Original subtitles

Subtitles by explosiveskull

It was 1945.

The war was over.

Slowly, painfully,

life came back to the ruins of Europe.

The war was over, but there was no peace.

Despair crouched over the continent.

Hopelessness circled Europe like a bird of prey.

Why?

What were the forces?

What were the issues in a war that turned nations

into rubble heaps and populations into beggars.

The people wanted the answers.

They wanted to know what happened and why.

In the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg,

the people of the world came together,

for there sat the international military tribunal

to judge the chief Nazi war criminals.

Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief American prosecutor

makes the opening statement for the prosecution.

The privilege of opening

the first trial in history.

The privilege of opening the first trial

in history for crimes against the peace of the world

imposes a grave responsibility.

The wrongs, which we seek to condemn and punish

have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating

that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored,

because it cannot survive their being repeated.

That four great nations, flushed with victory

and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance

and voluntarily submit their captive enemies

to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant

tributes that power has ever paid to reason.

This inquest represents the practical effort

of four of the most mighty of nations with the support

of 15 more to utilize international law to meet

the greatest menace of our times, aggressive war.

The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop

with the punishment of petty crimes by little people.

It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power

and who make deliberate and concerted use of it

to set in motion evils, which leave no home

in the world untouched.

In the prisoner's dock sit 20 odd broken men,

reproached by the humiliation of those they have led,

almost as bitterly as by the desolation

of those they have attacked.

Their personal capacity for evil is forever past.

Merely as individuals, their fate

is of little consequence to the world.

What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners

represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world

long after their bodies have returned to dust.

They are living symbols of the arrogance and cruelty

of power, of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence.

They are symbols of fierce nationalisms,

and of militarism, of intrigue

and war-making, which have embroiled Europe

generation after generation, crushing its manhood,

destroying its homes and impoverishing its lives.

They have so identified themselves

with the philosophies they conceived

and with the forces they directed that any tenderness

to them is a victory and an encouragement to all the evils

which are attached to their names.

What these men stand for we will patiently

and temperately disclose.

We will give you undeniable proof of incredible events.

The catalog of crimes will omit nothing.

It may be that these men of troubled conscience

do not regard a trial as a favor,

but they do have a fair opportunity to defend themselves,

a favor which they rarely extended

to their fellow countrymen.

We will not ask you to convict these men

on the testimony of their foes.

There is no count of the indictment

that cannot be proved by books and records.

And we will show you the defendants' own films.

You will see their own conduct and hear their own voices,

as they re-enact for you, from the screen,

some of the events in the course of the conspiracy.

The acts of the defendants have bathed the world in blood.

And set civilization back a century.

They have subjected their European neighbors

to every spoliation and depravation.

They have brought the German people

to the lowest ebb of wretchedness.

They have stirred hatreds and incited

domestic violence on every continent.

These are the things that stand in the dock,

shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners.

The real complaining party at your bar is civilization.

The United States of America

present count one of the indictment;

that all the defendants participated as organizers

or accomplices in a common plan or conspiracy

to commit crimes against peace, war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

The aims of this conspiracy were open and notorious.

The aims of this conspiracy

were open and notorious.

It was far different from any other conspiracy

ever unfolded before a court of justice.

Its history is the history of the Nazi party,

which grew from the brawling streets of Munich in the 20s.

And from the beginning, Adolf Hitler and his followers

were committed to the use of any means,

whether or not they were legal or honorable.

Their aim was the highest degree of control

over the German community.

Their intentions were blatantly put forth

in Mein Kampf and the party program.

And they preached their favorite doctrine

up and down the land.

They said that persons of a so-called German blood

were a master race entitled to subjugate

or even exterminate other races.

They said that the German should be ruled

under the Fuhrer Principle or leadership principle

by which each sub-leader owed unconditional obedience

to his superior and so on right up to Adolf Hitler.

They said that war was a noble

and necessary activity of Germans.

And they said that the Nazi Party alone

had the right to rule Germany and the right

to destroy the party's enemies.

Their rise to power was based on fraud,

deceit, intimidation and coercion,

culminating finally in terror and flame.

Into that flame went the Democratic constitution

of the Weimar Republic and the freedom of the German people.

For the fire set by the Nazis

extended to the very Reichstag.

Hans Gisevius, a witness who formerly held a high position

in the Berlin Police Administration,

tells of his investigation of the Reichstag fire.

To speak briefly and to state the facts.

First of all, we ascertain that quite generally,

Hitler had stated the wish

for a large scale propaganda campaign.

