Nuremberg: War Crimes Trial (IMT) - Soviet compilation
Creator(s)
- Jelizaveta Svilova (Director)
- Sovexportfilm
- Central Studio for Documentary Film, Moscow (Producer)
- Roman Karmen (Director)
- M. Eminow (Producer)
Biographical History
Roman Karmen was born in 1906 in Odessa. He enrolled in the Gerasimov Institute for of Cinematography in Moscow in 1929. Throughout the 1930s, Karmen worked at the Central Studio of Documentary Film and as a correspondent for Soviet newspapers. He covered the Civil War in Spain in 1936-39. During World War II, Karmen was present on the front lines, documenting the Leningrad blockade, the surrender of German field marshal Friedrich Paulus in Volgograd, and the liberation of the Majdanek concentration camp in Lublin. Karmen made the film "The Judgment of the Peoples" about the Nuremberg trials. Karmen later filmed in Vietnam, India, and South America. The Soviet Union awarded Karmen the Lenin Prize, the highest Soviet honor, for his 1953 film "Story of the Capsian Oil Workers." Karmen died in 1978 in Moscow.
Scope and Content
Russian film produced by the Central Studio of Documentary Films in Moscow about the War Crimes Trial (IMT) in Nuremberg. Reel 4 begins with archival footage of Warsaw bombardment: Goering pointing to a map, quickly cutting to an aerial LS of a descending German plane cuts to an aerial shot depicting bombs dropping past lens. CU Goering in courtroom. Montage of archival footage depicting German soldiers entering Paris, often smiling at the camera intercut with MS of French prosecutor addressing court. MS British Prosecutor Hartley Shawcross. Montage of footage of German U-boats under Doenitz's command attacking merchant vessels, etc. CUs of torpedos loaded and launched. MS of Doenitz evaluating line of boat crew. MS of Soviet Prosecutor Gen. Rudenko addressing court (original sound), intercut with CUs of Keitel and Jodl. ECU of "Barbarrossa" document, detailing plan to attack USSR. ECU signatures of Hitler, Jodl, Keitel. Map animation of German eastward invasion plan. Archival MS of Hitler et al examining map. CU of hands on map gesturing invasive moves. Montage of Lenin, Moscow, Kiev: soldiers running, TSs of German planes, stukas, and bombs dropping, burning Belarussian village. CU Rosenberg in court (5:04). ECU Invasion of Russia plan signed by Rosenberg. Archival LS of Rosenberg speaking with officers. MS Rosenberg at desk, speaking for camera. CU Keitel in court. TLS through barbed wire of Himmler at concentration camp near Minsk. LS Himmler inspecting lineup of concentration camp prisoners. Montage of footage of prewar Minsk: views of crowded streets, various shots of smiling young women and girls in festivals. MCU Sauckel in court. MCU Alexandrov, USSR prosecutor, questioning Sauckel. LS Sauckel speaking on witness stand. Archival footage of Sauckel with Nazi officers arriving in Belarus by plane. Montage of Belarussians rounded up for loading into cattle cars (7:50). Deportations? LTS masses of people (refugees, captives, forced laborers) moving at gunpoint, including long line of Transnistrian Jews and Roma on the march. Courtroom coverage, CU of Soviet prosecutor Sheinin addressing court. Top down MS Goering. Archival footage of trains loaded with plundered resources intercut with CUs of coal, grain, livestock, etc onto German railcars; marking "Deutsche Reichsbahn Kassel". Reel 5 (10:26) begins with MCU of Soviet Chief prosecutor Rudenko questioning Goering. ECU of German document concerning destruction of Leningrad. ECU of Jodl signature juxtaposed with MS Jodl in court. MS British prosecutor David Maxwell-Fyfe. Archival footage of Hitler and Jodl examining map. Montage with scenes of siege of Leningrad, suffering in frozen streets: LS injured man pulled down street on sled, LS man limping along snowy riverbank. MS Goering in court. MS Soviet prosecutor Roginsky addressing court (12:51). Footage depicting pre and post-war shots of Hermitage façade, Grand Cascade and Samson Fountain at Peterhof. Aerial tracking shots of devastated Soviet cities in ruins. German newsreel footage of demolition, exploding Soviet factories, hospitals, etc, intercut with CUs of explosives being set. MCU of grinning German soldier cuts to Goering speaking to troops cuts to CU of two corpses of children. CU of Goering in court. Montage of Goering's factories and estate, MTS Goering walking in leisure clothes. MCU Soviet prosecutor Col. Pedrovsky (15:13). LS bench of accused intercut with archival shots of corpse-filled ravine (Katyn?). Montage of closely viewed dead: women, children, infants, civilians, groups of men piled on pyres. MCU Rudenko, very authoritative and looking defendents in the eye