Nazis on trial | DW Documentary

[Music] germany in 1945 hitler was dead his nazi regime had taken the lives of six million jews the country's leading representatives were to be held accountable for their actions by an international military tribunal for the first time in world history 24 high-ranking nazis were charged and made to stand trial in the german city of nuremberg israel ministers in the griffin the classician used it i don't think you can consider the holocaust in terms of classical justice at all in the end there's no forgiving what happened but at least the perpetrators could be tried in court how do the victims and the children of the war criminals view the nuremberg trials 75 years on my name is my name is peter johann in 1944 we were all deported to auschwitz my entire family was murdered there hitler's deputy in occupied poland he was the governor general and politically responsible for every murder committed there between 1939 and 1945 my father was the assigned defense counsel for alfred rosenberg hitler's chief ideologue alfred rosenberg and the first deputy in poland hans frank were among the leading nazis who were in the dock in nuremberg on november 20 1945. many other high-ranking nazis had gone into hiding or like hitler and his propaganda minister yousef gurbos had committed suicide the trials were held in nuremberg of all places the city where the nazi party had staged its rallies where the fascists had flexed their muscles now for the first time in history a state's rulers were to be held personally responsible for their crimes by an international tribunal the four wartime allied powers the us the soviet union britain and france had agreed to this even before the hostilities ceased in what might be called an irony of history nuremberg's palace of justice was left virtually undamaged by the war room 600 the largest in the criminal court was remodeled to accommodate the trial of the century alfred toma a retired judge was asked by the americans to defend alfred rosenberg there were too few lawyers who hadn't been compromised during the nazi era crenator who was 17 at the time later accompanied her father to the trial on several occasions my father was picked up by a jeep it was the cia a few hours later he returned and said i've been called on to be the court-appointed defense counsel for two accused who still don't have any defense lawyers my father was very distressed and said i had no other choice i had to accept for nicholas frank the trials marked the abrupt end of a carefree childhood his father hans frank hitler's deputy in occupied poland was one of the major war criminals he was called the butcher of poland a fact that didn't escape niklas who was just six at the time of the trial after school someone taunted me minister minister gas canister because i was the son of a reich minister that wasn't so bad another said hey nikki that's what they called me your dad's going to hang soon all i said was yes more than 600 journalists from around the world followed the nuremberg trials all you could hear was the translator's machines for me for me it was a tense oppressive atmosphere yeah oh mitcham that was also charged with shame gillard atmosphere the major war criminals were indicted on the following charges conspiring to commit crimes against peace planning initiating and waging a war of aggression participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity all of the accused pleaded not guilty peter gadoche was just 14 years old when he was sent to auschwitz in 1944 along with his mother and his little sister both of them were killed in the gas chambers peter gadoche survived i followed the proceedings and was gratified to see that at least the main war criminals were put in the dock by the allies and that in the end they got the punishment they deserved during the trials testimony from witnesses and documents showed that the jewish victims had been murdered systematically all these corpses died of suffocation but the major war criminals denied responsibility for the killings the accused didn't exactly cover themselves in glory at the nuremberg trials they denied responsibility and blamed everything on their superiors they were just of the concentration camps with the mountains of corpses dr thomas for the defendant rosenbach for alfred thomas an avowed opponent of the nazi regime who now had to defend a nazi war criminal the proceedings were grueling that was a real shock for everyone involved basically all of the lawyers because they'd never suspected the dimension of the crimes their vibration they didn't know the extent of the atrocities committed at auschwitz bergen-belsen many germans only learned the full extent of the nazis crimes during the trial including those committed by nicholas frank's father because i saw photos of the corpses at the concentration camps including the bodies of children who were my age at the time and that shocked me because it always said underneath them poland i thought poland belonged to us the frank family my oldest brother norman saw the photos he went to our mother and said mom if the photos are real dad on october 1 1946 the verdicts were announced of the accused three were acquitted three received lifetime sentences and four were given prison sentences twelve were sentenced to death the executions took place not long afterwards in the trial court's former gym does him but them lying in their coffins with the white and black striped rope around their necks i thought they all deserved to wear those neckties twelve more trials took place at the u.s military tribunal in nuremberg of the 185 additional defendants 24 were initially sentenced to death i don't think that we germans back then or even later on condemned those criminals after the last of the american-led trials few attempts were made to capture and prosecute other nazi war criminals the world was preoccupied by the cold war and germans once again had the say in their own courtrooms so many former nazis remained in positions of authority in the young federal republic of germany many of the others who had blood on their hands were never caught after being led in the direction of democracy by the allies the victors who freed us it would really have been good to clean house and charge everyone but naturally people didn't want that especially those guilty of crimes they used their connections to prevent that and then the supreme court exonerated all of the judges the justice system never really cleaned house still the nuremberg trials were a historic milestone and they later paved the way for the creation of the international criminal court in the hague the einziger positive and information the only positive thing to come out of my father's criminal life was that due to him those four indictments were invented or found to put people like him on trial always carries a photo of his father who was sentenced to death and hanged whenever he feels just the tiniest sense of pity for his father he thinks about the images of auschwitz and that restores his belief that justice was served at the nuremberg trials you

Channel: DW Documentary

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Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2020, Nuremberg trials, Hans Frank, Niklas Frank, Peter Gardosch, Renate Rönn, Alfred Thoma, international law, Nazi war criminals, international military tribunal

Id: qMbaY8dCfUM

Length: 12min 31sec (751 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020