Goebbels took on the job of making the necessary proposals

and it was Goebbels who first thought

of setting the Reichstag on fire.

A group of 10 reliable S.A. men was made ready

and now Goering was informed about every detail of the plan.

It was expected from Goering and he gave his assurances

that he would do so, that the police would be instructed,

while still suffering from shock, to take up a false trail.

Using the Reichstag fire

as a pretext for seizing power,

the Nazi conspirators lost no time in tearing

Germany away from a policy of peace.

Late in 1933, they led their nation

out of the Disarmament Conference,

quit the League of Nations and embarked

on a course of secret rearmament.

By 1934, the new armaments program, designed by defendants

Goering, Schacht and Funk, was going full blast.

German industry was again turning out the tools of war.

The plants hummed and one year later Goering could announce:

From the strong foundation

of the National Socialist Ideology today rises once again

the German Armed Forces.

A few days later, General von Blomberg

announced the new law for compulsory military service.

The law was signed by defendants Goering, Hess, Frank,

Frick, Schacht and Von Neurath.

The training began.

Finally, in the spring of 1936, the Nazis

sent their new troops marching into the Rhineland.

Mein Fuhrer, on March 7th, 1936,

soldiers of the army, which was created

by order of the Fuhrer, crossed the sacred river

of German history and occupied their former garrisons.

They pledged the Fuhrer, whatever decisions he may make,

unbreakable faith and obedience and they vow

to follow him and to prove their sincerity,

by their never ending love for Germany.

The columns grew longer.

The sound of boots grew louder on the streets of Nuremberg.

But Hitler said:

The German people is not a people,

which welcomes a war today,

tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

That is not in the character of the Germans.

He is by nature not only peaceful and peace loving,

but above all conciliatory.

He wants to work.

In our country are millions of peasants,

they want to till their fields.

They want to bring in their harvests.

There are millions of workers,

they want to perform their work.

But the Nazi conspirators,

in the name of Lebensraum, continued to plot

new aggressions against peace.

In November 1937, Hitler called a special meeting

with defendants Goering, Von Neurath and Raeder

and Generals von Blomberg and von Frick.

The meeting was secret but Lieutenant Colonel Hossbach,

Hitler's personal adjutant,

faithfully recorded Hitler's words:

The German question can be solved

only by way of force.

For the improvement of our military-political position,

it must be our first aim, in every case of entanglement

by war, to conquer Czechoslovakia

and Austria simultaneously.

The annexation of the two states to Germany,

militarily and politically, would constitute

a considerable relief.

This meeting set the stage for Nazi expansion

and Act One came only three months later at Berchtesgaden

where a defendant von Papen finally engineered a meeting

between Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor,

and Hitler and defendants Keitel and von Ribbentrop.

Guido Schmidt, who was Austrian Foreign Minister

at the time, also attended the meeting.

And now he takes the witness stand.

Did Hitler demand that Seyss-Inquart

be made Minister of Security?

That was one of the demands on that program.

Where there also demands

made with regard to currency exchange and customs?

There were demands

of an economic nature of every kind.

Hitler told you that you

had until February 15th to accept his terms, didn't he?

And he told you that if you didn't do so he would use force.

The ultimatum as Hitler stated it

was that he intended, as early as February, to march

into Austria and that, for the last time,

he was prepared to postpone it.

Faced by these threats,

the Austrians carried out all Hitler's demands.

But the Nazi conspirators weren't satisfied.

A month later when Schuschnigg announced a plebiscite

on Austrian Independence, Hitler and defendant Goering

demanded the plebiscite be canceled.

Another ultimatum demanded Schuschnigg resign

within three hours.

Fearing invasion, Schuschnigg resigned

and finally defendant Seyss-Inquart was appointed

the new Chancellor of Austria.

That same day Goering in Berlin

called Keppler of the German Embassy in Vienna.

The conversation was transcribed.

Kepler spoke first:

Well, we represent the government now.

Yes, that's it, you're the government.

Listen carefully, the following telegram

should be sent here from Seyss-Inquart.

Take the notes.

The provisional Austrian Government

sends to the German Government the urgent request

for support in its task to help prevent bloodshed.

For this purpose, it asks the German Government

to send German troops as soon as possible.

Well, SA and SS

are marching through the streets.

Everything has collapsed with the professional groups.

Seyss-Inquart is the only one

who still has power in Austria.

Yes, there are troops who have crossed the border today.

The act was written joining Austria to Germany

and signed by defendant Seyss-Inquart, Goering,

Frick, von Ribbentrop and Hess.

