Nuremberg Trial (Court TV, part 9)

coming up more than a decade after Hitler seized control of Germany the troops Hitler once laughed at takeover almost a year and a half after the defeat of the Nazi regime and ten months after the beginning of the trial the Nuremberg Tribunal delivers its verdict on 22 of Nazi Germany's most influential men tonight we'll show you more witnesses the summations and the verdicts in the world's first attempt to enforce global justice [Music] [Music] welcome back to core TV i'm ricky Kleeman 50 years ago the victorious Allies of World War 2 made a decision to try the leaders of Nazi Germany in a court of law amidst the ruins of Nuremberg their ultimate goal was to point the way to a better world one in which the rule of international law would prevail over the might of nations seeking war the legacy of Nuremberg is still debated tonight as we bring our weeks coverage to a conclusion we begin with testimony from three defendants and we ask questions about their crimes and their fate at the hands of the Nuremberg judges that still remain unanswered half a century later the defendants falter funk head of the Reich schmuck the German state bank who used his expertise as an economist to help maintain the Hitler government and its war economy he's a banker liable for crimes committed with the money he helps provide is he responsible for the blood chilling form of collateral gold teeth of victims held at the bank then fritz au co the man who supplied the slave labor for Hitler's war Zeljko brought millions of foreigners into Germany to work as slaves and Albert Speer Hitler's personal architect who rose to lead Germany's productions of arms and munitions Speer used the slaves that Zeljko provided but the two men did not share the same fate before the judges at Nuremberg history has not decided whether zal coal and sphere were treated fairly by the court tonight you will hear the verdicts and the sentences meted out to the 22 defendants on trial in Nuremberg one of those defendants Martin Bormann Hitler's secretary wasn't present he could not be found for trial possibly because he was already dead joining us to discuss the historic trial and its aftermath for the beginning of our program has been Firenze a former prosecutor at Nuremberg I welcome you back to court TV you have spent some time here this week Thank You Ricky pleasure to be here again thank you and let me tell the viewers some things about you because we are indeed privileged to have you with us you were someone who graduated the Harvard Law School in the 40s you've been involved as a former prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg trials the trials that came after this in particular having to deal with the special extermination squads we were in the army you were sent to jag to investigate the Nazi atrocities and to help set up a war crimes division and you were assigned to investigate dozens of concentration camps and probably the horrors that you could tell us to fight description you even met Albert Speer after some twenty years of his imprisonment and you have written many many books defining international aggression the search for world peace an International Criminal Court and I can go on and on and on perhaps the last thing I might say is that your former law partner of Telfer Taylor so with all of that I sincerely welcome you on behalf of Court TV and I have to ask you the main question of this evening for all of us Noren Berg is fifty years ago it began fifty years ago next Monday November 20th there is a legacy did the trial at Nuremberg work it certainly worked it put on the record horrible atrocities which the world would otherwise not believe it created a very insignificant precedent that no matter how grave the crime the guilty are entitled to be presumed innocent until found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt that war brings with it certain horrors but there are methods of applying the law international law to try to curb the excesses of war and in fact to try to bring an end to aggressive war as well these were the goals of Nuremberg they did that in addition they launched the awareness that there are things like crimes against humanity but the individual human being is entitled to be protected even against his own government and that these human rights which came out of the awareness and the disclosure of genocide have grown and blossomed and have in fact been accepted as universal standards throughout the world a very optimistic view and we'll continue to talk about most of the optimism as some of the pessimism as well about where this legacy of Nuremberg we're going to talk about that throughout this evening right now we're going to take a break and after this break we're going to hear testimony from vaulter folk a banker who helped keep the money flowing into Hitler's war machine the Reichsbank Frankfurt Germany and first films of the u.s. inventory of Nazi war loot nothing eluded the Nazi search for money and gold these are gold and silver teeth fillings from concentration camp inmates [Music] total funk was Minister of Economic Affairs from 1938 to 1945 succeeding Hjalmar Schacht who was also on trial historical commentators have given him the distinction of being the only defendant who may have sincerely repented at Nuremberg he testified for four days and was seen to weep while on the witness stand he revealed his remorse by calling the millions of Jewish dead a catastrophe for himself personally nonetheless the image of the collateral at the right bank when he served as president polluted the atmosphere of the Palace of Justice throughout the trial deposits of diamonds pearls gold rings earrings and watches were one thing but gold eyeglass frames and gold teeth were quite another the Reichsbank prospered on the cold-blooded deaths of millions of people this is Walter funk when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany Walter funk became his press secretary in that role who handled administrative matters for propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels Goebbels had committed suicide amidst the Fuehrer's downfall once the editor of a German financial journal whom flows through the Nazi reigns to replace Homer shocked as Minister of economics and head of the Reichsbank Germany State Bank fuke was a talented pianist expert in classical music he was known in Nazi circles for his love of cigars all-night parties and gold jewelry who came to the dark at Nuremberg after being hospitalized for chronic bladder infections a condition that had gotten funk out of the German army during World War one here on direct examination funk describes his surprise when Adolf Hitler invited him to take a high position in the government dr. Foreman you were state secretary in the propaganda ministry until 1937 at the end of November 1937 you became a nice Minister of economics after your predecessor dr. Schaack had left that post can you tell us was the necessary brevity of course how that change took place and why you were called to that post Oh tascam chemical equivalent they took me completely by surprise - during a performance at the Opera the Fuhrer who was present took me aside in the vestibule during an intermission and told me that the difference between shaft and Goering could no longer be bridged and that heave our staff are compelled to dismiss shocked from his office as Minister of economics and was asking me to take over the post of Minister of economics as he was very well acquainted with my knowledge and experience in the field of economics he also asked me to contact reichsmarschall Goering who would explain everything else now in the course of these proceedings we have heard about a series of discussions which Hitler had with generals and other personalities and which concerned military and political matters all these were discussions which we must say today stood in closest connection with preparations for war at which of these discussions were you present and what did you gather from them never called into political and military discussions and I did not participate in any of these discussions which were mentioned here in connection with the charge of planning and aggressive war so far as discussions list of your are concerned I was also not informed about the contents of these discussions and as far