with intensity as he speaks. LS of Keitel on witness stand being addressed. ECU of document calling for extermination of thousands of POWs. ECU Keitel signature. Montage footage of death camps/execution facilities (17:31) at Majdanek and Auschwitz as they were liberated, CUs victims' ID papers, CUs/TSs crematoriums. Footage of piles of nude corpses. CU piles of victims' hair, cut to piles of bundles of hair to be sent to Germany. ECU marked bundle. CU table covered in pliers, cut to CU table covered in teeth. Shots of bank vaults, Reichsbank bags, CU of hand sifting through box of gold teeth. Intercut with sober closeups of defendants with grim looks. CU of hands displaying ropes of rings belonging to victims. Series of CUs depicting naked corpses juxtaposed with CUs of soap made from victims. LS of Soviet prosecutor Smirnov presenting to the court evidence/specimens in jars. LS of courtroom exhibit showing harvested and processed human skin. Courtroom coverage. Reel 6 (20:54) begins with a series of MCUs depicting prosecutors writing concluding statements. LS of judges. MCUs of American, British, French prosecutors giving statements. MCU Soviet Prosecutor Rudenko delivering his summation at length (original sound) intercut with courtroom scenes. Court adjourning. Numbers of months, documents, etc. mentioned over empty courtroom. MS of guard standing beside door reading: Judges Room/In Session. CU judges filing past lens into court with verdict. MCU Lord Justice Lawrence reading allowed. Series of quick CUs of individuals as they are sentenced to death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Rosenberg, Kaltenbrunner, Jodl, Frank, Frick, Sauckel, Streicher, Seyss-Inquart. CUs of those given life sentence: Hess, Funk, Raeder. CUs of those sentenced to twenty years: Schirach, Speer. CU of Neurath, sentenced to fifteen years. CU of Doenitz, sentenced to ten years. CUs of those acquitted: Schacht, Von Papen. LS of Nikitchenko speaking. The sentenced being escorted from courtroom. LS from above of Nuremberg prison cells and yard intercut with ECU of Execution Act document. (26:07) Series of MCUs of corpses of those sentenced to death, bodies one by one, with noose next to each one. Coverage shots of prison. TSs of war-ravaged Soviet landscapes cut to growing wheat fields and LS of children in meadow. CUs of children's faces. (27:20) CU of drum roll cut to CU of swastika being drawn on door with chalk. Montage of postwar Germany, including Adenauer and Erhardt, decorated German soldiers, moving troops of veterans, intercut with shot of swastika painted on wall. CU of Strauss speaking at podium during political rally. CUs American missiles being moved. TS of burning villages. Footage of Hans Speidel exiting government building and saluting. Shots of Adolf Heusinger at Pentagon. Still of Helmut Oberlander. Tracking shot from concentration camp footage: line of prisoners behind wire. Various close shots of monument to the dead intercut with footage of camps and a pile of corpses. ECU statue's hand. CUs women speaking before crowds of Soviets. Large political rally for German Democratic Republic. MCU tracking shot across row of generic faces.
Note(s)
See Film ID 214 for the first half of this film. There are no burn-in time codes on the VHS user copy.
Subjects
- RUDENKO, ROMAN A.
- PAPEN, FRANZ VON
- WOUNDED
- WAR CRIMINALS/WAR CRIMES TRIALS
- TRIALS
- TRANSLATORS
- STREICHER, JULIUS
- SS (SCHUTZSTAFFEL)
- SPEER, ALBERT
- SPEECHES
- SOVIETS
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (GERMAN)
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (ALLIES)
- SEYSS-INQUART, ARTHUR
- SCHACHT, HJALMAR
- SAUCKEL, FRITZ
- SA (STURMABTEILUNG)
- RUINS
- ROSENBERG, ALFRED
- RIBBENTROP, JOACHIM VON
- RAEDER, ERICH
- PROSECUTORS
- PRISONS
- PRESS
- POLAND
- NUREMBERG RALLIES
- NUREMBERG (INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL)
- NEURATH, CONSTANTIN VON
- NAZI PARTY
- NAZI OFFICIALS
- MAXWELL-FYFE, DAVID
- MARCHING
- MAPS
- MAJDANEK
- LIBERATION
- LAWRENCE, GEOFFREY
- KRUPP VON BOHLEN, GUSTAV
- KEITEL, WILHELM
- KALTENBRUNNER, ERNST
- JUDGES
- JODL, ALFRED
- JACKSON, ROBERT
- HITLER, ADOLF
- HESS, RUDOLF
- GOERING, HERMANN
- HITLER YOUTH
- GERMANY
- GERMANS
- FUNK, WALTHER
- FRITZSCHE, HANS
- FRICK, WILHELM
- FRANK, HANS
- DOENITZ, KARL
- DOCUMENTS
- DESTRUCTION
- CZECHOSLOVAKIA
- CROWDS
- COURTS/COURTROOMS
- BOOK BURNINGS
- BIDDLE, FRANCIS
- BABI YAR
- CORPSES
- AUSCHWITZ
- AIRPLANES
Places
- Warsaw, Poland
- Kyiv (Kiev), Soviet Union
- Moscow, Soviet Union
- , Belarus
- , Germany
- Auschwitz, Poland
- Majdanek, Poland
- Leningrad, Soviet Union
- Minsk, Soviet Union
- Paris, France
- Nuremberg, Germany
Genre
- Documentary.
- Film