- Description
- People's court trial of the July 20th plotters against Hitler at the Supreme Court in Berlin. Defendant Fritz Thiele stands before judge Roland Freisler. Freisler asks him whether, in retrospect, he realizes that Germany's enemies would have celebrated the success of the plot (?). Freisler further asks him about the leaflets prepared by the English. Joachim Sadrozinski stands before Friesler and tells of the aftermath of the coup attempt, when Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm convened a hasty court martial and execution of Stauffenberg and some of the other conspirators in an attempt to hide his own knowledge of the plot. 01:47:50 Adjournment. Cutaways of defendants talking informally, including Count Schwerin von Schwanenfeld in spectacles. Freisler calls on several defendants to stand and make statements. Ludwig Freiherr von Leonrod stands and speaks, then Joachm Sadrozinski and Ulrich-Wilhelm Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, who asks to be sent to the Front as a soldier to fight for the Fatherland. Freisler ridicules this request. Freisler reads the judgement against Thiele, Schwerin von Schwanenfeld, Leonrod, Friedrich Jaeger and Sadrozinski. Freisler asks an unidentified defendant (perhaps Friedrich Jaeger?) when the plan took on a concrete form. 01:54:05 Voiceover narration says that a new day of the trial begins, as Freisler and others enter the courtroom and salute. Von Leonrod is escorted forward by two policemen. Von Leonrod talks about his Catholic religion and Freisler asks him about his father confessor. In confession, von Leonrod asked his priest, Josef Wehrle, about the morality of tyrannicide. The next scene shows von Leonrod and Wehrle together as they are questioned by Freisler. Wehrle was also condemned to death and executed at Ploetzensee prison.
Rex Bloomstein notes in his documentary "Traitors to Hitler" that there were three cameras in the courtroom: one was a the back of the room, one was located in the Swastka flag behind Freisler, and one was hand-held by a cameraman.
- Duration
- 00:15:30
- Date
-
Event:
August 7-8, 1944
Production:
1944
- Locale
-
Berlin,
Germany
- Credit
- Accessed at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Bundesarchiv Filmarchiv
