In Toni’s Footsteps Film
It all started when we found Toni’s book…
An English fireman’s training manual, published shortly before the Second World War, covered in German writing and cartoon sketches. This was the first clue that would send us on the trail of Anton ‘Toni’ Kumpel – a trail that takes us from the Rhineland, to the Channel Islands and then on into Russia.
In Toni’s Footsteps records the events of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands in a modern and stylistic manner.
Using every possible resource available to us from that period- interviews, photos, film footage, artefacts, diaries and more- the story is broken down into social terms, and the wider context of the Occupation in a world at war is analysed.
Linear narrative approaches of previous films that looked at this period of history have therefore been cast off to create an interesting, historically accurate portrayal of a most unusual period of the war.
With research beginning back in August 2000 In Toni’s Footsteps was two years in the making, an extremely personal project from two passionate young filmmakers. Beginning with money raised through private investors in the Channel Islands, the film grew into a major production taking in Germany, the UK and the Channel Islands. Shot in high quality digital widescreen and edited and mixed in professional studios in London and Manchester, In Toni’s Footsteps was the debut professional project from multimedia company High Tide Productions.
Toni Kumpel: So who was Toni Kumpel?
Toni was a young engineer in the German Whermacht’s 319 Division with a unique story – a story with two deeply contrasting chapters.
Posted to Guernsey in the Channel Islands, Toni was part of a unique society. The Channel Islands were the only British territories to be occupied by German forces. The Islands were of little strategic importance, and their capture held only a propaganda value. Subsequently, they were seen by many German soldiers as an easy posting – a holiday from the fighting on the fronts. However, as the Occupation drew on, the conditions in the Islands grew worse. Severe shortages of food and materials, the arrival of hard-line Nazi officials, and news from the battle-lines of Europe all took their toll upon the morale of Islanders and Germans alike. Toni never saw the later years in the islands. Toni was re-posted in late 1942, from the social battle of the occupation directly into the heat of battle on the Eastern Front. There, the trail, and Toni’s war ends.
Watch extracts from the film or purchase the film on VHS or DVD
