Featured Amateur German 9,5mm films during WWII

I am currently working on acquiring a collection of original 9,5mm films recorded during WWII. Dates early 1940s. Films in fair condition with lines.

Eventually they will all be digitized in 4K by high-end archival scanners and preserved in ProRes444.

Eventually they will be published on YouTube with watermarks.

I have made a quick setup to get an idea of what is on one of the films. These appear to be barrack scenes.





Results shown here not representative of final scan with proper 4K scanner.




Expect more info in the following months.

Get an idea of what is on this individual reel here.

Best regards,
Niels

 

WOW!!! Looks like you're going through QUITE a bit of WORK!!! I hope it's a "labor of love" with all that time and equipment!!!!! Will be very interesting to see some of the finished product!!! Good luck with it!!!

 

The only good "Finished Product" would be film of the defeat of the Nazi regime .. Joy.

 

I Now have a Kaiser Slimlite plano LED light box, as a high-quality light source for viewing positives.

Made some new test shots quickly, still have to find a way to keep the film flat.






So far the images are of excellent sharpness and contain a lot of detail.

 

Do you know which company you are going to use to transfer to digital?

 

Yes, Filmkapitaal/Filmfabriek in the Netherlands

I expect they will also want to add it to their footage archive.

 

Do you know what equipment they use? I have had film transferred at a couple places and researched others in the USA. Quality varies tremendously. Best so far was one that used Lasergraphics ScanStation, but I'm curious how that compares to a wet gate system like Filmkapitaal seems to use.

 

They use their own (They designed and build them) Müller HDS+ scanners. I visited them to drop off some film and got a brief look at their workshop where they are build.

I have seen the results, true 2K/4K resolution. Not the kind where some company just aimed a 4K compact camera to a projector lens or screen.

Also full control of light source brightness/colour spectrum. Each frame is individually photographed and saved as a RAW image for later processing.

I visited them some months ago to have some other 8mm/16mm films scanned, and gave them some new films for them to process.

I got tons of new material, including the stuff you see here. When I visit them again I'll pick up the previous films and drop off new ones.

When I got some more material digitized I plan to release my archive on YT, with a topic on it here of course. Expect a teaser in several months.

 

seems the hotel/restaurant Granetal in the background still exists.

 

The seller has more WWII films by the same person, but wants to sell them for 500 euros each. This is too much for me.

He also has amateur 9.5mm films made in 1930s by most likely the same person, typical family movies and days out. These are cool for context, and maybe we can find out location / family. For a lot less thankfully. Most films anyways...

I'll see what I can do.

 

then he should offer them German television (ARD). they started a new series of amateur films on their third programs a while ago. Im Westen etc..

 

I will contact them, it would be awesome if they could show my films to a larger audience! (The end-goal of all my projects.)

Could you share contact information to relevant people?

After a discussion with the seller, no response after some more talking and a lower bid...

 

https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzeit/zdfzeit-wir-im-krieg--privatfilme-aus-der-ns-zeit-100.html

this Jörg Müllner might be good for a first contact.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jörg_Müllner

are you speaking German ? would make the whole easier when trying to contact them.

or try it directly. roll down, there is an email link "Dokumentationen Zeitgeschichte".
https://www.zdf.de/zdfunternehmen/programmprofile-ansprechpartner-100.html

then there's n-tv, a channel that has also lots of docus.
https://www.n-tv.de/ntvintern/kontakt/

 

Thanks Fid, i'll look into it.

Made some more macro photos today:

 

tonight on ZDF, 20.25,
Wir im Krieg: Privatfilme aus Hitlers Reich

would give you an idea about what they are looking for.

 

Wow! I'm speechless!
Leslie

 

Fantastic. I hope you will be able to attach some names/locations/dates to the films so that genealogy enthusiasts can locate ancestors.

 

a problem in Germany already shows up in TV films recently collected to show snippets of private amateur filmings; when a guy in uniform - be it Wehrmacht, SS or SA doesn't matter - is shown and his name is known, then the family can ask that the names of the people known are suppressed.
the problem in Germany is that certain jurists are constructing a "Right to be forgotten" that is going way farther than the popular amnesia that exists since the de-nazification went over from the US to the the Germans themselves.

 

I am afraid the fullest extension, the logical end-point of such a law could mean the destruction of historical records such as photography, audio, film and writing. Where families want the original material destroyed.

Willing cultural/history suicide.