West Germany: Industrial Giant

[Music] check the focus of your projector lens this test pattern should appear sharp and clear at the center as well as in all four corners of the screen control so that the sound can be heard in all parts of the room immediately following this announcement you will see a Flash and hear a beep these should happen at the same time if you heard the beep before you saw the flash make the bottom Loop longer if you heard the beep after you saw the flash make the bottom Loop shorter if your projector is set let's try it again your film is now ready to be shown [Music] Carl Wilhelm lives in the city of duburg on the RAR River in West Germany from the riverbank he can watch barges and ships which haul the endless stream of raw materials and Machinery that help to make West Germany an industrial Giant on the north side of the river for as far as he can see the shore is crowded with factories steel mills and Rail Yards the air is heavy with smoke and rings with the sounds of Industry this is a dynamic exciting place for young Carl to live and there are special benefits to make up for the unpleasant smoke and noise of the factories Carl's father a steel worker makes high wages so the family can afford to live in a handsome modern apartment building the shopping centers and stores of duburg and the other nearby industrial cities are well stocked with fine clothing and furniture the families of most Factory workers can afford to buy television sets washing machines and modern refrigerators Carl Wilhelm will probably have a bright future because this is a land of great opportunity for workers and businessmen its factories and Mills are among the busiest and most prosperous in the world how has West Germany become such an important industrial giant to answer that question we must understand something of the character of the people and the country in which they live Germany is located near the center of Europe it is a divided country East Germany has become a communist satellite West Germany or the Federal Republic of Germany is free and self-governed although West Germany is considerably smaller in area than the state of Montana it is the home of 57 million people and is therefore the most populous nation in Europe the northern third of the country is a broad plane more than 100 miles wide moving Southward the plane gives way to the Hills and Valleys of the central Uplands culminating in the Bavarian Alps to the South these spectacular mountains attract millions of foreign visitors each year and German vacationers find the quiet Spa of tourist Resorts a pleasant contrast to the of their Smoke Filled industrial cities to the [Music] north Southern Germany is Storybook Germany a land of medieval [Music] cities ancient Bavarian castles and and the legendary slopes of the Black [Music] Forest the highlands in the Southern and central part of the country are intensively cultivated with grain and vegetables this Farm family is harvesting hay to feed their cattle during the winter months their livestock is important because most of the family's income is earned from dairy products everyone in the family must help in the fields at Harvest time because the Farms are very small none of the hay or grain can be wasted even the slopes are used because there is a shortage of Farmland in West Germany the farmhouses in the highlands are often a combination of barn and house in Winter the cattle are kept inside on the ground floor while the family lives upstairs here in the there are also many small handcraft Industries one of them is a violin maker shop in [Music] Mitten I am an apprentice violin maker the making of fine musical instruments is an exacting craft it will take years for me to learn to make a violin that I can be truly proud of but we take great pride in doing a job well we apprentices are taught our trade by Master Craftsman they will settle for nothing less than Perfection it is not surprising that we fashion musical instruments here for my country has a great heritage of Music this is the land of the Masters Bak bethoven prams handle Melone Barner and many others most Germans still love music of all kinds in Munich Southern Germany's largest City po bands can be heard daily at the famous beer gardens some of the breweries in this ancient city have been making beer for more than 700 years Munich's university is attended by 30,000 students this city is also the home of several ornate theaters and churches famed for their roko style of architecture its technical museum is the largest in the world tracing Germany's long history of technical skills which are more evident than ever in Munich's modern factories the motion picture cameras built in this Factory are renowned for their fine Optical systems and precision workmanship other important manufacturing centers are located to the west of Munich in the Ry Valley the river Ry rises in the Alps and flows northward along the western edge of Germany wherever a tributary joins the Ry bustling trade and Manufacturing cities have developed Manheim mes coblence and B the Ry is the most important river in all Europe and one of the most beautiful between MZ and coent the banks of the r are green with grap Vines first introduced hundreds of years ago by the Romans today the Rin wines made from these grapes are a valuable export imposing fortresses Overlook the river at many points built in medieval days to collect tolls from passing boats although the Rind has a long and colorful history of nights in armor fairy tales and legends its real importance to Germany has always been as an artery of trade one of the best known cities served by the barges of the Rind is bar the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany the chief Executives of the government reside in this city and the Parliament meets here in the bundas [Music] house outside Bond the Steep banks of the Rind flatten into broad plains as the river moves North to merge with the rure river here is perhaps the greatest single concentration of heavy industry in the world this Factory complex stretches for 30 m along the North Shore of the ru from duburg where the Ry and rure join East through Essen buckham and Dortmund 11 million people live and work in the Valley of the r West Germany is one of the most highly industrialized nations on Earth the focal point of its industry is the RAR Basin here mines Mills and factories produce $25 billion worth of goods a year how did this small section of the country develop into such an industrial giant manufacturing first developed here because of the water power from the RAR River but the area really expanded when coal deposits were found the rur coal fields are the biggest and