Nazi crimes: early gassing; corpses; camp atrocities; forced labor; Nuremberg Trial proceedings
Creator(s)
- Thomas P. Headen
- Stuart Schulberg (Compiler)
- Information Services Division, OMGUS (Producer)
- Pare Lorentz (Compiler)
Scope and Content
Part 3 of GERMAN language version [corresponds to NARA reels 5 & 6] Includes extra shot of nurses and Mogilev gassing. Courtroom scene, Russian prosecutor Gen. Rudenko at podium, Gen. Erwin Lahousen in witness stand. Narrator quotes Lahousen speaking about Canaris and Hans Frank describing Nazi policies and methods for exterminating Poles and others. Goering, Hitler, and other Nazi officials in a meeting. Pan, hut with thatched roof. CU pipes from a German police car bearing a license plate POL-28545 and a German police truck with license POL-51628 (as well as military unit markings: 7 circle-with-flag IX). Apparently metal piping is directed into the brick work of a small brick building, in an area that appears to be a bricked up window or door. Projected against the wall is what appears to be the shadow of a man in uniform. Five emaciated men pass on an open farm cart/wagon to a wooded location; a tall naked emaciated man and two emaciated children (different from those seen first) are led by a man and a woman in white lab coats to the building. Small red cross appears on man's white coat sleeve. The man and woman (purportedly Soviet doctors) put blankets around the patients' shoulders as they are led toward the building (and over a child lying on the cart). A uniformed man - probably German - is visible in the background, along the fence, watching the scene. [Additional shot, absent from some versions of this film:] Camera goes a little farther to the left showing the side of a brick building with two wooden barrack-like doors ajar, as a child is 'helped' to the doors by the two in white. The brick building matches the shots where pipes are running from the vehicles. CU car and pipes connecting the car exhaust to the building. [Scene is consistent with descriptions of September 1941 experimental killings by Einsatzgruppe B of patients from a local asylum in the area of Mogilev, Belarus. Corresponding still images were used in evidence at the trial of Albert Widmann.] Courtroom scene, screen visible to left of witness Erwin Lahousen on stand. Pan, buildings burning, shadows of soldiers. Courtroom scene, Gen. Rudenko at podium. CU, Frank, document. Corpses, different views, piles of bodies, one hanging. Oradour-sur-Glane, France. Destruction, wrecked buildings, bodies laid out on sidewalk (covered in white). These might be the actual victims of Oradour, there seem to be French flags lying by the corpses on the pavement. Destroyed castle. Woman standing by graves. Bande, Belgium, bodies in room, piled up. San Callisto caves, Italy. Pan down, CU, list of hostages. Pile of bodies. Lidice, Czechoslovakia, destroyed town. Courtroom scene, prosecutor at podium. Buildings on fire. German labor corps (Arbeitsdienst) men line up with shovels, marching. LS, town in ruins. Men with pick-axes, construction, rubble dumped from small railway carts, Nazi officials watch men at work. Courtroom scene, prosecutor speaking about concentration camps. Hoess testifies re: Auschwitz. HAS, EXT barracks of Auschwitz, crematoria, women survivors in bunks inside barracks. MCU, survivors standing behind barbed wire, blankets wrapped around shoulders. Huge pile of luggage, CUs of belongings. "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign. INT hospital beds with survivors, legs slowly extended by doctor, more ill survivors. Narration re: medical experiments, including lowering the body temperature, injecting the body with poisons and infectious diseases, and subjecting the body to high altitude pressure chambers. CUs corpses with numbers, battered bodies, CUs faces. 05:44:23 In court, French prosecutor concludes charges of indictment for Counts 3 and 4. Prisoners' dock. CU, memo of Fritz Sauckel about Nazi policies of slave labor. Scenes of forced labor, groups of men marched down street, MS street scene, men being frisked, checking ID at a gate, men constructing train tunnel. Courtroom scene. At farm, Goering walking towards hut, herding cows, sheep. In court, CU, Frick in prisoners' dock. CUs, survivors of medical experiments in hospital, some examined by doctors. Aerial shot, cemetery, graves with crosses. Men getting off truck with shovels, being forced to dig in a large field, German officer in command. 01:09:23 1933 boycott of Jewish shops in Berlin, storefronts defaced, chanting crowd and SA men (scenes may be longer than usual with an additional chant). Nazi speaking. "Jude" painted on window. Goering reading document to crowd, Nazi elite in FG (speech translated to English). Round-ups, confusion, women and men pushed through Nazi crowd. Soft focus amateur footage of Lvov attack on Jews: unclothed women driven past, old man lying on ground, more naked women, hands up, terrified, women clutch own necks, women dragged by hair on ground. Courtroom scene, prosecution at stand re: secret Stroop report about the Warsaw ghetto. Ghetto beatings, pushing men, harassment. Buildings bombed, burning, representing Warsaw ghetto. Chaos in streets. Man being pulled out of sewer. Tanks in streets, chaos. SS men beating man on street, Riga, Latvia: man dragged over cobblestones. Courtroom scene, re: Final Solution. Hoess's testimony, Hoess on stand. Survivors exiting Auschwitz during liberation [footage portrayed as selection and line to gas chamber]. Children show tattoos. Prisoner uniforms hanging, gas chambers/showers/disinfection. Naked survivors (men) sitting inside chamber [portrayed as pre-gas chamber, pretending to die as mysterious hand allows "gas" into the chamber]. Piles of corpses. CUs, loot in storage, personal effects, gold removed from victims' teeth. Corpses from Bergen Belsen carried from truckbed to grave, dumped into pit, prepared for mass burial at liberation. Courtroom scenes: prosecution rests and defense begins. Piles of documents. MSs, German lawyers preparing defense. Testimonies and questioning of Streicher, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Raeder, and Keitel. Various shots of courtroom, court reporters, prosecution, judges, prisoners' dock, etc.
