"On the Firing Line with the Germans" Film Annotations (2017)

The Chicago Daily News and its Berlin correspondent Oswald F. Schuette clearly were associated with
the Durborough film project. The owner and editor of the paper, Victor F. Lawson, subscribed with the
War Film Syndicate for rights to presenting the film’s initial three weeks in Chicago. He viewed it as an
image building effort and pledged all proceeds from this and his paper’s simultaneous presentation in
another theater of balancing a French archive war film to the Red Cross. It’s very possible Lawson was
approached by the local War Film Syndicate before Durborough left Chicago. If not, he certainly learned
of the opportunity during Schuette’s brief trip back to the States in July 1915. Lawson also acquired
state's rights for several Midwest states where this film was advertised as made “in conjunction with
Oswald F. Schuette, Chicago Daily News Correspondent”. The film has four scenes with Schuette, two
with intertitles identifying him by name including one with him helping to repair Durborough’s Stutz:
“The American camp. Mr. Schuette of the Chicago Daily News, is some mechanic as well as one of the
best newspapermen I have ever met.”
While Schuette certainly was part of the group that Germany allowed to go to the eastern front along
with Durborough, and while he sent dispatches to the Daily News on a regular basis, he never
mentioned Durborough by name in any of them. However Schuette was well regarded by the German
authorities and in a few cases he successfully interceded behind the scenes on behalf of other
Americans in Berlin for permissions or accesses initially denied them by persuasively explaining the
German self-interest in doing so. Durborough, who was quoted upon returning as saying “[Schuette’s]
friendship was valuable to me in my task of getting real war pictures” 2 , appears to have benefited from
his help because he was able to photograph a number of human interest stories in Berlin, in spite of the
ban on shooting on the streets of Berlin without police permission. In fact, it is a disguised godsend for
Durborough that at the time, there was a discussion, or rather a feud, between the German Foreign
Office and the German Army. While the Foreign Office was extremely interested in inviting neutral
observers and journalists, such as Durborough and Schuette, to view and report on Germany at war, the
German Army was not. As far as the Army was concerned the press, and especially the foreign press,
photographers and cinematographers both, were a nuisance and probably a pack of spies. The result
was that it was extremely difficult for the photographers and journalists to get a pass to visit any military
front whatsoever, and so they spent a lot of time at the Adlon bar and tea rooms, cooling their heels. In
addition there was even a ban on photographing in the streets of Berlin without the express permission
of the Police Commissioner, which Durborough seemed to evade totally. They all complained, but
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