as I can remember I was hardly ever present as discussions with the rice mushroom fans I dealt with this topic at the trial in Nuremberg there were cameras president they were movie cameras and they would shoot short segments a minute here three minutes or five minutes there when we have film that we can show you we will do that if there is not film of a particular segment what you will see is as perhaps a still photograph of the segment at the time because there is a complete audio track and that is how we have edited all this material together after looking at baltra phone cam before we go on to the two other remaining defendants we're going to look at this evening I want to ask Ben Ferraz about first the question of Walter funk at one point says of course he knew about the deposits of the gold teeth the gold eyeglasses at another point in time at the trial he says no no I didn't know and when we look at that there is that question of how could he not have known he could not have known it's possible many people didn't know the precise details they didn't know whether the gold teeth were extracted from the inmates while they were alive or after they were dead they didn't realize how they were packaged and that this was part of the plan of using the human body to maximum production for Germany including not only the gold teeth the hair to be shorn and used for killing for mattresses the fat could be boiled down and made into bars of soap with Jay on earth would you des jeux the bones that were ground up and used as fertilizer for the fields the Germans didn't have to know the details but they knew the overall picture that the Jews were being beaten and incarcerated and driven from Germany and surely thousands of people were involved in the extermination process itself and they certainly know everything what about the fact that you yourself investigated for the next trial that comes up after the one we're seeing about the extermination camps themselves you've seen some horrendous reality there tell us about some of them well you've seen the pictures here and the pictures really can't convey the real horror of the confusion the misery that despair the death the stench the disease dysentery diarrhea all over the place you have to be afraid to stay there long as you catch the typhus which was rampant in most of these camps the crematoria are still going and the utter chaos of troops moving in the SS running out the inmates being driven out all of this is really unimaginable to a normal human mind that human beings can set up such a mechanism to be so cruel to other human beings you've captured a part of it here and the Nuremberg record made some of it clear and the inmates of course those who survived will never forget it nor will they ever forgive it most of when we look at something that you say is so graphic that of course as much as anyone may have studied the Holocaust that they can't really picture what you actually saw with your own eyes what you smell what you heard well when we look at what I say is perhaps the pessimistic legacy of Nuremberg what about deterrence what's happened since these trials from fifty years ago was the remade deterrence throughout the world there was no deterrence for a very simple reason when Nuremberg was dissolved there was no subsequent court set up after the Nuremberg trials to punish the offenders that is like saying to the world we condemned aggression we condemned crimes against humanity we condemned genocide we condemned mass rapes but we have no court to try the offender's that is an insult to the memory of those who were killed it's an encouragement for the commission of those crimes again and the world is only now beginning with the court for former crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the discussions of the UN of a permanent court to try to build on this Nuremberg precedent which has been ignored for 50 years at the cost of millions of lives well we're going to take from what you said and we're going to go back into that courtroom and see what might have given a positive but yet may still have a negative effect and we're looking at United States prosecutor Thomas Dodd who destroyed any possible defense of funk particularly any denial of the nature of the deposits made by the SS in his bank we've listened your testimony since late Friday afternoon and as we understand it from your statements you admit none of the charges made against you in the indictment in any agree in any degree but possibly one exception I'm not clear as to whether or not you were making an admission this morning with respect to your part in the persecution of the Jews would you tell us now whether or not you intended to admit your own guilt for the part that you played in the persecution of the Jew he have a heart of Morrigan Gaddafi I said this morning that I had a deep sense of guilt and a deep sense of shame about the things which were done to the Jews in Germany and that at the time when the terror and violence began I was involved in a strong conflict with my conscience I felt I could almost say that the great injustice was being done however I did not feel guilty in respect to the indictment against me here that is that according to the indictment ieveis petty crimes against humanity because I signed the directives for carrying out laws which had been issued by superior officers laws that had to be made so that the Jews would not be entirely deprived of their rights and so that they could be given some legal protection at least in regard to compensation and settlement and admitting guilt against myself a moral guilt but not a guilt because I signed directives for carrying out the laws in any event not a guilt against humanity [Music] how much goal did you have on hand at the end of 1941 roughly and don't you manage long story about it because I'm not too interested but I'm really trying to find out if you were short on gold in 1941 their vote for stunt the gold reserve which I took over amounted to about five hundred million Reichsmarks when I received the post of shaft it was increased in any substantial manner only by the Belgian border when did you start to do business with the SS mr. funk the SS I have never done I want you to take this very seriously it's about the end of your examination and it's very important to you well now let's see you were not ordinarily in the habit in the Reichsbank of accepting jewels eyeglass spectacles watches cigarette cases pearls diamonds gold dentures were you did you ordinarily accept that sort of material for deposit in your bank name does this - Arkansas fella no she wasn't does the bank toss to endorse Ted well there could be no question in my opinion that the bank had no right to do that because these things were supposed to be delivered to an entirely different place if I am correctly informed about the legal position these things were supposed to be delivered to Zurich office for precious metals and not to the Reichsbank diamonds jewels and precious stones they're not a concern of the Reichsbank because it was not a place of sale for these things if the Reichsbank did that and it was unlawful and the Reichsbank committed any legal act the Reichsbank was not authorized to do that did you ever hear of anybody depositing his gold dentures in a bank keeping you saw that film and you saw the gold bridge work off mouth plate didn't you and the other dental work certainly nobody ever deposited that with a bank isn't that a fact rusty theater was built meat and scene and Valona so as far as the teeth are concerned this is a special case where these teeth came from I did not know it was not reported to me well do I know what was done with those teeth I am convinced that items of this sort and they were delivered to the Reichsbank had to be turned over to the office for precious metals Falls or I expander was not a place where gold was worked neither do I know whether the Reichsbank even had the technical facilities to work with this metal I do not know about rims did they such as you saw in the picture these things are of course no regular deposits that goes without saying that does go without saying after this break I'll look at the testimony of Fritz Sauckel the man in charge of slave labor Fritz Sauckel supplied labor for the war economy he appeared to enjoy the memory of his efficiency when he