Gusen [War Crimes Commission: Mauthausen Concentration Camp]
Creator(s)
- United States. Army. Signal Corps. (Producer)
- United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Motion Picture Reference
- E. R. Kellogg (Director)
- James B. Donovan (Director)
- George C. Stevens (Director)
Biographical History
United States Navy Lieutenant E. R. Kellogg certifies motion pictures of Nazi concentration camps in an affidavit presented in the "Nazi Concentration Camps" film by the Americans as evidence during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Kellogg had expertise in motion picture and photographic techniques through his employment with Twentieth Century Fox Studios in California from 1929 to 1941. He attests that he has thoroughly examined the concentration camp liberation films of the Army Signal Corps and found them to be unaltered, genuine, and true copies of the originals in the U.S. Army Signal Corps vaults.
George Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. During World War II, Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a film unit from 1943 to 1946 under General Eisenhower. His unit shot footage documenting D-Day — including the only Allied European Front color film of the war — the liberation of Paris and the meeting of American and Soviet forces at the Elbe River, as well as horrific scenes from the Duben labor camp and the Dachau concentration camp. Stevens also helped prepare the Duben and Dachau footage and other material for presentation during the Nuremberg Trials. In 2008, his footage was entered into the U.S. National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress as an "essential visual record" of World War II.
James B. Donovan. United States Navy Commander. Associate Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, where he coordinated and presented all Nazi films at the trials. General Counsel to OSS. Negotiated the exchange of Bay of Pigs prisoners with Fidel Castro as an independent lawyer under backdrop of the missile crisis, securing the freedom of nearly 10,000 people. Portrayed by Tom Hanks in "Bridge of Spies".
Scope and Content
"Mauthausen Concentration Camp" [Title incorrectly identifies this camp as Mauthausen. The footage actually shows Gusen concentration camp.] High pan of concentration camp for slave laborers. Pan of buildings. Gallows with 2-3 men standing alongside it, courtyard wall behind. Soldiers provide "tour." American POW talking about experience at Mauthausen [filmed at Mauthausen], "fortunately my turn hadn't come," talks of two American soldiers/officers killed, talks about his uniform. Survivors. Pile of corpses. Inmates help each other through the camp, one washes another at trough. German civilians are forced to remove and bury the dead, supervised by the U.S. Army personnel. Wagonloads of dead. HSs, exhumation of bodies from graves. FSV, bodies (some women) in grotesque positions, with signs of horror on their faces. VCUs corpses. MSs, CUs, MCUs, living skeleton held up by another inmate.
Note(s)
Reel 4 of The Nazi Concentration Camps, NARA 238.2. Duplicate footage on Film ID 2272, Story 2439 The USHMM contains a 16mm film print of "Nazi Concentration Camps" from National Audiovisual Center. However, there is no direct video transfer from this print. The National Archives and Records Administration contains six 35mm reels of "Nazi Concentration Camps" under original archive number 238.2. The USHMM obtained a copy of these reels on Film ID 2815. The USHMM also owns each subject separately, ordered by a US Army Signal Corps (111 ADC) number. The USHMM also holds a copy from the National Center for Jewish Film cataloged as RG-60.2629, Film ID 2322.
"Nazi Concentration Camps" was compiled as evidence and shown at the Nuremberg Trials on November 29, 1945 as Prosecution Exhibit #230. It contains film evidence of Nazi atrocities at the concentration camps of Leipzig, Penig, Ohrdruf, Hadamar, Breendonck, Hanover, Arnstadt, Nordhausen, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Belsen. The film was produced for the U.S. Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality in 1945. It was directed by Navy Cmdrs. James B. Donovan and E. Ray Kellogg. George C. Stevens was responsible for directing the photography and filming of the concentration camps as liberated by Allied forces. The film has also been called "Concentration Camps in Germany, 1939-1945".
Subjects
- USHMM (PERMANENT EXHIBITION)
- GUSEN
- PRISONERS
- WAR CRIMES COMMISSIONS
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (AMERICAN)
- WAR CRIMINALS/WAR CRIMES TRIALS
- SURVIVORS
- CARTS/WAGONS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- WORKERS
- MAUTHAUSEN
- BURIALS
- CIVILIANS
- CORPSES
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS (LIBERATION)
Places
- Gusen, Austria
Genre
- Documentary.
- Film