Censoring films in Düsseldorf during the First World War

During the First World War, the town of Düsseldorf, with its rapidly expanding local cinema industry, became the headquarters of military film censorship in the west of Germany. Unique documents held by the municipal archive show the practical side of this laborious work as well as the close collaboration between army and film industry. Before 1914, the German military were hardly interested in cinema. This changed radically during wartime, which (among other reasons) may be a consequence of some high-ranking generals' personal experience of what a serious lack of motion picture prints meant for the morale of the population.