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Nazi justice and Allied justice contrasted

Film | Digitized | Accession Number: 1994.119.1 | RG Number: RG-60.2252 | Film ID: 858

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    Nazi justice and Allied justice contrasted
    Transcript
    All scenes of Nazi activity in this film
    are from authentic German newsreels and official sources.
    All statements in English from German speeches
    are faithful translations.
    I, Thomas Jefferson, have sworn upon the altar
    of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny
    over the mind of man.
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
    If I, Adolf Hitler, can send the flower of the German nation
    into the hell of war without the smallest pity for spilling
    precious German blood, then surely
    I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race
    that breeds like vermin.
    Heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    This is murder, deliberate murder--
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    Heil.
    Sieg heil.
    --defying every written and unwritten law of man,
    not only premeditated but carried out by official decree,
    American soldiers shot in the back while
    wearing American uniforms in open defiance of established
    rules of warfare.
    Surely, I have the right to remove millions,
    Adolf Hitler said.
    And this is one promise their Führer kept,
    for if the Nazis were to carry through their master plan,
    they had to wipe out every trace of opposition,
    religious opposition, political opposition,
    the opposition of peace-loving nations.
    When our troops pried open the doors
    of the human slaughterhouses, we found Poles, Frenchmen,
    Russians, German Jews, Spanish anti-fascists,
    and some Americans.
    I'm Lieutenant Senior Grade Jack H Taylor, US Navy,
    of Hollywood, California.
    Two American officers at least have been executed here.
    Here is the insignia of one, the US Naval officer,
    and here is his dog tag, and here is the Army officer,
    executed by gas in this lager.
    Lieutenant, how many ways were your fellow prisoners killed?
    Five or six ways, by gas, by shooting, by beating, that is,
    beating the clubs, by exposure, that is,
    standing out in the snow naked for 48 hours and having water
    thrown on them in the middle of winter, starvation,
    then pushing over 100-foot cliffs.
    How can we rectify these crimes?
    We may arrest the sadist in charge of Buchenwald,
    but we cannot torture him to death as he tortured his
    victims.
    We may accuse the physician who used medicine not
    as an instrument of life but as an instrument of death,
    but we cannot inject him with deadly germs as he injected his
    patients.
    We may indict the scientist who developed the gas chamber,
    but we cannot strangle him to death slowly as his gas has
    strangled thousands of others.
    Why?
    The answer of law-abiding nations
    is found in the words of the historic Moscow Declaration.
    The United States of America, Great Britain, and the Soviet
    Union agreed the Germans who take part
    in wholesale shootings, executions,
    and have shared in the slaughter inflicted on innocent people
    will be judged by the people they have outraged in order
    that justice may be done.
    What kind of justice do we need?
    Do we mean the justice of Dr. Hans Frank, Nazi
    Minister of Justice, who said--
    The law is an instrument in the hands of the Führer
    for the realization of national socialism.
    Anything which benefits our nation is just.
    Or do we mean the Democratic concept of justice
    our nation fought to establish, fought to develop,
    and is fighting to preserve?
    Public trial, equality before the law,
    the right of defendants to prepare
    their own defense, a trial so orderly, so
    thorough, so free from passion that no would-be martyrs will
    ever be able to point to themselves as victims of enemy
    lynch law so that the guilt of the accused
    can be convincingly brought home to the German people who
    benefited from their crimes.
    That is the kind of justice we are establishing.
    We cannot expect to translate our traditional concepts
    of justice into the unprecedented machinery
    of international law overnight, but three types of trials are
    already in operation.
    Number one, national traitors are
    being returned to the countries they betrayed
    to be tried by the law of their own courts
    as Quisling faces trial in Norway.
    Number two, criminals who committed specific crimes
    in specific localities will be tried in the countries
    where their crimes were committed,
    as these Germans have been tried at Kharkov.
    Number three, members of the Gestapo,
    SS men, Stormtroopers, and any other offenders
    charged with murdering or mistreating American soldiers
    are being tried by American army courts
    under the supervision of general Weir,
    head of the War Crimes Office for the Judge Advocate General.
    In France under General Betts and in Italy under General
    [? Richmond, ?] trials are underway.
    As fast as we can identify, hunt down, and apprehend
    those guilty of war atrocities against American prisoners
    of war, we are bringing them to trial
    and holding them accountable for their acts.
    These trials are not to be confused with the United
    Nations International Tribunal, which will concern itself
    exclusively with major war criminals whose crimes are
    so all-embracing that they cannot be assigned to any one
    geographical area, the ringleaders who conceived
    and engineered the Nazi master plan of world domination.
    To head the prosecution these men must face,
    President Truman has appointed as our Chief of Counsel Robert
    H Jackson, Supreme Court Justice and former United States
    Attorney General, assisted by General William J Donovan
    and the staff that calls upon some
    of America's outstanding legal talent who will join forces
    with the most eminent jurists of Great Britain, France,
    and the Soviet Union.
    They will not contend themselves with hanging a tyrant
    by his heels but with laying there
    the ugly core of his evil design,
    the retrogressive blueprint for seizing power,
    smashing opposition, and waging illegal war.
    They will not content themselves with convicting a criminal
    on a single count when he may have been guilty of 50
    but will seek conviction on conviction in order
    to put teeth into the international laws that condemn
    those crimes, not merely punish the murderers of Buchenwald
    but the Nazi hierarchy who planned
    a hundred Buchenwalds, a million murders,
    the systematic enslavement of Europe,
    the domination of the world.
    And so 1945 becomes the year not only
    of the Nazi's military defeat but of their public trial that
    should serve as an unprecedented warning to those
    would plunge the United Nations into another criminal war
    in defiance of the laws and treaties of peaceful nations
    who have joined together to outlaw man's greatest
    inhumanity to man, the crime of war.
    I am convinced that we have an opportunity
    to bring to a just judgment those
    who have thought it safe to wage aggressive and ruthless war.
    An historic meeting in London was held.
    The chiefs of council for France, Russia, Great Britain,
    and the United States signed the International Military Tribunal
    charter establishing the laws by which the major war
    criminals will be tried.

