbone and a
realistic understanding of the situation and is the reason why the world has
been safer until just recently.
The back
of the case suggests that maybe this was overdone and revenge might have even
been a motive, but any of that is just more revisionist history (often to bash
the U.S.) and if a few nuclear bombs had been dropped, you’d hear even more
complains. The difference between the
two countries was that Japan was bombed so it would not be split like Germany
or become communist all around, while Japanese Imperialism was around longer
than Nazism or Italian Fascism. This is
the ugly side of world life and anyone who cannot deal with that is in deep
denial. Firestorm shows why that kind of denial can kill.
The 1.33
X 1 image mix of color and black and white images can be very rough, but this
transfer of the final edited product is softer than I would have liked and this
may be due to an error with PAL conversion.
However, the footage is still too compelling, some of which (outside of
new interviews) you might not see anywhere else. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo
at best and often shows its age with the monophonic sound. Extras include text filmmaker’s bio and amateur
film footage of the ruins of Germany after the many bombings.
- Nicholas Sheffo
