At the Fountainhead (of German Strength) | movie | 1980 | Official Clip - video Dailymotion

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A rich and challenging account of the experiences of a German Jewish musician who settled in Britain to escape Nazi pers | dG1fNzVWMk5fU0xqQmc

Transcript

00:00 [Sounds of a river]

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01:26 By the time I had arrived in England, most of my family had also left Germany.

01:31 That is all but my mother, who finally settled here in 1939.

01:35 She had been going backwards and forwards between England and Germany,

01:39 tying up affairs and trying to bring over what she could.

01:42 All our furniture and so forth was paid for to come here, but we got nothing.

01:47 The Nazis auctioned it all.

01:49 When the war had started, we received a letter from Holland saying

01:52 that if we sent 400 pounds, the furniture would be sent over.

01:55 But that would have just been 400 pounds to the Nazis.

01:59 So we didn't send it, and we didn't have it.

02:01 On her final trip over here, my mother was caught for trying to smuggle out her furs and jewelry.

02:07 She was in prison for three days.

02:09 Fortunately, my father knew the Bechstein piano people.

02:12 They were great Nazis and friends of Hitler's.

02:15 But Bechstein was also a friend of my father's, too.

02:18 I think my father rang him up from London to ask him to try and get my mother out, which he did.

02:25 By the way, Bechstein perhaps wasn't quite such a great Nazi.

02:39 He was what we used to call a "Muss-Nazi."

02:42 He had to join the party in order to keep his business going.

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03:47 Johanna Schmidt, now known as John Smith,

04:07 joined the alien pioneer corps of the British Army in 1940

04:11 in order to, in his own words, "have a go at the Nazis."

04:16 He was given the choice of three British names,

04:20 Smart, Smith, or Smythe.

04:24 There were two reasons for his disillusionment with Army life.

04:28 Firstly, the British NCOs showed signs of resentment

04:32 and made him and his colleagues feel like bloody foreigners.

04:37 Secondly, he saw no action.

04:40 His section was due to leave for France immediately,

04:43 but an outbreak of German measles prevented this occurrence.

04:47 In retrospect, he considers himself lucky,

04:51 as many of his colleagues did not return.

04:55 In 1945, in the last few days of the war,

05:00 a close friend of his, also a German,

05:03 was killed in action in Germany by a German mine.

05:07 Johannes had thought him one of the best clarinet players he had ever heard.

05:13 [Music]

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07:04 [MUSIC]

At the Fountainhead (of German Strength) | movie | 1980 | Official Clip

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