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Filming the End of the Holocaust: Allied Documentaries, Nuremberg and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps

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Filming the End of the Holocaust: Allied Documentaries, Nuremberg and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps Michalczyk, John J. "Chronology." Filming the End of the Holocaust: Allied Documentaries, Nuremberg and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014. 189–192. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 25 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474210652.0010>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 25 September 2021, 09:16 UTC. Copyright © John J. Michalczyk 2014. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. C h r o n o l o g y September 5–10, 1934 Director Leni Riefenstahl fi lms the National Socialist Sixth Party Congress in Nuremberg. Th e resulting fi lm, Triumph of the Will (1935), would be used against the Nazi Party during the Nuremberg Trials. Riefenstahl assisted in naming the Nazi Party offi cials in preparation for the indictment of the leaders in the Nuremberg Trials. September 29, 1938 Th e four European powers represented by Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini, and Edouard Daladier sign the Munich Agreement allowing Germany to annex a part of Czechoslovakia, referred to as the “Sudetenland.” November 9–10, 1938 Th e Th ird Reich government orchestrates a national pogrom against the Jews, referred to as Krystallnacht. March 12, 1938 Citing “German blood” as the common bond, Germany annexes Austria in the Anschluss . September 1, 1939 Germany invades and occupies Poland, initiating World War II. June 22, 1940 Germany signs an armistice with France’s Marshal Philippe Pétain beginning four years of “national shame.” June 22, 1941 In Operation Barbarossa, Germany invades and attempts to occupy the Soviet Union. August 14, 1941 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill announce the signing of the Atlantic Charter, agreeing on common principles of national policies. December 7, 1941 Japan attacks the naval base at Pearl Harbor bringing the United States into the global confl ict. January 1, 1942 Th e United Nations Declaration states that the respective countries will continue the war with the Axis Powers until the enemy countries surrender unconditionally. January 20, 1942 Reinhard Heydrich assembles fi ft een administrative leaders of the Th ird Reich at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, to launch “Th e Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” a plan to transport European Jews to the East and exterminate them. August 12–16, 1942 US Ambassador Averell Harriman and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill engage in discussion about common wartime objectives and strategies. 189 190 Chronology August 23, 1942–February 2, 1943 Th e siege of Stalingrad takes place, aft er which the Soviets move on the off ensive against the German Army occupying Russia. June 28, 1943 Jan Karski meets with President Roosevelt to discuss with him the situation of Poland, the plight of the Jews and the post- war government in Poland. October 7, 1943 President Roosevelt creates a commission to investigate war crimes. October 20, 1943 Th e mandate of the United Nations War Crimes Commission is to locate, document, and help indict Axis war criminals. October 30, 1943 Th e United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China sign the Moscow Declaration stating that war criminals will be handed over to the courts. July 23–4, 1944 Th e Soviet Army liberates the Majdanek extermination camp near Lublin, Poland. It is the fi rst encounter of the Allies with the Nazi concentration and extermination camp system. August 1944 Treasury Secretary Henry Morgentau proposes in his plan to President Roosevelt that Nazi leaders be executed and that German POWs be used to reduce the industrial side of Germany’s economy while establishing an agricultural one. January 22, 1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as US President for an unprecedented fourth term. January 27, 1945 Soviet forces liberate the remaining 7,000 survivors of the extermination camp of Auschwitz, following death marches of prisoners to German camps. February 4–11, 1945 At the Yalta Conference, the Allies reinforce the Moscow Declaration, agreeing to prosecute Axis leaders, reorganize post- war Europe, and place Poland in the sphere of the Soviet Union. Th e Polish government- in-exile ceases to exist. April 4, 1945 Th e US 4th Armored Division and the 89th Infantry Division liberate Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald, near Gotha, Germany. April 11, 1945 US troops liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp. April 12, 1945 President Roosevelt dies suddenly and is replaced by Harry S. Truman. April 12, 1945 US Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and George Patton review the concentration camp of Ohrdruf. April 1945 President Truman asks Samuel Rosenman to approach Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson and inquire about his willingness to serve as chief US prosecutor in a war crimes trial. May 2, 1945 President Truman appoints Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson as chief US counsel for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. Chronology 191 May 8, 1945 End of the war in Europe—“V-E Day.” June 26, 1945 UN Charter is created and comes into eff ect on October 24, 1945. July 1, 1945 Th e Allied occupation forces divide Germany. July 7, 1945 Chief Justice Jackson proposes Nuremberg as the site of the International Military Tribunal. July 17–August 2, 1945 Th e Potsdam Conference of the three Allies—the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—takes place outside of Berlin in order to create a new, post- war world order, hold Nazi war criminals accountable and establish peace treaties. August 6, 1945 An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. August 8, 1945 Th e London or Nuremberg Charter provides for the establishment of an International Military Tribunal. August 9, 1945 A second atomic bomb is dropped on Japan targeting Nagasaki, convincing the Japanese to surrender. September 2, 1945 World War II offi cially ends and marks the Japanese surrender, accepted by Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur. October 13, 1945 Francis Biddle is chosen as Chief US Judge, while the British representative Sir Geoff rey Lawrence is elected as the Chief Judge at the Tribunal. November 20, 1945 Th e Nuremberg Trials begin. November 21, 1945 Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson delivers his opening statement at the trials. November 29, 1945 Th e US prosecutors present the documentary evidence on the series of camps liberated by the Allies. December 11, 1945 On Day 17 of the trial, the US prosecutors introduce the fi lm Th e Nazi Plan to illustrate the rise of the Nationalist Socialist Party on its path to a war of aggression. December 13, 1945 Th e US prosecutors use a very brief 8mm amateur fi lm allegedly shot by an SS soldier revealing the brutal treatment by German soldiers on innocent men, women, and children. February 5, 1946 On Day 51 of the trial, the French prosecutors introduce a short anti- Masonic and anti-Semitic propaganda fi lm entitled Occult Forces ( Forces Occultes ). February 19, 1946 On Day 62 of the trial, the Soviets present their documentation of the German invasion and occupation of the Soviet Union, Film Documents of the Atrocities Committed by German Fascists in the USSR (Kinodokumenty O Zverstvakh Nemetsko- Fashiskikh Zakhvatchikov ). 192 Chronology July 26, 1946 Th e prosecution makes its fi nal statement. August 31, 1946 Th e defense off ers its fi nal statement. October 1, 1946 Th e verdicts are announced. Of the twenty- three defendants, eleven are found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Th ree are acquitted while the remainder are sentenced to various prison terms from ten years to life. October 16, 1946 Th e death sentences are carried out on three gallows erected in a gymnasium in the Nuremberg prison courtyard. Göring escaped the execution by taking a cyanide pill smuggled into the prison. December 9, 1948 Th e constitution of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide is adopted at the Paris session and entered into force on January 12, 1951, aft er more than twenty countries from around the world ratifi ed it. April 11, 1961 Th e Adolph Eichmann Trial begins in Jerusalem. December 15, 1961 Eichmann is sentenced to death. May 31, 1962 Eichmann is hanged in the Ramleh prison, concluding the trials of the major Nazi war criminals. .
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