boasted at a ministerial meeting that out of five million foreign workers brought to Germany fewer than 200,000 came voluntarily history records him as an inept witness not only did he have trouble with the timing of his answers sometimes being so slow as to pause between each word and then speeding up to be virtually unintelligible but his choice of phrases was everything his lawyer attempted to prevent instead of admitting some guilt he continued to defend his past parroting well-worn Nazi rhetoric his performance could cause grave dangers for himself as well as for defendant Albert Speer they are inextricably intertwined ants tree drug Chris of Zeljko known as Fritz all his life was the son of a mailman and a seamstress he was the father of ten children at one time he'd considered moving to the United States where his wife sister lived but in 1921 Zeljko became a true believer in the Nazi politics of Adolf Hitler considered an unimaginative but hard-working party functionary salvo became Hitler's slave laborers are in 1942 his job was to provide workers with munitions factories run by Albert Speer Zeljko found it difficult to find the millions of workers fear demanded of him he conscripted laborers from across Europe and enslaved them in labor camps often they will work to death or starve to death there it was treatments alcohol took no credit for and blamed on his fellow defendant in the doc hair Speer sowho's attorney Robert savatya Slater represented Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961 Cervantes questions his client about his proposal to conscripted women and young people in a war effort but if ler had other ideas VESA incited a motive Iran may I explain the motives which prompted a furious decision he described the situation at that time at the end of the winter of 1941 1942 many hundreds of German locomotives almost also mechanized armored units tanks planes and mechanical repens have become useless as a result of the catastrophe of that abnormally hard winter hundreds of thousands of German soldiers had suffered terribly from the cold many divisions had lost their arms and supplies Saphira explained to me that if the race was the enemy four new arms new munitions and new dispositions of forces was not one now the Soviets would be as far as a channel by the next winter appealing to my sense of duty and asking me to put into it all I could he gave me the task of obtaining new foreign labour for employment in the German war economy he did you consider the employment of foreign labour justifiable from a general point of view an account of the necessities which I have mentioned I considered the employment of foreign workers justifiable according to the principles which I enforced and advocated and to which I also adhered in my field of work I was after all a German and I could feel only as a German they are future only a person who actually carried out the recruitment of the foreign workers the actual recruitment of foreign workers was the task of the German offices established in the various regions the offices of the military commanders or similar civilian German institutions see HMDA tool who ordered recruitment to be voluntary what was the success of that voluntary recruitment it several million foreign workers came to Germany voluntarily as voluntary recruitment was the underlying principle non comfortable malecon now comes to remark on which i want you to comment you answered of the five million foreign workers who came to germany less than two hundred thousand came voluntarily please explain that contradiction it's a I see that this is another interruption which I made all I wanted to say by it was that her Carol's opinion that all workers had come voluntarily was not quite correct this proportion which is put down here by the stenographer or the men writing the records is quite impossible how's that error occurred I do not know I never saw that record after this commercial break the prosecutor cross-examines alcohol about slave labor French Assistant Prosecutor chakras are cross-examines alcohol about the use of slave labor to support the war economy which was run by Albert Speer do you know how many French workers were deported to Germany as the result of your various actions as far as I can remember I cannot say exactly offhand there were 700,000 to 800,000 french workers employed in germany however I cannot tell you exactly without document I submit to you the interrogatory of General von Falkenhayn who testified before a French magistrate on November 27 1945 I read from page 1 on October 10th 1942 there appeared an order which instituted the compulsory labor service in Belgium and in the department's of northern France I sleep two nights answer I was commander for northern France and question does the weakness remember having promulgated this order answer I do not remember exactly the text of this order because it was drawn up after a long struggle with Zeljko their plenipotentiary general for the allocation of labor question did you have any difficulties with Xhaka answer I was fundamentally opposed to the institution of compulsory labor service and it was only after having received orders that I consented to promulgate the decree do you still deny the general fund falcon house and issued this order under pressure from you as it is put before me now emphatically is it true that you demanded that the death penalty should be applied to officials who for instance hindered your action at the conference was the French premier Laval I demanded by way of negotiations the death penalty in cases of very serious obstruction and you admit that you demanded the application of the death penalty in the case of these officials if a serious case of sabotage was in question according to martial law is it true that your task was to procure for the German war industry the labor is required that was one of my tasks in this respect were you responsible to the defendants Pierre Minister for armaments and munitions for the carrying out of your task I was responsible to the four-year plan and to the Fuhrer and I had instructions from the Fuhrer to meet the requirements of rice Minister Speer as far as it was possible for me to do so the defendant Speer approve of all the steps which you took in recruiting foreign labour at all events he agreed or he demanded that workers should be put at his disposal sometimes however we did not entirely agree as to how it should be done Zeljko and spear spear and Zeljko then Firenze all of this is about what is called slave labor is that the right term no unfortunately it's not the right term particularly as it concerns the concentration camp inmates who are marked for extermination one of the inmates corrected me a survivor of Auschwitz he said we were not slaves we were less than slaves a slave is someone you try to preserve so that you can use him but we were like a bit of sandpaper that's rubbed a few times used up and then thrown away to be burned with the garbage really a tragedy and a tragedy that's driven by industry and the industrial is that made it all come together to wage this so-called aggressive and highly aggressive war that it was what about these industrialists this was a real thing for prosecutor Robert Jackson he wanted to punish the industrialist was not terribly successful in doing that the industrialist put patriotism and nationalism above their human feelings they were quite aware for example I G Farben built outwits and they built it in order to have an unlimited supply of cheap or free labor to produce buna rubber necessary for the war effort they were totally aware that no one could survive there more than a few months nevertheless they continued to carry on and then were responsible for the thousands who died there they did this without any qualms of any kind forgetting that there is any human obligation this problem still exists today how do you measure the obligation of one human being who has another human being in his power we sued the German companies after the war after Nuremberg to try to get compensation for the survivors in a book published by Harvard University I wrote a tell for Taylor wrote the introduction and we raised the moral question what is their duty they resisted payments of any kind they paid as little as possible a few of them did croak IG Farben Siemens AEG some of the