Hitler, of course, had said:

Germany neither intends no wishes to interfere

in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria

or to conclude an Anschluss.

21st of May 1935, Adolf Hitler.

The curtain fell on Act One,

but already the Nazi conspirators prepared for Act Two

with this 1938 memorandum from Hitler to his High Command.

It is my unalterable decision to smash

Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future.

It is the job of the political leaders

to bring about the politically

and militarily suitable moment.

Konrad Henlein was designated political leader.

The plan was labeled Operation Green

and defendant Jodl issued another memorandum reading:

Operation Green will be set in motion by means

of an incident in Czechoslovakia which will give Germany

provocation for military intervention.

The fixing of the exact time for this incident

is of the utmost importance.

A few months later, Germany signed

the Munich Pact with England, France and Italy.

This pact involved the transfer

of the Sudetenland to Germany.

The conspirators called it their last territorial demand.

But before the ink was dry,

they were making other plans for Hitler's goal

was the complete absorption of Czechoslovakia.

And now the Czech president Hacha

was called to a meeting with Hitler

and defendants Goering von Ribbentrop and Keitel.

They gave him the ultimatum.

Bohemia and Moravia would be incorporated

into Germany immediately or Czechoslovakia

would be invaded and Prague destroyed from the air.

Hacha was helpless.

Defendants von Ribbentrop and Frick signed the decree

making Bohemia and Moravia a German Protectorate.

Speaking some months before

about the Sudetenland, however, Hitler had said:

I have promised and repeated here

that there will be no more territorial

problems for Germany in Europe.

I will be no longer interested in the Czech State

and I will guarantee it.

26 September 1938, Adolf Hitler.

Now, according to more

of his adjutants' notes, Hitler reviewed the Nazi plan

of violence and treachery from 1934 to 39.

The notes read:

First rearmament.

In 1935 the introduction of compulsory military service.

After that militarization of the Rhineland.

One year later Austria came.

It brought about a considerable reinforcement of the Reich.

The next step was Bohemia and Moravia,

then followed the erection of the Protectorate

and with that the basis for action against Poland was laid.

Basically, I did not organize the Armed Forces

and order not to strike.

The decision to strike was always in me.

In the name of the United Kingdom

of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

Sir Hartley Shawcross presents count two,

crimes against peace charging that all the defendants

participated in the planning and waging of wars

of aggression, was in violation of international treaties,

agreements and assurances.

The first step was the Rhineland

and the next step was Austria.

The Rhineland is occupied.

Austria and Czechoslovakia are seized by Germany

and now the Nazi conspirators turned to the next problem

a conquest of Poland.

Again, an adjutant, lieutenant-colonel Schmundt

transcribed Hitler's words.

The solution of the problem demands courage.

It is impossible without invasion of foreign States

or attacks on foreign property.

There's, therefore, no question of sparing Poland

and we are left with the decision to attack Poland

at the first suitable opportunity.

We cannot expect the repetition of the Czech affair.

There will be war.

Meanwhile, according to their

well-established practice, the conspirators stirred up

the Danzig issue to furnish frontier incidents

which could justify an attack on Poland.

Then on 23 August, the Nazis signed

their non-aggression pact with Russia.

There Hitler told his High Command:

Now, Poland is in the position

in which I want her.

I am only afraid that at the last moment some Schweinehund

will make a proposal for mediation.

Appeals were made

twice by the Pope and by President Roosevelt.

Finally, Mr Roosevelt asks an assurance

be given him that the German armed forces will not attack

and, above all, not invade the territory or positions

of the following independent nations.

He then names as those coming into question:

Finland, Letland, Litauen, Estland, Norway,

Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium,

Grossbritannien, Ireland, Frank Reich, Portugal, Spanien,

die Schweiz, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland.

On 1 September 1939, the Nazis sent

the Wehrmacht smashing into Poland and into a new world war,

for France and England, faithful to their mutual

assistance pact with Poland,

immediately declared war on Germany.

The Luftwaffe opened mass attacks

on Polish towns and cities.

And Hitler, according to Schmundt's notes, said:

Destruction of Poland in the foreground.

I shall give a propagandist cause for starting the war,

never mind whether it be plausible or not.

Have no pity.

Take a brutal attitude.

But as usual, before the attack on Poland,

Hitler told the world:

During the troubled months of the past year,

the friendship between Poland and Germany

has been one of the reassuring factors

in the political life of Europe.

30th of January 1939, Adolf Hitler.

The path of destruction started in Poland

but soon it led north and south across all Europe

and each new aggression was based on Hitler's principle

that, in war, victory not right is what matters.

