Editing War film (section)

=== Made by Axis powers ===
{{further|Nazi propaganda|Japanese propaganda during World War II}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-1990-1002-500, Besuch von Hitler und Goebbels bei der UFA.jpg|thumb|left|[[Hitler]] and [[Joseph Goebbels|Goebbels]] visiting [[Universum Film AG]] in 1935. The studio made propaganda films such as ''[[Triumph des Willens]]'' (1935) and ''[[Kolberg (film)|Kolberg]]'' (1945).]]

The [[Axis powers]] similarly made films during the Second World War, for propaganda and other purposes. In Germany, the [[Oberkommando des Heeres|army high command]] brought out ''[[Sieg im Westen]]'' ("Victory in the West", 1941).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Herzstein |first1=Robert E | title=The War that Hitler Won |date=1979 | publisher=Hamish Hamilton |isbn=0-399-11845-4 |page=281}}</ref> Other Nazi propaganda films had varied subjects, as with ''[[Kolberg (film)|Kolberg]]'' (1945), which depicts stubborn [[Prussia]]n resistance in the [[Siege of Kolberg (1807)]] to the invading French troops under [[Napoleon]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Kolberg |url=http://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/kolberg_ea43d4a739775006e03053d50b37753d |publisher=FilmPortal.de |access-date=13 March 2015}}</ref> The propaganda minister [[Joseph Goebbels]] chose the historical subject as suitable for the worsening situation facing Nazi Germany when it was filmed from October 1943 to August 1944. At over eight million marks, using thousands of soldiers as extras and 100 railway wagonloads of salt to simulate snow, it was the most costly German film made during the war. The actual siege ended with the surrender of the town; in the film, the French generals abandon the siege.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Leiser |first1=Erwin |title=Nazi Cinema |url=https://archive.org/details/nazicinema0000leis |url-access=registration |date=1974 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=0-02-570230-0 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/nazicinema0000leis/page/122 122–129]}}</ref>

For Japan, the war began with the [[Second Sino-Japanese War|undeclared war and invasion of China in 1937]], which the Japanese authorities called "The China Incident". The government dispatched a "pen brigade" to write and film the action in China with "humanist values". [[Tomotaka Tasaka]]'s ''[[Mud and Soldiers]]'' (1939) for instance, shot on location in China, [[Kōzaburō Yoshimura]]'s ''[[Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi]]'', and [[Sato Takeshi]]'s ''[[Chocolate and Soldiers]]'' (1938) show the common Japanese soldier as an individual and as a family man, and even enemy Chinese soldiers are presented as individuals, sometimes fighting bravely.<ref>{{Cite book |last=High  |first=Peter B  |year=2003 |title=The Imperial Screen: Japanese Film Culture in the Fifteen Years' War, 1931–1945 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press| location=Madison |isbn=0-299-18130-8 }} esp. Ch. 5 [https://books.google.com/books?id=6XiA9DOuvjAC War Dramas in the China Incident]</ref> <!-- [[File:Tank Commander Nishizumi Film Poster.jpg|thumb|left|''Tank Commander Nishizumi'' (Indonesian and Japanese)]] -->Once war with the United States was declared, the Japanese conflict became known as the [[Pacific War]]. Japanese film critics worried that even with Western film techniques, their film output failed to represent native Japanese values.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Calichman |first=Richard  |year=2008 |title=Overcoming Modernity: Cultural Identity in Wartime Japan |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-14396-7 | page=174 |quote=Even though Japanese film techniques were basically learned from American and Soviet films, most of what has been expressed through these techniques has been fake, showing neither real Japanese customs nor the Japanese heart.}}</ref> The historian [[John W. Dower|John Dower]] found that Japanese wartime films had been largely forgotten, as "losers do not get reruns", yet they were so subtle and skilful that Frank Capra thought ''Chocolate and Soldiers'' unbeatable. Heroes were typically low-ranking officers, not [[samurai]], calmly devoted to his men and his country.{{sfn|Dower|1993|p=48}} These films did not personalise the enemy and therefore lacked hatred, though Great Britain could figure as the "cultural enemy". For Japanese film-makers, war was not a cause but more like a natural disaster, and "what mattered was not whom one fought but how well". Asian enemies, especially the Chinese, were often portrayed as redeemable and even possible marriage partners. Japanese wartime films do not glorify war, but present the Japanese state as one great family and the Japanese people as an "innocent, suffering, self-sacrificing people". Dower comments that the perversity of this image "is obvious: it is devoid of any recognition that, at every level, the Japanese also victimized others."{{sfn|Dower|1993|p=49}}