The California Reich
Directed by Keith Critchlow and Walter F. Parkes
1975/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube
Fred Surber: Well, the understanding I have on the six million is that… like a lot of people believe is like the Nazis in Germany murdered six million people… and according to the war records I’ve been able to find, pertaining to World War Two, there was something like nearly five million Jews involved, but as far as killing them, they weren’t. Most of them were… I don’t recall exactly what the term is, to concentration camps.
Interviewer: What if it were true? What if the stories were true?
Fred Surber: I’ll tell you the truth, I really wish they were. I’m one of these old fashioned people. I’d really like to go back to the places in Auschwitz and places like that and just roll in the dirt. I really would.
Forget Bergman, this was the most depressing and enraging film experience I have had in years.
There is no narration. The film lets the members of American Nazi Party show us how vile they are out of their own mouths. If you passed any of these folks on the street, you would never know the darkness within. Amazing people can stand to live with that much hate, resentment and entitlement inside them. And to teach little children to be the same!
The focal point of the film is the clash between the ANP and anti-fascist protestors at San Francisco State University in 1975 but most of the film is set in calmer surroundings.
Well 55 minutes was all could take of this stuff. If I want to be depressed and furious I can turn on the TV news.
The California Reich was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.