Non-aggression treaty,

it is firmly resolved to maintain peace

between Denmark and Germany in all circumstances.

31st of May in 1939, Ribbentrop.

But on 9 April 1940,

German troops invaded Denmark.

The German Reich government is determined,

in view of the friendly relations which exists

between Norway and Germany, under no circumstances

to prejudice the inviolability and integrity

of the Norwegian state.

2nd of September 1939, Das Deutsche Reich.

But on 9 April 1940,

German troops invaded Norway.

I assure the governments

of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg,

that Germany will not violate their neutrality.

6th of October 1939, Adolf Hitler.

But on May 10th 1940,

German troops invaded Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.

The firmly established reliable relationship

of Germany to Yugoslavia will represent an element

of calm on a wrecked continent.

This peace is the goal of all who are disposed

to perform really constructive work.

1st of June 1939, Adolf Hitler.

But on 6 April 1941,

German troops invaded Yugoslavia.

These criminal methods of the Nazi conspirators

brought them early success and, by 1941,

they had most of Europe under their heel.

Now, an evil ambition for power

and more power drove them on.

But two of the world's mightiest nations,

the United States and Soviet Russia, remained to block

the Nazi drive for world supremacy.

They had to be dealt with firmly, immediately,

and now Germany asked for cooperation

from her full partner in aggression to the east

and from her junior partner to the south.

In Berlin, they drew up the Axis Pact - the blueprint

of the new order and parceled out the continents

of the world for Axis domination.

Italy was to get the Mediterranean sphere.

Japan was to get the Orient and, to Germany,

would go the rest of the world.

In June 1941, in violation of their non-aggression pact,

the Nazis sent the Wehrmacht deep into Soviet territory,

according to military plans long made.

As usual, there was no declaration of war.

Hitler had said, today Germany, tomorrow the world

and this was tomorrow.

Planned warfare in the east, air warfare in the West,

for now defendant Goering's Luftwaffe was hurled

with full force against the people and cities of Britain.

Hitler after all had told the Reichstag:

I will blot out their city.

And then on 7 December 1941, the Japanese,

keeping their end of an infamous bargain,

struck at the United States,

also without declaration of war.

Japanese bombs rained on Pearl Harbor

spreading war finally to the Pacific.

The new order was on the march.

World War II flamed around the globe.

In the name of the Union

of Soviet Socialist Republics, General Rudenko

presents counts three and four

charging that all the defendants committed war crimes

in Germany and in all those countries occupied by Germany.

The Nazi conspirators committed crimes

against enemy armies, against prisoners of war,

against the civilians of occupied lands.

They believed in the barbaric doctrine of total war

and considered themselves freed from the restraints

of international law or the established customs of war.

Their ruthless policies were ordered in directives

like this one from General Reinecke

of the Wehrmacht High Command.

The Bolsheviks soldier has lost all claim

to treatment as an honorable opponent.

Active or passive resistance

must be broken immediately by force of arms.

Prisoners of war attempting to escape

are to be fired on without previous challenge.

No warning shot must be fired.

More proof of this savage Nazi policy

comes from the affidavit of Kurt Lindow,

former Gestapo officer.

There existed in the prisoner of war camps

on the Eastern Front, small screening teams

headed by lower ranking members of the Gestapo.

It was the duty of these teams to segregate

the prisoners of war who were candidates for execution,

according to the orders that had been given

and to report them to the office of the Gestapo.

And a letter from defendant Rosenberg

to defendant Keitel in 1942 stated clearly:

A large part of the Soviet prisoners of war

has starved or died because of the hazards of the weather.

In many cases, prisoners of war could no longer keep up

in the march because of hunger and exhaustion.

In numerous camps, no shelter

for the prisoners was provided at all.

Even tools were not made available to dig holes or caves.

Yet when some objected that this treatment

violated the Geneva Convention, defendant Keitel

answered with this memorandum:

We are concerned with the destruction

of an ideology, therefore, I approve and back the measures.

This is proved by the testimony

of General Lahousen who worked

under Admiral Canaris in the Abwehr.

General Lahousen attended conferences where crimes

against whole populations were plotted

in advance by the Nazi conspirators.

Will you please explain exactly what took place

at this conference in the Fuhrer's train.

First of all, Canaris had a short talk

with von Ribbentrop, particularly as regards

the Polish region.

Secondly, Canaris spoke vehemently against the measures

that he, Canaris, had found out about to wit

the projected shooting and extermination measures

that were being directed against the Polish intelligentsia,

nobility and clergy as well as all elements

that could be regarded as embodiments

of the national resistance movement.

