The film was produced by the US Army Signal Corps. It was criticized by one commentator as a "bitter and angry anti-German propaganda film" that characterized the post-war German mind as "diseased".[2]
The film urged against fraternization with the German people, who are portrayed as thoroughly untrustworthy. It reminds its viewers of Germany's history of aggression, under "Fuehrer Number 1" Otto von Bismarck, "Fuehrer Number 2" Kaiser Wilhelm II and "Fuehrer Number 3" Adolf Hitler. It argues that the German youth are especially dangerous because they had spent their entire lives under the Nazi regime.
The policy of non-fraternisation – where US soldiers were forbidden to speak even to small children – was first announced to the soldiers in the film:
The Nazi party may be gone, but Nazi thinking, Nazi training and Nazi trickery remains. The German lust for conquest is not dead. ... You will not argue with them. You will not be friendly. ... There will be no fraternization with any of the German people.[3]
The basic theme that the German people could not be trusted derived from the peace policy that emerged from the Second Quebec Conference.[3]
The movie was first screened to the top US generals, including Dwight D. Eisenhower. George Patton reportedly walked out of the screening he attended, saying "Bullshit!"[3]
Numerous sentences from the film's narration are incorporated verbatim as lyrics in the single "Don't Argue" by Cabaret Voltaire from their album Code.[5]