biggest German names paid a pittance to some of the survivors but in fact they tried to avoid it because they felt no sense of guilt they felt no sense of shame they felt no sense of remorse they felt they were doing their patriotic duty and if in the process millions of innocent people died well that's too bad for them in terms of the restitution that was paid as you say a bit of a pittance considering the horrors that happened in the concentration camps but much of it was not paid for years upon years well I must say this to the benefit of the West German government beginning in 1951 we did negotiate a reparation so-called reparations treaty in which the West German government acknowledged their responsibility to compensate the survivors of false imprisonment time in a concentration camp not at a very high level Irish was earned a dollar a day five marks at the time but also they are paying today for persons who were permanently disabled as a result of their persecution they get a small pension from the West German government now it's the government for all of Germany and this was a remarkable historical achievement the inmates of course feel in adequately compensated and they are inadequately compensated nevertheless the principle of compensating your victims the victims have been justices which applies in every Court in the world you injure someone you're responsible to rehabilitate him if you can that principle was never accepted before and has been in effect and that also I can say was their legacy of Nuremberg because they couldn't deny the liability and they went on to begin this process of rehabilitation which has not been widespread throughout the world but I hope it will be very important legacy indeed when looking back to the trial itself we had the to mr. song : mr. Speer and what of Albert Speer the man who requested the labor of millions at a relentless pace will see his testimony after this break stay with us Albert Speer may be one of the most intriguing of the Nuremberg defendants he remained a charismatic figure while he was in the dock as well as on the stand as rock Minister for armaments and munitions he gave the order for necessary labor and defendants alko complied with the delivery of live bodies historians would say that Speer understood the process of the war crimes trials he knew what he had to say and how he had to say it he knew he could manipulate the difference in skill at cross-examination between the easy touch of the chief prosecutor Robert Jackson and the dangerous Thomas Dodd Speer wanted the chief he got him Speer also knew the importance of a public act of contrition he appeared sincere and majestic a man the Allies might want to have around in the future from all outward appearances Albert Speer was as close a friend as Adolf Hitler had among his top Nazis at 28 the charismatic Speer was the Fuehrer's personal architect the two men dined together and sat next to each other at the theater Hitler who considered himself an artist shared his creative thoughts with Speer the young man loved the attention writing in his memoirs that he was quote intoxicated by the desire to wield pure power and quote in 1942 the Nazi leader picked his ambitious comrade to oversee German weapons production by the age of 38 Speer had 12 million people working to create the Nazi arsenal many of his workers came from slave labor camps where conditions were deadly as Albert Speer came to the dock at Nuremberg the question would be how much he knew about the torture his workers endured he would also have to explain just how loyal he was to weight off Hitler Speer was on the stand for direct examination for two days there was little interest in his well-known success as head of armaments but the court needed to hear was an indictment of him there will you repeat the shows off to me I swear by God the old man omniscient and I will speak the pure truth and we withhold and add nothing in the sitar there's no translation coming through me he begun how did your activity as a minister start 8 1942 my predecessor dr. Toth was killed in an airplane crash several days later Hitler declared I was to be his successor in his many offices at that time I was 36 years of age up until that time Hitler considered the main activity of thoth to be in the building sphere and that is why he called me to be his successor I believed that it was a complete surprise to everyone when I was called to office as a minister immediately upon my assuming office it could be seen that not building but the intensification of armaments was to be my main task for the heavy losses of material in the battles in Russia during the winter of 1941 1942 was a great blow Hitler called for considerable intensification of armament production then at first you had responsibility only for armaments production for the army but at the end of 1944 you were responsible for the entire field of armament and war production can you briefly tell me the stage of this development and how the extent of your job route it will be best for me to tell you about the development by dealing with the number of workers I had in 1942 I took over the armaments and construction programs which altogether 2.6 million workers in the spring of 1943 Donuts gave me the responsibility for naval armament as well and at this point I had 3.2 million workers in September of 1943 through an agreement with the Minister of Economy a funk the production task of the Ministry of Economy was transferred to me with that I had 12 million workers working for me finally I took over the air armament from going on August the 1st 1944 with that the total production was marshaled under me with 14 million workers the number of workers applies to the greater German I not including the occupied countries then technical minister do you wish to limit your responsibilities to your sphere of work 9 no I should like to say something of fundamental importance here this war has brought an inconceivable catastrophe upon the German people and indeed started a world catastrophe therefore it is my unquestionable duty to assume my share of responsibility for this disaster before the German people this is also more my obligation all the more my responsibility since the head of the government has avoided responsibility before the German people and before the world I as an important member of the leadership of the right therefore share in the total responsibility beginning with 1942 Speer the witness start said in his written interrogatory that about the middle of February 1945 you had demanded from him a supply of the new poison gas in order to assassinate Hitler Bauman and Gerber's why did you intend to do this then I thought there was no other way out in my despair I wanted to take this step as it had become obvious to me since the beginning of February that Hitler intended to go on with the war at all costs ruthlessly and without consideration for the German people it was obvious to me that in the loss of the war he confused his own fate with that of the German people and that in his own end he saw the end of the German people as well it was also obvious that the war was lost so completely that even unconditional surrender would have to be accepted did you mean to carry out this assassination yourself and why was your plan not realized I do not wish to testify to the details here I could only carry it out personally because after July 20th only a limited circle still had access to Hitler as you can watch Albert Speer it's been said by people who had seen him at the time that he could have literally walked out of the dark walked across the courtroom and joined the reporters and the prosecutors and the tribunal itself at the Grand Hotel I'm here with Benjamin Firenze and Ben you've met Albert Speer tell us about that meeting I arranged to meet Albert Speer only after he had spent 20 years in Spandau prison I had a purpose he and his official capacity had been issuing the instruction as to how industrialists go about getting so-called slave laborers the industrialist denied that they had anything to do with it they said they were forced to take slave laborers but the conditions were fine that if it hadn't been for them the slave laborers would have been killed immediately and therefore they owed them nothing quite the other way around and I wanted to ask ask mr. spare and