Canaris said at the time, more or less verbatim,

that the world will, at some time, make the Armed Forces

under whose eye as these events have occurred

also responsible for these events.

Defendant Frank, Nazi governor of Poland,

was another of the conspirators guilty

of directing mass murder.

In his diary, he speaks of:

Taking advantage of the focus of attention

on the Western Front by carrying out

wholesale liquidation of thousands of Poles.

These atrocities were not restricted

to the east.

Here is the proof in the village

of Oradour-sur-Glane, France.

Here is the proof in the town of Bande, Belgium.

Here is the proof in the San Callisto Caves, Italy

where 350 hostages were carefully listed

and systematically murdered.

And here is Lidice in Czechoslovakia.

In blind retaliation for the assassination

of SS Man Heydrich, the Nazis murdered all Lidice's men

and sent their women and children into slavery in Germany.

But this was not enough.

Boys of the Arbeiten were moved into the ruins of Lidice

and ordered to level the village to the ground.

Lidice was to be the Nazi's example to all occupied peoples.

But more terrible still were the concentration camps

which, from the beginning, had been

the conspirators' chief weapon

against opposition of every kind.

German anti-Nazis were the first victims,

but with the war their numbers swelled to include

citizens of all the nations of Europe.

Their fate is described by witness Rudolf Hoess.

I commanded Auschwitz

until the 1st of December 1943 and estimate

that at least two and a half million victims were executed

and exterminated there by gassing and burning.

At least another half million succumbed to starvation

and disease, making a total dead of about three million.

Included among the executed and burned

were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of war,

who were delivered at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports.

The remainder of the total number

included about a hundred thousand German Jews

and great numbers of citizens from Holland,

France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary,

Czechoslovakia, Greece and other countries.

Medical experiments too were standard procedure

at many concentration camps.

These included lowering the body temperature

to 28 degrees centigrade, high-altitude tests

and pressure chambers, experiments with poison bullets

and contagious diseases and even sterilization experiments.

- This was genocide - the premeditated

destruction of entire peoples.

Genocide, the direct result of the Nazi's claim

that they had the right to destroy the party's opposition.

Tomorrow the world, dead or alive.

In the name of the French Republic,

Monsieur de Menthon closes count three and four

the final charges of the indictment.

All the defendants committed crimes

against humanity including the murder and persecution

of all people opposed to the Nazi Party and the enslavement,

exploitation and deportation of civilian populations.

The slave labor policy was the responsibility

of defendant Sauckel who admitted in 1944:

Out of the five million workers

who arrived in Germany not even 200,000 came voluntarily.

Forced labor often meant

brutal and degrading treatment.

For Sauckel himself suggested:

All the men must be fed, sheltered,

and treated in such a way as to exploit them

to the highest possible extent

at the lowest possible expenditure.

And defendant Bormann added:

The slaves are to work for us.

Insofar as we do not need them, they may die.

Slavery was only

one aspect of Nazi exploitation.

Defendant Goering, in a talk

with German occupation authorities in 1942,

discussed another - plunder.

God knows you are not sent out to work

for the welfare of the people in your charge

but to get the utmost out of them

so that the German people can live.

This everlasting concern about foreign people

must cease now once and forever.

I have here before me reports

on what you are expected to deliver.

It makes no difference to me in this case

if you say that your people will starve.

But Nazi crimes against humanity

were not limited to foreign peoples.

Defendant Frick, as Minister of Interior,

directed a program aimed at aged, insane

or incurable Germans - the so-called useless eaters.

Thousands were committed to special institutions.

Few ever returned.

Evidence proves they were murdered because they were useless

to the plans of the Nazi conspirators.

But perhaps the greatest crime against humanity

the Nazis committed against the Jews.

A campaign of hate and murder

that goes to the heart of the Nazi movement.

German citizens are only those of German

or related blood willing to serve

the German Reich and people.

Marriages between Jews and citizens of German

or related blood are prohibited.

SS Brigadier General Stroop,

in charge of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943,

had learned his Nazi lessons well.

In a secret report, he said:

The Reichsfuehrer SS ordered

on the 23rd of April 1943, the cleaning out

of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness.

I, therefore, decided to destroy

and burn down the entire ghetto.

Jews frequently left the hideouts, but occasionally remained

in the burning buildings and jumped out the windows

only when the heat became unbearable.

Life in the sewers was not pleasant after the first week.

Tear gas bombs were thrown into the manholes

and the Jews were driven out and captured.

