Doctor and Gestapo prisoner testifies at Nuremberg Trial

Identifier
irn1001326
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2001.358.1
  • RG-60.2809
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
  • German
  • Czech
Source
EHRI Partner

Creator(s)

Scope and Content

(Paris 489) War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg, Germany, January 11, 1946. Thomas J. Dodd, US prosecution, introducing witness Dr. Franz Blaha. Dodd reads Dr. Blaha's signed affidavit telling of his career as head of a hospital in Czechoslovakia and his experiences as a Gestapo prisoner. The affidavit reveals that the Germans used healthy prisoners for various medical experiments. If the prisoners did not die in the experiments they were later killed. Additional trial footage missing from NARA original documentation: (Lieutenant Breshnen?) Prosecutor (from behind) reads an affidavit of someone defending Schacht. He quotes from a document saying that Schacht warned both British and Americans about the Nazis, and disapproved with basically everything the Nazis were doing. Prosecutor quotes: "Dr. Schacht always played both sides of the defense....If the Nazis are not stopped, they were going to ruin Germany and the rest of the world. He predicted that the Nazis would inevitably plunge Europe into war...." But Schacht also continued to lend his services to the Nazis on the basis of opportunity. He stated in 1935 that Germany would acquire new colonies, if necessary by force. Prosecutor brings up a document out of affidavit by S.R. Fuller Jr., together with transcript of a conversation between him and Schacht at the American Embassy in Berlin on September 23, 1935. He quotes a statement by Schacht about Germany's need for colonies. (View of the defendants, Schacht, etc.) He helped Hitler build up a Wehrmacht that would help Germany to reign more Lebensraum.

Note(s)

  • See Story 2928, Film ID 2371 for duplicate footage.

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Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.