I did how it was that these industrialists IG Farben Krupp Siemens all of them without exception maintained that they had nothing to do with it it was all forced upon them in the face of his orders and he said they're lying and I said can I quote you I was in the process of writing a book on it and he said you may and I then wrote my manuscript and sent it to him and asked to please correct anything that was wrong he corrected nothing he wrote I'm forced on an agreed on the margin of the pages and that was a rather courageous act he didn't have to do that and I must say I appreciated it because the German readers would not be inclined to believe what I had to say but they would not be inclined to doubt what he had to say there's been a lot of thought that he because of his way his manner his charm if you will that he charmed the men as well as the women in the courthouse that it almost became a class distinction and perhaps the decision of the disparity of his sentencing which we will see later on with that of Fritz Alcoa was a matter of class bias how can you or anyone else and justify his twenty years against the sentence of for itself it's not a matter of class bias at all it's really a matter of remorse one of the things which was most absent in all the Nuremberg proceedings the IMT trial had in the subsequent proceedings was the practically total absence of remorse these defendants against whom there was overwhelming evidence of horrendous crimes actors oh it never happened and if it did happen well it wasn't their fault or we Germans suffered as well no expression of sympathy for anybody else no feeling of guilt no regret no indication that they wouldn't do it again quite the contrary Speer was a bit different he acknowledged a sense of guilt and having participated in a leading position in the crimes that happened even though he himself deny that he was directly involved and he wasn't this feeling of remorse which came through put him in a separate category and it was appropriate it seems to me to give somebody credit for that feeling of regret when you impose the sentence if you're imposing a sentence on a person who denies that it happened and you know he's lying or he said it's true it happened that I would do it again which was most of them there is no feeling of pity or regret but in a case like spare will you think well maybe the man is really sorry and he wouldn't do it again and he's telling the truth at least more so than the others I think that was reflected in the reduced sentence that he got well historians have said maybe he was telling the truth maybe he was sincere other historians have said he was a manipulative man indeed so as we go to break Otto Kron Bueller who represented Admiral donitz states that one must make a hard choice in order to judge Albert Speer properly the question of course the question of honesty was real you know feeding us just the way to get out of a responsibility I don't want to wait [Music] still ahead Robert Jackson delivers his summation to the Nuremberg Tribunal and later I believed but I erred and I was not in a position to prevent what ought to have been prevented that's my guilt the defendants make their final statements to the tribunal that will decide if they live or die all of that and the verdicts coming up on our look at the Nuremberg trial [Music] I thought really doubtful whether he was really part of a criminal conspiracy as we alleged against him but he was fairly tried and there's no doubt on the evidence that he was a strong supporter arm fit loud the Darcy regime in the days when that regimes were all powerful when its power was broken then he took a different attitude that comment was from sir Hartley Shawcross chief prosecutor for the British at Nuremberg on defendant Albert Speers dramatic shift away from Hitler Albert Speer was willing to condemn Hitler as we just heard to tell the court that Hitler had brought a catastrophe on the German people in the world and even to plot Hitler's death but on cross-examination by us chief prosecutor Speer does not accept responsibility for the inhuman day-to-day living conditions of the foreign slave laborers those workers were brought to Germany to feed fear seemingly endless need for war production next after prosecutor Robert Jackson describes the horrendous conditions for workers in an underground airplane factory Speer denies knowledge of or responsibility for their suffering I want to ask you about the recruiting of forced labor as I understand it you knew about the deportation of a hundred thousand Jews from Hungary for subterranean airplane factories and you told us in your interrogation of October the 15th October 18 1945 that you made no objection to it that is true is it not that is true yes and you told us also quite candidly on that day then it was no secret to you that a good deal of the manpower brought in bicycle was bodyand by illegal methods that is also true I took great care at the time to notice what expressions the interrogating officer used he used the expression they came against their wish and that I confirmed well in any event you knew that the at the Fuehrer conference in August 1942 the Fuhrer had approved of all coercive measures for obtaining labor if they couldn't be obtained on a voluntary basis and you knew that that program was being carried out you as a matter of fact you didn't give any particular attention to the legal side of this thing did you you are after manpower that's the fact absolutely that is absolutely correct and whether it was legal or illegal wasn't your worry Albert that's view of the whole war situation end of our views in general on this question it was justified well document two five eight establishing the SS as being the guards the camp inmates were mostly Jewish women and girls from Hungary and Romania revelare was at 5:00 a.m. there was no coffee or any food served in the morning they marched off to the factory at 5:15 they marched for three-quarters of an hour to the factory fully clothed and badly shot some without shoes and covered with a blanket by rain or snow work began at 6:00 a.m. lunch break was from 12:00 to 12:30 only during the break was it at all possible for the prisoners to cook something for themselves from potato feelings and other garbage the daily work period was one of 10 to 11 hours although the prisoners were completely undernourished their work was very heavy filling the prisoners were often maltreated at their work benches by nazi overseers and female SS guards at 5:00 or 6:00 in the afternoon they were marched back to camp the accompanying guards consisted of female SS who in spite of the protests from the civil population often maltreated the prisoners on the way back by kicks blows and scarcely repeatable words it often happened that individual women or girls had to be carried back to camp by their comrades owing to exhaustion at 6 or 7 these exhausted people arrived back in camp then the real midday meal was distributed this consisted of cabbage soup this was followed by the evening meal of water soup and a piece of friend which was for the following day occasionally the food on Sundays was better an inspection of the camp as long as it existed was never undertaken by the farmer crook from the 13th of March 1945 the camp prisoners were bought brought to Buchenwald concentration camp and from there some were sent to work the camp commandant was over shower Ric in your estimation that I suppose is also an exaggeration this on bite see first I should like to say as you have so often mentioned my non responsibility that if in general these conditions had been true on the basis of my statement yesterday I should consider myself responsible I refused to evade responsibility but the conditions were not what they are said to have been here there are only individual cases which are quoted my position is such that I feel it is my duty to protect the heads of factories from any injustice which might be done then the head of a factory could not bother about the conditions in such a camp I cannot say whether the conditions were as described in this camp we have seen so much material on conditions that he concentration camp during the trial Albert Speer being as articulate as you just heard him or be it through an interpreter really was cross-examined with one might say a light touch he