Countless numbers of Jews were liquidated in sewers

and bunkers through blasting.

The longer the resistance continued,

the tougher became the members of the Waffen SS,

police and Wehrmacht who always discharged their duties

in an exemplary manner.

Little by little, the Nazis were reaching

what they called The Final Solution

the total extermination of the Jews of Europe.

Hess described the process well:

We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz

to examine the incoming transports of prisoners.

The prisoners would be marched past one of the doctors

who would make spot decisions as they walked by.

Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp.

Others were sent immediately to the extermination plant.

Children of tender years were invariably exterminated

since, by reasons of their youth, they were unable to work.

We endeavored to fool them into thinking

they were to go through a delousing process.

It took from three to 15 minutes to kill the people

in the death chamber depending upon climatic conditions.

We knew when the people were dead

because their screaming stopped.

We usually waited about one half-hour

before we opened the doors and removed the bodies.

After the bodies were removed,

our special commandos took off the rings

and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.

Much of this loot was then transferred

to secret vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt am Main

the Reichsbank of defendant Funk.

Labor Chief Robert Ley knew that six million Jews

died in the Nazi's Final Solution.

In his will, he said:

In anti-Semitism, we violated

a basic commandment of God's creation.

It is hard to admit mistakes but the whole existence

of our people is in question.

We must have the courage to rid ourselves of anti-Semitism.

God has taught me that in my cell in Nuremberg.

And defendant Frank himself

said before this Court:

We have fought against Jewry

and we have allowed ourselves

to make utterances which are terrible.

A thousand years will pass and this guilt

of Germany will still not be erased.

The prosecution rests.

The defense begins.

They call 61 witnesses and introduce 38,000 affidavits

on the defendants behalf.

They submit 136,000 more affidavits on behalf of the S.S.,

10,000 on behalf of the S.A., 7,000 on behalf of the S.D.,

3,000 on behalf of the General Staff and the O.K.W.,

2,000 on behalf of the Gestapo.

These attorneys were personally selected by the defendants.

Many are well known German lawyers

and each now rises to plead acquittal for his crimes.

Some make blanket denials of all guilt.

Some of the defendants had,

without doubt, a great influence in those spheres

which did not interest, Hitler.

They had no part whatsoever in the great decisions

concerning war and peace, armistice

and peace offers, et cetera.

Other attorneys lead their clients

through a carefully prepared defense.

Here Streicher is examined.

I now continue.

It has also been stated by the prosecution

that Himmler and Kaltenbrunner would have had no one

to carry out their orders to kill if you hadn't made

that propaganda and if you hadn't conducted

the education of the German people in that sense.

I don't believe that those who had been given

the order by the Fuehrer to carry out the killings

or to pass an order to kill, that those people

would have been made to do this by my periodical.

Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, existed and the contents

of that book were the authority, the cause.

Next comes Kaultenbrunner.

You are accused of establishing Mauthausen,

of inspecting and visiting this camp regularly.

The witness Herriger testified having seen you in this camp

and further testified having seen you

at the inspection of gas chambers

and while these gas chambers were in operation.

The testimony is wrong.

Every concentration camp in the Reich,

of which I know anything, was established

by Himmler through Paul.

Later the prosecution is allowed

to cross-examine the defendants.

Rosenberg is questioned.

Did your ministry force people to leave

their homes, to go to Germany to work for the German state?

It is true that force was used

and it is not denied

that some terrible encroachments occurred.

Now Raeder takes the stand.

On the 23rd of May, in the Reich Chancellery,

Hitler said that he would give you an indoctrination

on the political situation and he said,

we are left with the decision

to attack Poland at the first opportunity.

Did you still think that he had no aggressive intentions?

I believed that for a long time.

Just as General Jodl said, after Hitler had solved

the Czech problem purely politically,

it was to be hoped he would also be able to solve

the Polish question without bloodshed.

I believed that until the last moment,

until the 22nd of August.

Keitel is cross-examined.

Yesterday your counsel showed you

this order dated 16th September, 1941.

It said that it is necessary to take

immediate, cruel measures and that human life

in the East is absolutely worthless.

You remember the basic idea of the order,

that human life costs absolutely nothing?

Please answer the question.

You signed this order with this statement?

Ja!

Next Jodl.

Do you remember any other reason

for such great mortality among Soviet prisoners of war?

I didn't know the reasons for this mass murder,

but they seemed to be completely wrong, that I do know.

Now von Ribbentrop.

Are you telling the tribunal,

on your oath, that you knew nothing

about the effect of military pressure on Austria?

