Your Job In Germany is a short film made for the United States War Department in 1945 just before Victory in Europe (VE) day. It was shown to U.S. soldiers about to go on occupation duty in Germany. The film was made by the military films unit commanded by Frank Capra

Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...

, and was written by Theodor Geisel, who is better known by his pen name Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....

.

The movie

The movie was produced by the U.S. Army Signal corps, and was a "bitter and angry anti-German propaganda film", that characterized the German mind as "diseased".

The film urged against fraternization

Fraternization

Fraternization is "turning people into brothers"—conducting social relations with people who are actually unrelated and/or of a different class as though they were siblings, family members, personal friends or lovers....

 with the German people, who are portrayed as thoroughly untrustworthy. It reminds its viewers of Germany's history of aggression, under "Führer Number 1" Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

, "Führer Number 2" Kaiser Wilhelm II and "Führer Number 3" Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. It argues that German youth were especially dangerous because they had spent their entire lives under the Nazi regime.

The policy of non-fraternisation (where U.S. soldiers were forbidden to speak even to small children) was first announced to the soldiers in this movie.

"The Nazi party may be gone, but Nazi thinking, Nazi training and Nazi trickery remains. The German lust for conquest is not dead.... You will not argue with them. You will not be friendly.... There will be no fraternization with any of the German people"

The basic theme that the German people could not be trusted derived from the peace policy that emerged from the Second Quebec Conference

Second Quebec Conference

The Second Quebec Conference was a high level military conference held during World War II between the British, Canadian and American governments. The conference was held in Quebec City, September 12, 1944 - September 16, 1944, and was the second conference to be held in Quebec, after "QUADRANT"...

.

The movie was first screened to the top Generals, from General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

 down. Reportedly General George Patton walked out of his screening, saying "Bullshit!"

Hitler Lives

The head of Warner Brothers, Jack Warner, secured the rights to the movie and turned into a short documentary, titled "Hitler Lives?". It was released commercially on December 29, 1945 and won the 1946 Academy Award (Oscar award) for Short documentary

Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject

This is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...

.

In popular culture

Numerous sentences from the movie's narration are incorporated verbatim as lyrics in the single "Don't Argue" by Cabaret Voltaire

Cabaret Voltaire (band)

Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...

 (from the album Code

Code (album)

Code is an album by British electronic band Cabaret Voltaire. The track "Don't Argue" was released as a single, as was "Here To Go"....

).

See also

• Our Job in Japan
  Our Job in Japan
  Our Job in Japan was a United States military training film made in 1945, shortly after World War II. It is the companion to the more famous Your Job In Germany. The film was aimed at American troops about to go to Japan to participate in the 1945-1952 Allied Occupation, and presents the problem of...
  
  (a companion film to Your Job In Germany that was also written by Geisel).
• Here Is Germany
  Here Is Germany
  Here is Germany was a 1945 propaganda documentary film directed by Frank Capra. Like its companion film, Know Your Enemy: Japan, the film is a full-length exploration of why one of the two major Axis countries started World War II and what had to be done to keep them from "doing it again".The film...
  
  
• Death Mills
  Death Mills
  Death Mills, or Die Todesmühlen, is a 1945 American propaganda documentary film directed by Billy Wilder and produced by the United States Department of War. It was intended for German audiences to educate them about the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime...
  
  
• List of Allied propaganda films of World War II

External links

• Online version of film at Der Spiegel website.