The Somme

Directed by Heinz Paul

The Somme (also: The Tomb of the Millions) is the title of a silent documentary drama that Heinz Paul realized in 1930 for the Cando-Film Berlin based on his own script. Paul supplemented scenes with German actors with documentary footage from archive material of German, French and English origin. - Twelve years after the end of the First World War, Heinz Paul records the battle of the Somme in 1916 with original recordings, with over one million dead, the most lossy battle of the war. The archive images are supplemented by game scenes of a German mother who loses her three sons and by trailing front scenes. The Battle of the Somme, in which Allied troops bombarded the German front line, resulted in a months-long war of position. In documentary style, the film shows scenes of the most devastating battle of the First World War. It is narrated from the perspective of a mother who loses her three sons in battle.