asked for chief justice for the for the chief prosecutor justice of the supreme court Robert Jackson and Robert Jackson had a number of different agenda going at that time some of the questions in fest that he asked of the witness was he asked him if he was a member of the SS and he said that he wasn't and the people who had worked for Jackson did have a lot of documentary evidence about his membership in the SS but Jackson did not pursue it another time he asked mr. Speer about standing up to Hitler and he was the only one who told him that the war was lost and it said that the British prosecutors dropped dropped their mouths to their jaws hitting their chins to their chests and Albert Speer did get to say a lot of what he wanted to say and perhaps that goes to his being somewhat successful to say the least in the eventual sentencing been friends when we look at Albert Speer during this cross-examination what we see is a man who does have contrition who does have remorse and in addition to that there's been a lot said about the fact that he actually boarded Hitler at the end that Hitler had this scorched earth policy and that Hitler wanted to really just drive bulldozers through Germany and get rid of all of Industry and that Speer was not going to permit this to happen and that probably also helped him with the Allies I would think well I would think so but I wouldn't give him very much credit for that because Hitler became mad at the end of the war I don't tribute this madman theory to Hitler he was anything but mad but when he realized that the war was lost he felt the German people didn't deserve him and they didn't deserve to go on and therefore he wanted to pull the whole temple down with him as a form of you know getting even was with the fate that had dealt him such a cruel hand and Speer said quite properly look I can't go along with that because we still have to build up afterwards it was the only rational approach but I think that what it reflected was the attitude of totalitarian rule that everything is justifiable for the goal including destruction of people your own people your own country whatever is necessary this absolutely fanatic drive to achieve your perception of a proper world and Hitler was ready to do that and of course very few other people were ready to do that as well particularly when everything was lost so I think that it reflected a more rational approach on the part of spare perhaps a more humane approach on the part of spare and so that too I think explains why he only got twenty years but I don't minimize twenty years 20 years in Spandau prison with the Russians in charge of their quarter of it as they were was not an easy life I visited Spandau prison and 20 years is quite a bit of punishment for whatever I'm sure there is no doubt about that let me ask you about something that we just saw that had to do with Robert Jackson's questions about the conditions at slave labor camps as they called them and as you have so rightly pointed out there were such things as concentration camps there were things its extermination camps but at the time of this trial this was a trial that was right on the heels of the end of World War two there was much we didn't know that's exactly right it's remarkable how much we were able to put together in a very short period of time thanks to German methodical document keeping and photographs and everything that was available but the real sense of what it was like in a camp like Auschwitz I'm not talking about some recruitment of Polish laborers working on a farm in occupied France I'm talking about working out of Auschwitz or out of boone wild and these were the centers from which slave laborers were sent to these thousands of industrial sites where they were working they were beaten by the other inmates they were beaten by the SS they were threatened with death at any moment the starvation food that they gave them was designed to kill them keep them working only as long as they can work with the minimum of nourishment that was the order of the day and we have the orders counting out the grams of whatever they are to get those circumstances were not very well known by the time Jackson's cross-examination took place so I view that as a rather sanitized approach they had to rise at 5 o'clock and they came back 12 hours later and so on and so it were a very orderly thing in fact the poor inmates were being dragged around in the cold and the winter with no shoes and no blankets to cover themselves they use paper sacks to carry 50-pound bags of cement in order to protect their shoulders from being one raw as they were these were things which we didn't quite know and they didn't reflect itself in the questioning ok thank you for that explanation we're going to take a break and when we return final arguments chief United States prosecutor Robert Jackson tells the court why each of the 22 Nazi defendants should be found guilty on July 26 1946 the courtroom bristled with energy is the press and the public return on mass to hear the summations of the prosecutors Robert Jackson had distinguished himself in his extraordinary opening but lost ground as a cross examiner he returns with a speech that matches his beginning with the great oratory of his closing argument his use of the English language and the rhetorical techniques of simile metaphor analogy Shakespeare and history serve as an excellent example to any advocate of those times or these Jackson invokes the villainy of the despicable defendants during the gangster hest the zealot von Ribbentrop the salesman of deception striker the venomous Bulgarians listen to this majesty mr. president and members of the tribunal an advocate can be confronted with two more formidable tasks than to select his closing arguments file errors great disparity between his appropriate time and his available material in eight months a short time as state trials go we have introduced evidence which embraces as vast and varied as has ever been compressed within the framework of a litigation it is impossible information to do more than outline with bold strokes the vitals of this trial mad and melancholy require which will live as the historical text of the 20th century's shame and depravity these two score years in this 20th century will be recorded in the book of years as one of the most bloody in all animal two world wars have left a legacy of debt which number more than all the army engaged in any war that made ancient or medieval history no half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale a glance over the dark will show that despite that quarrels among themselves each defendant played a part which fitted in with every other and all advanced the common plan it contradicts experience that men of such diverse backgrounds and talents should show forward each other's aims by coincidence the large and varied role of Goering was half militarist and half gangster he stuck a pudgy finger in every pie he used his si muscle men to help bring the gang into power before succumbing to wanderlust was the engineer attending the party machinery passing orders and propaganda down to the leadership core supervising every aspect of party activity and maintaining the organization as a loyal and ready instrument of power when apprehensions abroad threatened the success of the Nazi regime for conquest it was a duplicitous Ribbentrop the salesman of deception who was detailed to pour wine on the troubled waters of suspicion by preaching the gospel of limited and peaceful intentions title the weakened willing to delivered the Armed Forces the instrument of a grace over to the party and directed them and executing its felonious design countin brother the Grand Inquisitor took up the bloody mantle of Heydrich to stifle opposition and terrorize compliance and buttress the power of National Socialism on a foundation of guilt with corpses Stryker the venomous Vulgarian manufactured and distributed obscene racial labels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of race purification Minister of economics funk accelerated the pace of rearmament and as Reich's president breaks bank president thanks for the SS the gold teeth filling of concentration camp victims probably the most foolish collateral in banking history it was shot the facade of starts respectability who in the early days provided the