Nazi crimes: early gassing, corpses, camp atrocities, forced labor
Creator(s)
- Stuart Schulberg (Compiler)
- Pare Lorentz (Compiler)
- United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Motion Picture Reference
- Information Services Division, OMGUS (Producer)
Scope and Content
Reel 5: Courtroom scene, Russian prosecutor Gen. Rudenko at podium 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. 05:38:38 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 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. 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.] 05:39:11 Courtroom scene, screen visible to left of witness/defendant on stand. Pan, buildings burning, shadows of soldiers. 05:39:33 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. 05:41:17 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. 05:42:14 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. 05:45:31 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.
Note(s)
See Stories 2413-2417, Film ID 67 and Stories 3007-3008, Film ID 2388 and Story 4326, Film ID 2794 and Film IDs 2749-2758 for additional reels of this film. See Story 4303 for duplicate footage of this reel. See Story 4296 and 4326 for footage including the extra shot of Mogilev gassing. Video transfer ident at head of each reel mistakenly labels this "Nuremburg." NARA records and correct spelling are "Nuremberg."
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
- BARBED WIRE
- AUTOMOBILES
- MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS
- GERMANY
- POWS
- CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- SHOVELS
- LIDICE (ATROCITY)
- BELARUS (BELORUSSIA)
- DESTRUCTION
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY (GERMAN)
- FARMERS/FARMING
- GOERING, HERMANN
- WAR CRIMINALS/WAR CRIMES TRIALS
- MENTALLY ILL
- CONSTRUCTION
- HOSPITALS
- VICTIMS' PROPERTY
- POLICE (GERMAN)
- HITLER, ADOLF
- MARCHING
- FORCED LABOR
- FIRES
- MEDICAL PERSONNEL
- ATROCITIES
- FRANCE
- CREMATORIA
- GRAVES
- GAS (POISON)
- TRIALS
- RUINS
- EINSATZGRUPPEN
- DOCTORS
- LABOR
- CORPSES
- SURVIVORS
- AUSCHWITZ
- ITALY
- WOMEN
- BUILDINGS
- RAD (GERMAN LABOR SERVICE)
- LUGGAGE
- CZECHOSLOVAKIA
- FRANK, HANS
- TRUCKS
- CARTS/WAGONS
- SOLDIERS/MILITARY
- COURTS/COURTROOMS
- SS (SCHUTZSTAFFEL)
- HOESS, RUDOLF
- SOVIET UNION
- PROSECUTORS
- STREETS
- NAZI OFFICIALS
- BARRACKS
- BELGIUM
- EUTHANASIA
- NUREMBERG (INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL)
Places
- Nuremberg, Germany
- Auschwitz, Poland
- Oradour-sur-Glane, France
- , Belgium
- Lidice, Czechoslovakia
- Mogilev, Belarus
- , Italy
Genre
- Film
- Documentary.