This is followed by shots of missing persons noticeboards and posters with the information that 30 million Germans – almost half the population – are still looking for lost relatives and friends.

The military authorities are shown mobilising civilians to begin the task of cleaning up and rebuilding, and it is explained that the aim is to prevent not only starvation and epidemics, but also "diseases of the mind", i.e. "new brands of Fascism".

Civilian railway travel on what survives of the network is only possible with a permit issued by the military authorities, but the volume of passengers still overwhelms the capacity.

A train is seen leaving Hamburg for Kiel with dozens of people riding the buffers or hanging on the outside, ignoring loudhailer announcements that this is forbidden.

Survey teams from the Red Cross carry out tests on health to check whether the rations are adequate to keep people fit enough to work.

The Krupp family industrial dynasty is singled out for mention as "just as responsible for killing Allied soldiers as Hitler and Göring".

The film ends with images of children dancing in a ring accompanied by the statement that the Allies will remain until they can be sure that the next generation will represent "a Germany of light and life and freedom...truth, tolerance and justice".

The film was one of the first to show the consequences of World War II for ordinary German civilians, made at a time when the prevailing attitude towards them in the Allied nations was still of hostility and suspicion, alongside a desire for retribution and a sense that they were now justly reaping what they had sown and deserved every hardship that had come their way.

Jennings acknowledged this in the film, while also trying maintain a neutral, non-punitive tone to highlight that attempts by the Allies to rebuild post-war Germany were vital to minimise the risk of future conflict.

There are some points in the narrative which overtly state that Germany as a nation must accept collective guilt for the outcome of a war they started; the images however show people as individuals and offer a measure of sympathy for their situation and hope for a better future.

The British Moving Picture Archive suggests that here Jennings as a director shows an "interest in, and concern for, common humanity (which) cannot be repressed even in such a context".

(News Chronicle); "A grim panorama of destruction and ruin, of shattered industries, of tattered people living in cellars and searching for lost relatives."

The main shortcoming of the film was cited as its brevity (18 minutes), meaning that it could only skim over the surface of the complex and intractable issues involved.

The Sunday Times too felt that in such a short running-time "the attempt to cover...the whole task of the Military Government in the British zone is hopeless".