window dressing the bait for the hesitant and whose wizardry later made it possible for Hitler to finance the colossal rearmament program and to do it secretly is against such a background that these defendants now as you start buildin a that they are not guilty of planning executing or conspiring to commit this long list of time and wrong they stand before the record of this file as bloodstains lockers goodbye the body of his plain cake he begged of the widow as they beg of you say I flew them not and the Queen replied then say they were not plane but death they are if you were to say of these men that they are not you to say that there has been no war just doesn't get much better than that extraordinary oratory and I'm here to ask your final thoughts been friends and thank you for being with us for the first half of this our final evening of programming this week and you've had so much to think about for half a century you were 27 years old when you went to prosecute in Nuremberg following this trial with people from the concentration camps what are your final thoughts about Nuremberg I don't think we can improve much on what Justice Robert Jackson said in his opening and his closing these trials were really an effort to bring law on the side of humanity to prevent aggression the first charge in the Charter to prevent crimes against humanity genocide to prevent massive war crimes and it laid a foundation for that but it's got to be seen in a much broader picture we cannot correct the world just by one judgment or even many judgments of different courts we've got to build the institutions which makes it possible for all human beings to live in peace and dignity regardless of their race or creed otherwise we'll have the repetition these crimes the United Nations is charged with responsibility for doing that but the nations that are the members have not given them the rules or the tools to do the job they have even ignored the Charter which they pledged to honor after 40 million people had been killed in World War two and on top of another 20 million had been killed in World War 1 and 20 million died since then where is saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war and this kind of crime so it requires the kind of dedication which justice Jackson expressed and which the Nuremberg prosecutors in this and the subsequent trials and the prosecutors and other trials in other parts of the world we're trying to create and fundamentally it requires a determination on the part of the public what kind of a world do they want is this the kind of a world they want where 20 million people are homeless today refugees running all over the face of the earth looking for some shelter some security where mass rapes have taken place where mass killings are taking place where wars are still raging is this the kind of a world we want at Nuremberg we felt we didn't want that kind of a world and we could change it well we haven't succeeded it takes greater effort on a much broader scale and greater awareness and greater determination and that's the question addressed to your readers and to your public if you want a better world you've got to work for it I've been doing it for 50 years and it takes more than 50 years it takes the young people coming out now to say that they will follow in the footsteps of Justice Jackson and those who sought a better world through law and for you as you have said to me off-camera and follows just upon your words you'll never give up for you there's only one rule never give up never give up if you give up you're lost the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing if hope is the engine that drives human endeavor once you've lost your hope you're doomed so there is no choice for those who seek a better world they can't have the luxury of being cynical or despairing they've got to keep trying and I'm sure that although the progress may be slow the prowl is there it's real and hopefully one day we'll have a better world on behalf of everyone in court TV I thank you on behalf of myself it is a privilege to have spent this time thank you up next sir Hartley Shawcross delivers his powerful summation as we go to break the united states prosecutor Drexel sprecher reflects on what he perceives to be the legacy of Nuremberg I think the legacy of Nuremberg is partly to make people think at an earlier point about potential dictators and how they themselves get tie it into a regime which begins to take short cuts and which sooner or later starts to kill its opposition birth some of its own people the German as justice Jackson said the first victims of the Knights of regime were the German people [Music] the cow from our point of view whilst perfectly fairly conducted in accordance of British tradition it was true that never been such a child before in which people were accused of waging an illegal war and subject to that but this is a new crime although strong case to be made out and what made Apple saying it wasn't in fact a neutron to wage an illegal war was always illegal from definition fifty years later so Hartley Shawcross the chief prosecutor from the United Kingdom expresses confidence in the proceedings used to try Nazi war criminals today he should look back on his moments in the courtroom of the Palace of Justice with pride his summation certainly rivals Jackson's for eloquence and emotion beneath the flourishes of oratory are the facts upon which he relies so heartless Shawcross discusses the shameful episode of the liquidation of the jews he concludes that each of the defendants in the dock has no right to mercy for they played a part in the crime of murdering millions in cold blood Shaka's reads a true story of an observer of mass death the purpose of the action is the liquidation of Jews women were folding their children in their arms and pointing to the sky while they waited to take their place in blood-soaked communal grave 12 million men women and children have died us murdered in cold blood millions upon millions more today mourn their fathers and their mothers their husbands their wives and their children what rights as any man to Mercy was played a part however indirectly in such a crime the people who got off the trucks men women and children of all ages had to undress upon the orders of an SS man or carry their riding or dog with they had to put down their clothes in fixed places sorted according to shoes top clothing and under Trev I saw a heap of shoes of about 800 to a thousand pairs great piles of under linen and clothing without screaming or weeping these people undressed stood around in family groups kissed each other said farewells and waited for a sign from another SS man who stood near the pit also with a whip in his hair during the 15 minutes that I stood near I heard no complaint or plea for mercy I watched a family of about eight distance a man and a woman has about fifty with their children of about one eight and ten and two grown-up daughters of about twenty or twenty for an old woman with snow-white hair was holding the one-year-old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it the child was cooing with delight the couple were looking on with tears in their eyes the father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and speaking to him softly the boy was fighting his tears the father pointed to the sky stroked his head and seemed to explain something to the boys at that moment the SS man at the pitch shouted something to his Congress the latter counted off about twenty persons and instructed them to go behind the earth mouth among them was the family which I had mentioned I will remember a girl slim and with black hair who was she passed close to me pointed to herself and said twenty-three I walked around the mound and found myself confronted by a tremendous brave people will closely wedge together and lying on top of each other so that only their heads were visible nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads some of the people shot was still moving some were lifting their arms and turning their heads to show that they were still alive you are ministers and leading officers of state did not know these matters it is for you to decide such as you have to deal with understanding comes to this court and cries these are our laws prevail brilliant oratory to listen to his words and not have