Note(s)
Technical notes: This reel is very unsteady, and the overall sound quality is quite poor. See Film ID 67 and 2388, and Film ID 2794 for additional copies of this film obtained from different archives. See Film ID 2749 to 2758 for the remaining reels of this film in English and German donated by Mr. Headen. See Film ID 67 and 2758 [Stories 2416, 2417, and 4291] for duplicate footage of this particular segment of the film, excluding the extra shot of Mogilev gassing. See Story 4326, Film ID 2794 for duplicate footage including the extra shot. Copyright: While this film is a production of the US government and is therefore in the public domain, it contains German newsreel footage, the rights to which are held by the German state archive (Bundesarchiv) through their agent, Transit Film. Researchers should exercise caution when using newsreel clips from this film, and consider clearing the rights with Transit, especially if broadcast in Europe. Re. juxtaposition of experimental gassing footage and courtroom scene: According to trial transcripts, this specific testimony from Lahousen regarding Canaris and the Wehrmacht was given during questioning by Col. John Amen (US) and not by Soviet prosecutor Rudenko. Bergen-Belsen sequence in this version runs sixty seconds, as does the NARA version, whereas the Univ. of Wisconsin (Pare Lorentz) version runs c. 56 seconds.
Details from Dr. Albert Widmann's 1967 trial in Stuttgart include his personal description of actions corresponding to the scene of gassing by vehicle exhaust, in the company of Arthur Nebe, and the presence of one male Soviet doctor and two female Soviet doctors (in German-occupied territory in the vicinity of Mogilev, Belarus, mid-September 1941). Widmann also mentions the presence of a "Polizeigeneral" and several SS officers of varying ranks. See "Archives of the Holocaust: An International Collection of Selected Documents" Vol.22, edited by Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton.
This is a documentary about the war crimes trial administered by the International Military Court of Justice in Nuremberg against the main Nazi war criminals from November 14, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The film documents footage of the trial from the prosecutor's opening to the verdict. The dramaturgy includes a chronological account of the founding of the National Socialist state, the unleashing of the world war, and the Nazi crimes against humanity and is accompanied with historical footage. This material is occasionally only used for illustration and does not necessarily portray the facts being commented upon. The film is also called "Nuremberg."
Subjects
- TRUCKS
- WAR CRIMINALS/WAR CRIMES TRIALS
- WOMEN
- TEETH
- WARSAW GHETTO
- VICTIMS' PROPERTY
- UNIFORMS
- SA (STURMABTEILUNG)
- FIRES
- ITALY
- KEITEL, WILHELM
- LIDICE (ATROCITY)
- NAZI OFFICIALS
- HITLER, ADOLF
- RAEDER, ERICH
- COBBLESTONES
- LAHOUSEN, ERWIN
- GHETTOS
- GOERING, HERMANN
- COURTS/COURTROOMS
- AUTOMOBILES
- BOYCOTTS
- CREMATORIA
- CZECHOSLOVAKIA
- DOCUMENTS
- NUREMBERG (INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL)
- RUDENKO, ROMAN A.
- CARTS/WAGONS
- GAS CHAMBERS
- STREETS
- MASSACRES
- BELARUS (BELORUSSIA)
- EINSATZGRUPPEN
- GERMANY
- CORPSES
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY
- BURIALS
- BEATINGS
- PROSECUTORS
- CONSTRUCTION
- SHOVELS
- BARRACKS
- ROUNDUPS
- HOESS, RUDOLF
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS (LIBERATION)
- RAD (GERMAN LABOR SERVICE)
- JEWS
- AUSCHWITZ
- LUGGAGE
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (GERMAN)
- SS (SCHUTZSTAFFEL)
- TATTOOS
- MASS GRAVES
- MENTALLY ILL
- HOSPITALS
- BUSINESSES
- MEDICAL PERSONNEL
- LOOTING
- POLAND
- GRAVES
- KALTENBRUNNER, ERNST
- POGROMS
- MARCHING
- SOVIET UNION
- CHILDREN
- SHOWERS
- EUTHANASIA
- BERGEN-BELSEN
- GOLD
- TRIALS
- DOCTORS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- BELGIUM
- BARBED WIRE
- POWS
- FORCED LABOR
- SURVIVORS
- LABOR
- MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS
- ATROCITIES
- FRANK, HANS
- BUILDINGS
- DESTRUCTION
- POLICE (GERMAN)
- PITS
- RUINS
- GAS VANS
- GAS (POISON)
- FRANCE
- JUDGES
- ROSENBERG, ALFRED
- FARMERS/FARMING
Places
- , Ukraine
- Lviv (Lvov), Poland
- Nuremberg, Germany
- Riga, Latvia
- Berlin, Germany
Genre
- Documentary.
- Film