This very rare WW2 era U.S. Army film "#Nuremberg" documented the #Nazi war criminal trials of 1945-46.
It was shown only once, and only in #Germany, in 1948.
American audiences didn’t get to see it until 2016. By then most WWII vets had passed on.
It was shown only once, and only in #Germany, in 1948.
American audiences didn’t get to see it until 2016. By then most WWII vets had passed on.
I think the film did air once on American television 📺 in 1949, but most Americans didn’t have a TV then so they didn’t get to see the actual #Nuremberg footage.
After that it was locked away in the archives and not seen again until the 21st Century when it was restored.
After that it was locked away in the archives and not seen again until the 21st Century when it was restored.
The digital restoration on this footage is incredible. It’s never looked so crisp and clear.
The #Nuremberg trial was, in many respects, “the last hurrah of wartime cooperation for the Allied powers” and “an early front of the Cold War.”
By Oct. 1946, when the trial concluded, the US and #USSR were already bitter enemies once again.
By Oct. 1946, when the trial concluded, the US and #USSR were already bitter enemies once again.
Hermann Göring — arguably the highest-ranking defendant tried at #Nuremberg — quipped “the only allies who are still allied are the four prosecutors, and they are only allied against the defendants.”
The Soviets had already hosted the first national trials of Russian and Ukrainian members of the dreaded Einsatzgruppen death squads, who murdered more than 7,000 Soviet citizens, most of them Jewish, as well as the “Kharkov Trial”.
A lamentable casualty of the deteriorating four-powers alliance was the proposal for a second international military tribunal to bring to justice the German financiers and industrialists who had bankrolled and profited from the Nazi enterprise — another key Soviet aim.
The Americans refused to participate in a second international tribunal in the European theater, largely scuttling the Soviets’ plan to expose the connections between American and German industrialist circles and indelibly link capitalism and fascism.
Although the Americans eventually prosecuted a number of industrialists including principals of the Flick Concern, IG Farben, and the Krupp Works — the West soon saw Germany as a bulwark against the spread of Soviet #communism and “rehabilitated” a number of these defendants.
In recent years, America’s turning away from the International Criminal Court puts the US squarely in the camp of authoritarian states that would prefer impunity to accountability.
This undermines the independence of prosecutors and judges — values that all Americans hold dear and that constitute essential democratic principles.
It also soils the U.S. legacy at #Nuremberg, of which we have heretofore been deservedly proud.
It also soils the U.S. legacy at #Nuremberg, of which we have heretofore been deservedly proud.
☝️ read this tweet again, and let that sink in…
As an addendum to this #Nuremberg thread 🧵, a reminder that some of the worst #Nazi war criminals were allowed to get away — with help from the US CIA…
https://twitter.com/reallorispencer/status/1610034192091602944
POLL: Was #Nuremberg 1946 a show trial? 👨⚖️
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