I wish to stress again

that I knew nothing about military measures,

and that if I had known something,

I wouldn't see any reason not to say so.

But it is a fact that during the days before

and after the Hitler-Schuschnigg meeting,

I was so busy taking over the foreign office

that I could give only slight attention

to the Austrian problem.

Then Goering is cross-examined.

At the end of the meeting

you used the following words didn't you?

German Jewry must, as a penalty, forfeit one-billion marks,

then the pigs won't commit any more crimes.

Do you still say that neither Hitler

nor you knew of the policy to exterminate the Jews?

I already have said that not even approximately

did I know to what degree this thing took place.

You did not know to what degree,

but you knew there was a policy

that aimed at the liquidation of the Jews.

No, not liquidation of the Jews.

I only knew that certain, perpetrations had taken place.

Speer takes the stand.

You were present on April 23, 1945,

when Hitler received the telegram from Goering

suggesting that he take over power.

What did Hitler say on that occasion?

Hitler was most excited

about the contents of the telegram and he expressed himself

in a very clear manner about Goering.

He said that he knew for some time that Goering had failed,

that he was corrupt, that he was a drug addict.

It was typical of Hitler's attitude

toward the entire problem, however, that he followed

the statement up by saying, but he can, nevertheless,

negotiate the capitulation.

He stated in an offhand manner,

it doesn't really matter who does it.

His disregard for the German nation

was expressed in the way he said this.

After months of examination

and cross-examination, several defendants

make final statements to the tribunal.

Frank is first.

I myself, speaking from the very depth

of my sentiments and from the experience of five months

of this trial, want to say this.

Now, that I have gained the last insight

into all that which has been committed in the way

of dreadful atrocities, I feel a terrible guilt within me.

Funk declares.

When these measures of terror and violence

against Jews were put up to me,

I suffered a nervous break down because at the moment

it came to my mind with full clearness

that, from here on, the catastrophe took its course

all the way up to the terrible and atrocious things

about which we have heard and about which I knew only

in part at the time of my imprisonment.

I felt ashamed and guilty at that moment

and I feel the same way today, but it's too late.

Now Schirach speaks.

It is my guilt that I educated German youth

for a man who committed murders million fold.

Schacht is next.

Everything he promised to the German people,

and, thereby to himself, he did not afterwards keep.

He promised equal rights for all citizens

and, without regard to their capabilities,

his adherents got privileges before all other citizens.

He promised to fight against political lies

and, together with his Minister Goebbels and by himself,

he never did anything but disseminate

political lies and political fraud.

He released criminals and put them into his service.

He did everything in the way of not keeping his promises.

He deceived the world, Germany and me.

Speer once more.

The tremendous danger

contained in this totalitarian system only became

really clear the moment we were approaching the end.

Everything that has happened during this trial,

everything you have seen in the way of orders

which were carried out without any hesitation

did, after all, turn out to be mistaken.

That is why this trial must contribute

to the prevention of such distorted wars in the future

and to the establishment of principles

for human cooperation.

And Keitel again.

I erred, I was not able to prevent

what should have been prevented.

That is my guilt.

I can only wish that out of a clear recognition

of the causes of the disastrous methods

and the terrible consequences of this war,

there will arise for the German people a new hope

for a better future in the community of nations.

Now Frank.

We call on the German people,

whose representatives we were, to abandon this way,

which was doomed to failure in the will and justice of God

and which is doomed for everyone

who may try to follow it anywhere in the world.

The last defendant to speak is Fritzsche.

You of the prosecution did not expect

anything good from Hitler and you are amazed

about the extent of what really happened.

But then try to understand the indignation of those

who did expect something good from Hitler

and were betrayed.

I am one of these betrayed.

Finally, both defense and prosecution

sum up their arguments for the tribunal.

An aggressor can be branded only

by the world's conscience.

That supreme organ of humanity must have not only real,

but also moral authority.

Its impartial judgment must be looked upon

with general confidence.

It must stand above the contesting parties.

In the name of the United States of America,

Justice Jackson delivers his summation.

According to the testimony of each defendant,

these men saw no evil, spoke none,

and none was uttered in their presence.

If we combine only the stories from the front bench,

this is the ridiculous, composite picture

of Hitler's government that emerges.

It was composed of a number two man

who never suspected the Jewish extermination program,

although he signed over a score of anti-Semitic decrees.

A number three man who is merely an innocent middle-man

transmitting Hitler's orders without even reading them

like a postman or a delivery boy.

A Foreign Minister who knew little of foreign affairs

and nothing of foreign policy.

A field marshal who issued orders to the armed forces

but had no idea of the results they would have in practice.

