I finally finished watching both movies: Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today and Filmmakers for the Prosecution. The first one is a 2009 digital restoration of the film produced in 1948 by brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg. In this film, they collected the evidence that would be used to convict the Nazy criminals at the Nuremberg Trail. The footage they collected was only partially included in the impressive documentary, and the second film included some footage that had never been seen before. However, a more disturbing fact is that even the original movie (without these extras) was intentionally hidden from the public by the US government.
Jean-Christophe Klotz, who directed the second movie, interviewed many of the creators of the original “Nuremberg” film or their surviving relatives and friends. He also talks about the Russian documentary by Roman Carmen and about the race between the filmmakers on which country will be the first one to tell the world about Nazi atrocities. Apparently, the main reason for the “Nuremberg” movie to disappear from the public view was that Russians were portrayed as US allies (actually, the film does not include the secret pact and Russian annexation of parts of Poland). That being said, by 1948, the US government didn’t want any mention of being allies with the Soviet Union during WWII, which shelved the movie for seventy-five years.
But that was not it. In addition, it was presumed that the wide release of a film indicting Germany on war crimes might impede political and public acceptance of the plan to rebuild Germany’s economy, a vital plank in the Marshall Plan’s approach to European recovery. So apparently, the film was viewed as anti-German, at least to the same degree as anti-Nazi.
More valuable information is available on the project website, which also reveals the search for evidence in the propaganda films made by the Nazis themselves. If any of my readers are interested, I encourage them to explore this website.
Hettie's Reflections 