German Concentration Camps Factual Survey

The complete cut of an ambitious postwar documentary about Germany’s concentration camps – for years shelved, now restored by the Imperial War Museum.


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  • Director of Restoration Toby Haggith
  • Producer Sidney L Bernstein
  • Screenwriter Colin Wills, Richard Crossman
  • With the voice of Jasper Britton
  • UK 1945/2014
  • 72 mins
  • UK distribution Imperial War Museum

In 1944 and ’45, cameramen documented the horrors discovered following the liberation of the concentration camps. So powerful and damning was the footage that propagandists quickly determined that it should be made into a documentary to screen after the war, which would condemn the Nazi regime and shame the German people into acceptance of the Allied occupation. At the Ministry of Information in London, Sidney Bernstein assembled an expert team that included Alfred Hitchcock, who worked as treatment adviser. By September 1945, British priorities for Germany had evolved from de-Nazification to reconstruction and so the film was shelved, unfinished. Following the original filmmakers’ directions and drawing on seventeen hours of rushes, the Imperial War Museum has now restored and completed this film.

Toby Haggith

The Imperial War Museum team will discuss this work after the screening.

Photo credits
Sidney Bernstein (left) the Producer of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, on a visit to North Africa in 1943. Next to Bernstein is Lt Cdr Anthony Kimmins (Admiralty Public Relations) and Major Hugh Stewart (Commander of the British Army Film and Photographic Units in North Africa and North West Europe). Bernstein was head of the Liberated Territories Section, Films Division in the British Ministry of Information. Note also, it was Major Stewart who ordered that the AFPU cameramen should provide full coverage of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation. © Imperial War Museums (HU 38069).

Army Film and Photographic Unit cameraman Sergeant Mike Lewis, filming at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 24 April 1945. His footage appears in German Concentration Camps Factual Survey. © Imperial War Museums (IWM FLM 1232).

The still of the children smiling behind the fence is captioned in the shot sheet as, ‘Smiling children through barbed wire.’ Still from footage shot by Sergeant Lewis or Sergeant Lawrie, 18-20 April 1945. © Imperial War Museums (IWM FLM 1467).

The still of the distressed young woman watching a burial at Belsen, is described in the shot sheet as, ‘Reaction of girl.’ Sergeant Lewis, 17 April 1945. © Imperial War Museums (IWM FLM 1002).

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