Segment from Československý zvukový týdeník Aktualita (Czechoslovak Aktualita Sound Newsreel) 1942, issue no. 17, captures the presentation of a gift Ï Ambulance Train no. 751 Ï from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Adolf Hitler and the German army. The train handover took place at Prague Main Railway Station on 20 April 1942, the birthday of Adolf Hitler. Cars arrive in front of Prague Main Railway Station. Acting Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich enters the train station. State President Emil Hácha gives a speech in the festively decorated railway hall. In response, Heydrich shakes his hand. The event is witnessed by a delegation of railway workers. The train crew lines up on the station platform. Heydrich enters the train with his entourage and inspects the sleeping cars, the operating carriage, the kitchen, and the sick bay. The inspection of the ambulance train is attended by Protectorate Prime Minister Jaroslav Krejčí and Minister of Education and People´s Enlightenment Emanuel Moravec. According to the voiceover, the train was made in a railway workshop in Prague-Bubny in record time. It consisted of 28 carriages and 20 hospital carriages, was 410 metres long, weighed 545 tons and had capacity for 280 wounded.
Polar explorer František Běhounek and the pioneer of stratospheric flights Professor August Piccard in front of the Main Railway Station in Prague in October 1931.
Segment from Czechoslovak Aktualita Sound Newsreel 1942, issue no. 24, captures the memorial ceremony for Acting Reich Protector Heydrich held in Prague on 7Ï8 June. The camera follows a night-time funeral procession across Charles Bridge. SS officers carry the coffin draped in the Nazi flag. The procession is illuminated with burning torches. The following footage shows a bier with Heydrich´s coffin in the first quadrangle of Prague Castle. The surroundings are decorated with eternal flames, Nazi flags and SS flags. A view of Heydrich´s military decorations and the guard of honour, made up of SS soldiers. The ceremony at Prague Castle continues with a speech by the newly appointed Acting Reich Protector Daluege (silent). The event is attended by Reichsführer of the SS Himmler, State President Hácha, and members of the Protectorate Government. The funeral procession with the coffin, organised as a military parade, moves along Mostecká Street in Prague´s Lesser Town. The procession includes members of the Protectorate Government and continues across Charles Bridge, along Smetana Quay, National Avenue, and through the Wenceslas Square towards Prague Main Railway Station, where the coffin is loaded onto a train. The segment concludes with the train departing for Berlin.
Unedited film footage captures events taking place in the streets of Prague in October 1918 during the first weeks of Czechoslovakia´s independence. A public manifestation takes place in front of the building of the Czech Escompt Bank (Böhmische Escompte-Bank). A demonstration of Czech soldiers, dressed in the uniforms of the Austro-Hungarian army, is held on Old Town Square. Prime Minister Karel Kramář gets out of an arriving car. The gathering is attended by politicians Václav Klofáč and František Udržal. Gustav Habrman and Josef Scheiner speak by the Jan Hus Memorial. A shot of Karel Kramář, Gustav Habrman and Václav Klofáč in a train window at the Main Railway Station after their return from negotiations in Geneva on 4 November 1918. Czechoslovak soldiers in Austro-Hungarian uniforms march in a parade through Wenceslaus Square, which is decorated with Czech flags and the flags of the victorious states. A shot of a railway carriage with patriotic signs. A postcard with anti-Austrian caricatures. People in the parade carry the remnants of the Austrian coat of arms. Footage of the arrival of President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in Prague on 21 December. The train pulls into the Main Railway Station. President Masaryk, accompanied by František Tomášek, departs in an open car and then transfers to a carriage on Old Town Square.
Unedited film footage taken in Prague in 1918 during the first months of Czechoslovakia´s independence. Soldiers march across Svatopluk Čech Bridge. A festive parade on Old Town Square. Crowds cheering at the Main Railway Station. A gathering by the statue of St Wenceslaus in the upper part of Wenceslaus Square is attended by Dr. Josef Scheiner. A military oath ceremony of officers and a military parade on Old Town Square on 8 November. Josef Svatopluk Machar in front of the building of the Provincial War Office in Sněmovní Street in Lesser Town. The event is attended by politicians František Staněk, Václav Klofáč and Karel Kramář, who returned from Geneva on 4 November. Karel Kramář and Gustav Habrmann, followed by Václav Klofáč and František Staněk, speak from a train window. Footage from the arrival of President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk at the Main Railway Station. General Otakar Husák is also present. Distribution of weapons to members of the new military forces at the Military Headquarters on Slavonic Island. A military oath attended by František Staněk and Antonín Kalina. The return of soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army. Large parades along Wenceslaus Square and Old Town Square.
The segment of Československý zvukový týdeník Aktualita (Czechoslovak Aktualita Sound Newsreel), 1937, issue no. 52 reports on the visit of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Yvon Delbos to Prague on 15 December 1937. Yvon Delbos is shown meeting with President Edvard Beneš, and also at a banquet in Czernin Palace with Prime Minister Milan Hodža, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamil Krofta, the Chairman of the Senate František Soukup, and the Chairman of the Parliament Jan Malypetr. The footage closes with the departure of Yvon Delbos from Wilson Station as he says good-bye to the people of Prague