    Overview

    Description
    Film Report compares Nazi sense of justice, as exemplified by aggressive war and atrocities, with that of the war crimes tribunals at Nuremberg.

    Thomas Jefferson quoted over close views of statue of Jefferson at the Jefferson Memorial in DC. VCU, Hitler at Nuremberg - excerpt from a speech in which he proclaims his right to rid the world of inferior races. LS, crowds, hall, saluting. CU German atrocity victims dead, faces badly battered, corpses. German women crying, after forced confrontation. Elderly civilians viewing room of bodies at liberated camp. MS, naked corpses, coffin, decaying head. CU, dead girl found in woods. MLS, female doctor inspecting bodies. Two US soldiers (one with wreath) stand by corpses lined up in stretchers. CU, US soldiers dead in field. Wagons with corpses. 04:34:03 Night time rally, familiar shots of night bookburning scenes in Berlin. 04:34:17 MCU, woman on stretcher carried out of barracks. Hobbling women supported by praying crying man. More stretchers. Lt. Jack Taylor of Hollywood interviewed while standing among survivors in front of the gate in Mauthausen. He wears a prisoner's coat with a triangular badge and talks about two other Americans imprisoned at Mauthausen who were executed. Demonstration of torture devices at Buchenwald as Telford Taylor describes types of executions and torture at the IMT. CU, boxcar of snow-covered bodies. Naked young man leaning against pipe on wall. Pile of corpses in woods. Family, crying women. Women clasping soldier's hand. LS, gate at Buchenwald. Familiar Hadamar interview interrogation with chief physician Adolf Wahlmann and Karl Willig. Gas chamber. Moscow conference of foreign ministers in London in 1943. US Secretary of State Hull, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, and British Foreign Minister Eden sign documents. Hans Frank, "Nazi Justice Minister" speech and audience. Cut to statue of George Washington, Lincoln Memorial, and EXT of Supreme Court. Nazi forced to enter shed at concentration camp; German civilians exit disgusted. Narrator speaks of the types of justice being administered in Europe. Graphics showing sites where perpetrators are tried. CU, Quisling at trial, Germans being tried in Kharkov. US Army General Weir, head of War Crimes Office for Judge Advocate General, speaks to camera, "We'll find everyone who's committed atrocities against American POWs". Chart illustrating different types of trials: 1) National Traitor Trials; 2) Local Minor Trials; 3) US Military Trials; 4) International Tribunal. Various CU of high Nazi officials speaking (mostly at rallies). Truman signing a document. Robert H. Jackson, Chief US Prosecutor, posing. William Donovan, candid. Plane leaving DC illustrates the talented US legal team at Nuremberg. Mussolini. CU of "Mein Kampf". Goosestepping Nazis, Nazi armband throwing away folders labeled Treaty of Versailles and Kellogg-Briand Pact. Josef Kramer at capture in Belsen. Himmler on tour of Minsk. MS, survivors view corpses on ground. Graphic map illustrating camps fades to spider in center of web, then web and spider covering globe. Keitel signs German surrender in Berlin. Various leaders speak at UN (no sound). Cemeteries. Jackson speaking, accepting appointment. Meeting in London with chief counsels from France, Great Britain, USSR, US. List of criminals indicted at Nuremberg superimposed over image of prison.
    Duration
    00:10:41
    Date
    Production:  1946
    Locale
    London, England
    Washington, DC, United States
    Berlin, Germany
    Nuremberg, Germany
    Credit
    Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives & Records Administration
    Contributor
    Director: George C. Stevens
    Producer: Office of War Information, OSS, Field Photographic Branch
    Producer: United States. Office of Strategic Services.
    Biography
    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.

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Genre/Form
    Documentary.
    B&W / Color
    Black & White
    Image Quality
    Mixed
    Time Code
    04:31:16:00 to 04:41:57:00
    Film Format
    • Master
      • Master 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
      Master 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
      Master 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
      Master 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
    • Preservation
      • Preservation 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
      Preservation 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
      Preservation 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large
      Preservation 858 Video: Betacam SP - NTSC - large

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    You do not require further permission from the Museum to access this archival media.
    Copyright
    Public Domain
    Conditions on Use
    To the best of the Museum's knowledge, this material is in the public domain. You do not require further permission from the Museum to reproduce or use this material.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Film Provenance
    The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum purchased this from the National Archives and Records Administration in September 1994.
    Note
    No individual credits are provided at the beginning or the end.
    Copied From
    16mm; b/w
    Film Source
    United States. National Archives and Records Administration. Motion Picture Reference
    File Number
    Legacy Database File: 169
    Source Archive Number: 226 E 6957
    Record last modified:
    2024-02-21 07:47:28
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn1000185

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