A Security Chief who was of the impression

that the policing functions of his Gestapo and S.D.

were somewhat on the lines of directing traffic.

A party philosopher who had no idea of the violence

which his philosophy was inciting in the 20th century.

A Governor-General of Poland who reigned, but did not rule.

A Gauleiter of Franconia whose occupation

was to pour forth filthy writings about the Jews,

but who had no idea that anybody would read them.

A Minister of the Interior who knew

not even what went on in his own office,

much less the interior of his own department,

and nothing at all about the interior of Germany.

A Reichsbank president who is totally ignorant

of what went in and out of the vaults of his bank.

To say of these men that they are not guilty,

it would be as true to say there has been no war,

there are no slain, there has been no crime.

In the name of the United Kingdom

of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

Sir Hartley Shawcross delivers his summation.

This trial must form a milestone

in the history of civilization.

Not only marking that right shall in the end

triumph over evil, but also that ordinary people

of the world and, I make no distinction here

between friend and foe, are now determined

that the individual must transcend the state.

The state and law are made for man,

that through them he may achieve a fuller life,

a higher purpose and a greater dignity.

In the name of the Union

of Soviet Socialist Republics, General Rudenko

delivers his summation.

And when we ask have the charges

against the defendants been proved before the court,

have the defendants been convicted of their guilt?

There is only one answer.

Their crimes have been proved.

Neither the statements of the defendants nor the arguments

of the defense were able to refute our grave accusations.

It has been impossible to cast doubt

on events which actually took place.

The truth cannot be challenged.

That is the real meaning of this trial.

That is the lasting result of our long and strenuous effort.

In the name of the French Republic,

Monsieur de Ribes delivers his summation.

When this international trial is closed

and the principal war criminals sentenced,

we shall go back to our own countries.

The fate of these men now lies

entirely with your conscience.

This is beyond our competence.

Our task is finished.

Now it is for you, in the silence of your deliberations,

to listen to innocent blood crying for justice.

Lord Justice Lawrence, Great Britain.

Mr Frances Biddle, United States.

Monsieur de Vabres, France.

And Major General Nikitchenko, U.S.S.R.

and their alternates prepare the verdict.

It will be based on the opinion of the majority.

On October 1st, 1946, the verdict is delivered

by Lord Justice Lawrence, president of the tribunal.

Of the organizations, the S.S., S.D.,

Gestapo and leadership corps are found guilty.

The high command, S.A. and Reich cabinet, not guilty.

As for the individual, Wilhelm Hermann Goering:

guilty of conspiracy, crimes against peace,

war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Rudolph Hess: guilty of conspiracy and crimes against peace.

Life imprisonment.

Joachim Von Ribbentrop: guilty of conspiracy,

crimes against peace, war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Wilhelm Keitel: guilty of conspiracy, crimes against peace,

war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner: guilty of war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Alfred Rosenberg: guilty of conspiracy,

crimes against peace, war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Hans Frank: guilty of war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Wilhelm Frick: guilty of crimes against peace,

war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Julius Streicher: guilty of crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Walter Funk: guilty of crimes against peace,

war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Life imprisonment.

Hjalmar Schacht: not guilty on this indictment.

Released.

Karl Doenitz: guilty of crimes against peace and war crimes.

10 years imprisonment.

Erich Raeder: guilty of conspiracy,

crimes against peace and war crimes.

Life imprisonment.

Baldur von Schirach: guilty of crimes against humanity.

20 years imprisonment.

Fritz Sauckel: guilty of war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Alfred Jodl: guilty of conspiracy, crimes against peace,

war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Franz von Papen: not guilty on this indictment.

Released.

Albert Speer: guilty of war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

20 years imprisonment.

Constantin von Neurath: guilty of conspiracy,

crimes against peace, war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

15 years imprisonment.

Artur Seyss-Inquart: guilty of crimes against peace,

war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

Hanz Fritzsche: not guilty on this indictment.

Released.

Martin Bormann, tried in absentia: guilty of war crimes

and crimes against humanity.

Death by hanging.

The trial is over.

Seven begin their prison sentences.

Goering chooses to die by his own hand.

The other 10 wait for the gallows.

In Nuremberg, the people of the world found out and why.

But Nuremberg is more than an answer to a question.

As Justice Jackson said, this trial is part

of the great effort to make the peace more secure.

It constitutes juridical action of a kind to ensure

that those who start a war will pay for it personally.

Nuremberg stands as a warning to all those

who plan and wage aggressive war.

Subtitles by explosiveskull