The Lessons of Nuremberg

This cassette includes graphic eyewitness accounts of life in the Nazi concentration camps as well as testimony concerning the medical experiments performed in them. The cassette should be played only after adequate preparation and with respect for the sensitivities of some listeners. Before the end of the war, the Allied governments agreed that even in war certain actions were unlawful and that individuals would be held responsible for these actions. In the war crimes trial at Nuremberg, twenty-two high Nazi officials were charged with conspiracy to wage aggressive war and committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. All the defendants pleaded "not guilty" to the charges. In his opening statement, Chief Justice Jackson says that the crimes committed were "so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated." The cassette includes eyewitness testimony from a woman who was interned at Auschwitz and a doctor who performed medical autopsies at Dachau. In his closing statement, Justice Jackson uses the defendants' own testimonies to demonstrate their guilt. The tape concludes with excerpts from the final statement of six defendants and the sentencing of the defendants.