In the second half of the 1970s Alfred Kaiser was entirely unknown to the film world when he went public with two films, namely A Third Reich (1975) and A Third Reich from Its Refuse (1977). Both compilation films bridge the threshold between avant-garde and documentary cinema and were enthusiastically received by audiences and film critics alike upon their release. To this day, these two closely related films occupy a place of particular significance in the history of Austrian cinema, not least due to their subject matter and compositional virtuosity.