most important in Western Europe with modern methods the miners are now able to extract 400,000 tons of coal a day from these mines and there are reserves enough to last for another 400 years although coal is the basis for some of the largest Roar Industries it now faces stiff competition from imported oil and other pet rum products the chemical industry has always depended on coal as both of fuel and a raw material because Germany lacks a wide variety of Natural Resources the country is rich in salt coal and potach from these limited resources West Germany has built the largest chemical manufacturing industry in the world outside of the United States much of the credit for this success must be given to the scientists they have pioneered chemical research ever since the Berlin Academy of Science was formed 250 years ago this chemist employed by a large company in the rure valley continues the work as research director my job is to find new and better ways to use the few materials we have in abundance we've discovered much already from Cole and colar we have learned to produce synthetic rubber in fact we invented synthetic Rubber and in our Laboratories we have found methods of using colar manufacturing Plastics synthetic textiles liquid fuels and dyes my company alone makes 3500 different dyes out of cold tar we even use colar in making aspirin and other Pharmaceuticals the fertilizer and other products that we make from potes are exported all over the world from Salt we make bleaches and acids the chemical business is important to us in fact next to products made of steel chemicals are our most valuable export because of the Blazing furnaces of its Iron and Steel Mills the rur valley has been called The Forge of West Germany these steel Works in Essen and the other rur cities have made West Germany the biggest steel producer in Western Europe although West Germany has excellent supplies of P coal and trained Steel Workers it lacks big deposits of iron ore a basic ingredient in steel making so it must import iron ore from other countries in return it exports cing coal for use in the foreign steel mills much of the roar's raw steel is turned into finished products at nearby factories this locomotive plant is typical of a heavy Roar industry one modern locomotive may require 150,000 lb of Steel but finished products such as locomotives and trucks can be sold overseas for far more than the steel used in them and the West German manufacturers find that foreigners are eager to buy their well-made steel products another big user of rwer Steel is the automobile industry this new Automobile Plant in bam is partly owned by Americans many of the automobiles manufactured in West Germany can be sold locally because the people have the money to buy such products West Germany also has good transportation systems for moving manufactured goods to the other countries on the continent long Caravans of trucks stream in and out of the RAR on a network of super highways called autobond that link all of the nation's major city every day more than 4,000 trains Rumble across the RAR Basin shuttling goods and passengers from City to city but for moving the sheer bulk of products and materials of the R's Industries the Ry river is unsurpassed 40,000 barges and ships of many nations move up and down the run with loads of coal iron ore oil grain Timber potach and steel products [Music] [Applause] [Music] the city of deburg at the junction of the Ry and theu is the busiest Inland port in all [Applause] Europe from duburg the Rind swings Northwest carrying the barges into the huge International sea port of rdam in the Netherlands canals and rivers link the RAR with West Germany's own sea ports bramer hav and Hamburg Hamburg with a population approaching 2 million is the country's second largest city as many as 20,000 ships call at Hamburg each year picking up caros of finished [Music] products and unloading vast supplies of raw materials and [Music] food food is especially critical because West Germany can't grow enough to feed its 57 million people and must import thousands of tons each year but its valuable exports more than pay for the Imports Hamburg is also the home of some of the nation's largest shipyards with her great supply of Steel and skilled workers West Germany now ranks second only to Japan as the largest ship builder in the world many of these giant vessels are sold to the developing nations of Africa and South America the land around Hamburg is a flat glaciated plane the one crop that farmers are able to raise in abundance in this sandy soil is potatoes [Music] where the soil is too poor to raise food crops the people have planted trees to supply Lumber and wood P along the northern edge of the central Highlands is a belt of very fertile soil this fine top soil called lur blew down from the north and was trapped at the foot of the hills and mountains here the land yields good harvests there are broad fields of Wheat and barley and Rich vegetable [Music] gardens but even in the heart of West Germany's best Farmland industry dominates the scene for example Wolfsburg a rather small City in the fertile Farm belt is the home of one of the largest companies in the world the biggest automobile manufacturer outside of the United States this company produces nearly a million and a half automobiles each year [Applause] these little cars have become a familiar site in even the most remote areas of the world but just a few miles east of thriving Wolfsburg is the East German border Beyond this border only the Western sector of Berlin remains free Berlin previously the capital of Germany is a divided City East Berlin is controlled by the Communists so the free residents of West Berlin are surrounded by the Iron Curtain only a few jealously guarded corridors connect them with West Germany West Berlin with nearly 2 and A4 million residents is the largest city of West Germany it has been completely rebuilt since the second world war much of its architecture is strikingly modern its free University enrolls students from almost every nation on Earth there are shopping districts rivaling those of New York and Chicago but this city is probably most significant to all the people of West Germany and to the entire world because of the Berlin Wall this concrete and steel barricade is a symbol of the political division of the entire country armed guards Patrol the Eastern side of the wall which was built by communist authorities to prevent people from escaping into the Western sector of the [Music] city here the people continue to prosper as their businesses and factories Thrive and grow West Berlin and indeed all of the Federal Republic of Germany is truly an industrial Giant