Nuremberg: Medical Case No. 1 - Trial of Karl Brandt & others

Short film produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive for screening at a medical conference in Berlin on December 9, 1996. Final Edit dated November 21, 1996. Audio Only from RG-60.2210: Roll call over opening title. From RG-60.2376: HAS, courtroom. Audio Only from RG-60.2210: "The secretary will call the roll of the defendants..." [barely audible]. Intertitle. From RG-60.2376: Secretary calls "Karl Brandt". Audio Only from RG-60.2210: Defendants names are called, including Karl Gebhardt, Kurt Blome, Rudolf Brandt, Gerhard Rose, Siegried Ruff, Hans Wolfang Romberg, Victor Brack, and Herta Oberhauser. Over intertitle and still photographs of the Palace of Justice. Image begins at 01:00:42: Karl Brandt, once Hitler's personal doctor, is questioned in the dock and pleads not guilty. 01:00:54 CUs of Karl Brandt (from RG-60.2376). Three other defendants plead not guilty. 01:01:20 Audio Only, Gen. Telford Taylor, Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, begins opening statement for prosecution on December 9, 1946. Over intertitle. Image begins at 01:01:25. Wide shot of bench. MS, Taylor: "...For them, it is far more important that these incredible events be established by clear and public proof so that no one can ever doubt that they were fact and not fable and that this court...as the voice of humanity stamp these acts and the ideas which engendered them as barbarous and criminal...." Audio continues, showing CUs of defendants (from RG-60.2376). MS, Taylor (from RG-60.2210). 01:03:15 From RG-60.2353: Taylor continues opening statement for the prosecution. Views from rear of Taylor addressing the court. Chart showing relations between government and defendants posted on the court screen. 01:04:19 Pan of the dock and their lawyers in front as Taylor indicts particular defendants. 01:05:38 From RG-60.2436: December 9, 1946, Telford Taylor in the opening statement for the prosecution, details high altitude, low pressure experiments at Dachau. Clips of still photographs used as evidence showing victims of high altitude experiments. "The victims who did not die in the course of such experiments, surely wished that they had. A long report written in July 1942 by Rascher, and by the defendants Ruff and Romberg, describes an experiment on a former delicatessen clerk, who was given an oxygen mask and raised in the chamber to an atmospheric elevation of over 47,000 feet, at which point the mask was removed and a parachute descent was simulated. The report describes the victim's reactions-"spasmodic convulsions," "agonal convulsive breathing," "clonic convulsions and groans," "yells aloud," "convulses arms and legs," "grimaces, bites his tongue," "does not respond to speech," "gives the impression of someone who is completely out of his mind."" 01:06:39 From RG-60.2306: December 20, 1946, Jadwiga Dzido, former prisoner, Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp, shows scarred leg. Dr. Leo Alexander explains the medical experiment performed on her at Ravensbrueck. 01:07:21 From RG-60.2429: December 9, 1946, Telford Taylor continues opening statement regarding sterilization experiments. Views of the dock and Taylor delivering from the podium. "In the sterilization experiments conducted by the defendants at Auschwitz, Ravensbrueck, and other concentration camps, the destructive nature of the Nazi medical program comes out most forcibly. The Nazis were searching for methods of extermination, both by murder and sterilization, of large population groups, by the most scientific and least conspicuous means. They were developing a new branch of medical science which would give them the scientific tools for the planning and practice of genocide. The primary purpose was to discover an inexpensive, unobtrusive, and rapid method of sterilization which could be used to wipe out Russians, Poles, Jews, and other people." 01:08:18 From RG-60.2359: Taylor, from rear in courtroom, continues opening statement regarding experiments in yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, cholera, and diphtheria conducted at Natzweiler and Buchenwald, naming defendants' involvement. He also discusses the gathering of skeletons for research and other "anthropological experiments" at Strasbourg, as well as euthanasia. 01:09:26 Taylor details Count 3 - Crimes Against Humanity. Audio continues over slow pan of defendants in dock wearing headphones (from RG-60.2372). 01:10:10 From RG-60.2371: July 19, 1947, Final statement by Karl Brandt. 01:10:28 From RG-60.2368: July 19, 1947, Judge Beals announces that the evidence is concluded. 01:10:52 From RG-60.0007: August 20, 1947, Sentencing of Karl Brandt, Siegfried Handloser, Gerhard Rose, Viktor Brack. 01:12:44 Rolling text describing sentencing in Medical Case. Includes quotes from trial proceedings.