On the 1st of October 1946, one of the most spectacular legal proceedings in history ended in Nürnberg. In this trial there were eleven death rows, seven sentences about certain periods of time and three acquittals.
Herrmann Göring was the most important surviving leading Nazi after Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler had committed suicide. Göring was popular and feared and should have been Hitler's successor.
After the end of the war he claimed to have prevented the terrible events in the concentration camps, if he would have known about them. He was convinced that the allied powers needed him to rule Germany.
But in Washington they had already decided to organize an international military tribunal to sentence the Nazi-leaders.
This was not an easy task, as a "high grade lynching" should have been evaded. Finally the Nazi-regime was judged as a conspiracy to attack other countries and exploit and kill the population. The members of staff of US-chief-prosecutor began to explore the history of Nazi-leaders as Göring.
Herrmann Göring was born in 1893 as the son of a wealthy family. In the First World War he got honoured, but after the war was lost he escaped to Sweden and became a pilot for the national post. In Sweden he also met his first wife Carin.
At the beginning of the 1920s he returned to Germany and became a follower of Adolf Hitler. After he was wounded during the coup of the 9th of November 1923, he escaped to Austria. Because of his injuries he got morphin and got addicted. He then returned to Sweden and had to stay in a hospital for some time.
In 1927 Göring was back in Germany and one year later he got one of the first members of the "Reichstag" for the "NSDAP". Thus Göring became one of the most important figures in Nazi-Germany next to Hitler.
On the 26th of June 1945 Robert H. Jackson left for Europe to start the negotiations about the tribunal in London. Jackson wanted this trial to be a symbol of moral and a victory of civilisation to prevent the world from such events as they had happened in Germany. But the negotiations turned out to be quite complicated, as the Sowjets feared to be charged as well, because of their aggressive behaviour towards Finland and the Baltic states. Finally they compromised to limit the trial to the German crimes.
Nürnberg was chosen as the adequate place for the tribunal, not only because of its symbolic meaning, but also because the court was not destroyed and there was a bordering prison.
The accused were brought there, among them Herrmann Göring, the minister for external affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, marshal Wilhelm Keitel, and the minister for armament Albert Speer.
Now accused in Nürnberg Göring wanted to use the court as his stage and presented himself as a hard opponent.
The international military tribunal began in November 1945 and the first two days they read the accusations. Göring pleaded "not guilty".
This documentary shows the tribunal as a fight between good and bad. The fight ends with the victory of civilisation.
Michel Kloft held interviews with witnesses, collected documents and materials and visited the original places.
