Allies of World War II

"Surrender of the White Finns" Soviet artist  A. Vladimirov view  of the collapsing Finnish Mannerheim line during Winter war 1940
In the Winter War the Mannerheim Line halted the Soviet advance for two months. The first month of the Finnish campaign was humiliating for the Red Army. By the third week of the war, Soviet propaganda was working hard to explain the failure of the Red Army to the populace, and claimed that the Mannerheim Line was stronger than the Maginot Line.

Surrender!

As an Irishman, I was intrigued to discover that the Nazis made a number of wartime propaganda movies on the theme of Oppressed Irish-versus-Brutal Brits.  We have been doing this gig for about 800 years, so I suppose it is not surprising that Goebbels picked up on it.  This is the poster for one of those movies - "Mein Leben fur Irland" (1941).  I have not been able to find out much about it.  According to one messageboard review (there is one !), a brief synopsis would be that it is about the son of an Irish patriot in some vague early 20th century time of "Troubles" in Ireland who is sent (presumably against Daddy's will) to an English school to learn (presumably, to be force-fed) the "ways of the Stranger".  He apparently gets his own back by leading an Irish Republican revolution in the (English !) school that manages to thwart the English force set to invade Ireland to put down a real Republican uprising.  What any of this has to do with the young lady on the poster, I have no idea.  And I suspect that it has even less to do with actual Irish history than the French cinematic turkey, "Mary of Cork"; also, that it is a lot less amusing than "Darby O'Gill and the Little People".  Nevertheless, there may be something genuinely Irish about it; another messageboard review (yes - there area at least two !) opines that "this is a terrible movie, with wooden actors".  That really does sound like our political system over here ... Best regards, JR.