an emotion as to really have ice in your veins it is said by many people who have walked through the Holocaust Memorial of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC at the moment that takes their breath away is the moment that they come into the corridor that has the shoes as so described by Starr Hartley Shawcross I'm pleased to be joined for the closure of our time looking at the Nuremberg trials with Sharif Bessie uni mr. Bethany is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago at the College of Law you teach a course on international law criminal law that focuses largely on Nuremberg as well as The Hague and in dealing with The Hague is the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia if I went to go through all of your credentials we would be here throughout the night and so I'm just going to give our viewers some thought of really how fortunate we are to have you you were the former chief legal counsel to the Canadian government you aided in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals you have served as a consultant the United States Department of Defense on the US hostages in Iran you are the president of the International Institute of higher learning and criminal studies you are author of many many works 23 books in total 150 plus articles some of these having been cited by the International Court of Justice the United States Supreme Court you've been a professor in Germany at the University of Cairo at NYU Law School and perhaps for us who have worked on this Nuremberg project you are the author of the book crimes against humanity which many say is the definitive text on the Nuremberg trials I thank you for coming from Chicago thank you actually from Virginia right he went to another that was at a conference at Charlottesville Virginia precisely on Nuremberg where many former prosecutors were there and it was a very moving experience well thank you for sharing your time let me ask you about what perhaps maybe the realistic view I won't call it the pessimistic view of the legacy of Nuremberg you're involved now in looking at the the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia was there a deterrent from Nuremberg well I served for two and a half years on the Commission the and I was chairman of the commission that investigated the war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and so many of the things that you have shown in the last few days were particularly significant to me I was involved in mass grave exclamations I did interviews of victims of mass rape I reviewed what happened in the policy of ethnic cleansing so hundreds of villages blown up was in Sarajevo many times while it was being shelled and so in a sense I lived in in a much smaller way the horrors that that happened in a much greater way in in World War two I think that there are two points that are very important for people to realize when you say six million Jews have been killed or 20 million people have been killed numbers don't have an impact you have to to know what happened to people that is what has an impact and and to a large extent individual stories of specific cases of victimization is what caused people to identify with what happened one of those stories if I'm a recount is is when we were doing the mass rape investigation in the former Yugoslavia which was the largest mass rape investigation in history we interviewed 223 victims in one case and all of this was done by the way by by women because I recruited women to be the principal investigators and in the evening they would come to me and I would debrief them write down the information because of the confidentiality aspect I was the only one who knew the identity of the victims otherwise they only had numbers and one of our investigators a woman prosecutor from Canada came to me one evening and she said you know you have to talk to this man he came to us today he was on crutches and seem to have bad legs and and he told us the following story he was he was a Croatian soccer player living in Sarajevo when he retired from soccer playing married a Serb woman who was divorced of a Muslim husband and had two children and he adopted the two two daughters 11 and 13 they became like his daughters he opened the little cafe where he and his wife worked and a lot of soccer fans came there well apparently his team had beaten up the local Serb team and when the war started a few young men who had joined the militias on the Serb side came and picked him up took him to the police station handcuffed him sat him on the floor and with rifle butts broke his legs and after they broke his legs while he was there they brought his wife and his two daughters and in in his presence and in the presence of others they they said to his wife that unless she would perform all sorts of sexual acts with them that they would rape the daughters ah as a result she did it and of course had to debase herself to that terrible experience the husband on the floor groaning and moaning in pain with the broken legs the two young daughters watching as the mother was doing all of the things that that they were asking her to do and after it was done they slit her throat and while she was dying they raped the two girls and slit their throats and what it shows out of all of this is perhaps that we don't learn anything at all we have to take a break and after this break the final summation a French prosecutor Agha giambetti a Talib on scientific barbarism although the judges at Nuremberg often complained about the repetition that resulted from a for power trial sometimes the international quality of the undertaking led to a fascinating look at the variation in perspective of the for prosecuting nations next we hear an excerpt from the rather philosophical closing speech by chief prosecutor for the French Auguste Champa ta da liebe he begins by praising the international court thanks to it the historian of the future as well as the chronicler of today will know the truth of the political diplomatic and military events of the most tragic period of our history he will know the crimes of Nazism as well as the IRA's Ellucian the weaknesses the emissions of the peace-loving democracies he will know that the work of 20 centuries of a civilization that believed itself eternal was almost destroyed by the return of ancient barbarism in a new guise all the more brutal because more scientific he will know that the progress of mechanical science modern means of propaganda and the most devilish practices of a police that defied the most elementary rules of humanity enabled a small minority of criminals within a few years to distort the collective conscience of a great people and to transform the nation described by dr. Sauter at the conclusion of his speech in defense of von Schirach as loyal upright and full of virtue into that of Hitler Himmler and Goebbels to mention only those of them who are dead he will know that the real crime of these men was the conception of the gigantic plan of world domination and the attempt to realize it by every possible means by every possible means that is of course by the breaking of pledges and by unleashing the worst of all wars of aggression but above all by the scientific and systematic extermination of millions of human beings and more especially of certain national or religious groups whose existence hampered the hegemony of the Germanic race this is a crime so monstrous so undreamt of in history throughout the Christian era up to the birth of hitlerism that the term genocide has had to be coined to define it and an accumulation of documents and testimonies has been needed to make it credible the perfect collaboration of the four public prosecutors has enabled it to be proved to the shame of the times we live in that this crime was possible and within the limits of those counts of the indictment reserved for herself France believes that she has done her part in the common tasks we're going to take a break when we come back a US prosecutor sums up the case against Nazi organizations you

Channel: RobertHJacksonCenter

Views: 33,072

Rating: 4.6474576 out of 5

Keywords: Funk, Sauckel, Speer, Harley Shawcross, Drexel Sprecher, French closing, Nuremberg Trial, Thomas Dodd, Ben Ferencz

Id: LPGImWsSBE0

Length: 123min 42sec (7422 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 11 2018