On July 13, 1945, Marine Corps Sgt. Stuart Schulberg wrote to his spouse Barbara that he was heading from Washington to Germany for a particular mission involving 10 main cities and masking all of Bavaria and the south of the nation, presumably together with elements of the British and French Zones.
“Generally I believe the job is a couple of sizes too huge for me. I suppose I’ve by no means had a lot duty. There may be a lot to do, and a lot of it’s so vital that I develop terrified,” Schulberg wrote.
Certainly, the 23-year-old Schulberg’s mission was daunting — but additionally crucial. He and several other others have been assigned to the Struggle Crimes Movie Unit of the OSS Subject Movie Photographic Department commanded by Hollywood movie director John Ford, a US Naval Reserve officer. This specialised sub-group was tasked with finding Nazi-made footage displaying the evils of Nationwide Socialism and the Nazis’ fee of crimes towards humanity towards Jews and others in the course of the recently-ended struggle in Europe.
With an image price a thousand phrases, these transferring pictures could be invaluable to the case being constructed by Affiliate Supreme Court docket Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief US prosecutor on the Nuremberg Trials. The trials have been to start in November 1945, and there wasn’t a lot time to seek out such movie footage, assessment it, and put together it for the courtroom proceedings. The best problem was the truth that the Nazis did every part they might to destroy this visible proof of their atrocities. Schulberg and the others didn’t know what and the way a lot they might handle to uncover.
The fascinating story of how this particular staff tracked down incriminating Nazi movies and turned them into proof that has formed our understanding and visible notion of the Holocaust to this present day is instructed in “Filmmakers for the Prosecution,” a documentary directed by French filmmaker Jean-Christophe Klotz. The movie opens in New York on January 27.
“Our collective reminiscence of these instances is a building of the Schulbergs, and the movies they made have influenced different movies within the a long time since,” Klotz mentioned.
Klotz, who spoke to The Instances of Israel from Provence, France, referred to the 2 movies proven within the Nuremberg courtroom, “The Nazi Plan” and “Nazi Focus Camps,” in addition to a later documentary concerning the trials by Stuart Schulberg titled, “Nuremberg: Its Lesson For At the moment.” Schulberg was engaged by the US navy to make the movie in November 1946, one month after the verdicts have been handed down, and he accomplished it within the spring of 1948.
Stuart Schulberg (foreground) and Bob Webb within the Nuremberg slicing room, 1945. (Courtesy of Lilo Balto)
“Filmmakers for the Prosecution” combines well-researched archival footage and interviews with quite a lot of consultants, together with Eli Rosenbaum, who served for almost 40 years within the Workplace of Particular Investigations of the US Division of Justice, prosecuting Nazis within the US and extraditing others to face justice in Germany and different European international locations. Excerpts from an interview with Niklas Frank, son of Hans Frank, the Nazi-appointed Governor Basic for occupied Poland, are significantly damning. The elder Frank was discovered responsible at Nuremberg and hanged on October 16, 1946.
The movie is predicated on a monograph by movie producer and activist Sandra Schulberg, Stuart Schulberg’s daughter. The monograph in flip is predicated on 300 pages of typed letters Stuart despatched to his spouse Barbara throughout his hunt for the movie footage. Sandra Schulberg had not been conscious of those letters, nor of the whole archive from the venture her father saved, till after her dad and mom had each died.
“I made a few of the letters obtainable to [director] Jean-Christophe [Klotz], however they actually deserve a e-book of their very own,” Sandra Schulberg mentioned.
Talking from Los Angeles, she shared that her father — who went on to have a profession as a nationwide tv information and documentary producer — had at all times engaged her about his work, however had by no means spoken particularly about his involvement within the Nuremberg Trials.
Stuart Schulberg in his US Marine Corps uniform. (Courtesy of Kino Lorber)
It appeared that Stuart Schulberg and his older brother Budd Schulberg, who coincidentally was supervisor of the Struggle Crimes Movie Unit, each put the expertise behind them as they launched their post-war careers. Budd, who had printed a profitable novel in 1941, was wanting to get again to writing screenplays and books. He received the Oscar for greatest story and screenplay for “On the Waterfront” in 1954.
A good portion of “Filmmakers for the Prosecution” is dedicated to the making and politically-influenced destiny of “Nuremberg: Its Lesson For At the moment” — the documentary concerning the trials made by Stuart Schulberg.
After all of the work that Stuart Schulberg put into making the movie, it performed solely in Germany from the tip of 1948 via 1949.
“By the spring of 1949, the American press was reporting that the US authorities was sitting on the movie, however no authorities official would take duty for the choice to withhold it from American theaters,” Sandra Schulberg mentioned.
“In early 2011, Nuremberg scholar and legislation professor John Barrett forwarded me a letter he had discovered, dated November 19, 1948. It was addressed to Justice Jackson and was signed by the then-Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall. Royall knowledgeable Jackson that attributable to coverage adjustments, ‘Nuremberg’ was not within the curiosity of the ‘military or the nation’ and wouldn’t be launched to most people,” she mentioned.
This suppression was a results of the start of the Chilly Struggle, which basically buried what Stuart Schulberg had labored so laborious to supply for the advantage of the world.
“The Chilly Struggle introduced for probably the most half an finish to postwar Allied enthusiasm for prosecuting Nazi struggle criminals and prompted the trials to peter out by 1950… Now West Germany was our ally and our former ally, the Soviet Union, was our enemy — under no circumstances the story portrayed within the movie. The movie conflicted with that narrative, so an important alternative was misplaced to teach Individuals,” former US prosecutor Eli Rosenberg says in “Filmmakers for the Prosecution.”
Sandra Schulberg partnered with Josh Waletzky to resurrect and restore her father’s movie. It premiered on the Hague in 2009 and was screened within the US starting in 2010.
A 16-millimeter print of “Nuremberg” went unnoticed within the Schulberg residence for many years. The unique 35-millimeter unfavourable had been misplaced or destroyed. Happily, good prints of the movie have been situated at Germany’s Federal Archives, and a brand new unfavourable might be constructed from a kind of.
The soundtrack was reconstructed from scratch utilizing the soundtrack on the print and Stuart Schulberg’s script as guides, in addition to unique audio recordings from the courtroom proceedings. Actor Liev Schreiber lent his voice to a brand new recording of the unique narration.
Digital variations of the movie now exist in 13 languages and have been proven in lots of international locations.
Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (standing on dolly) helped establish Nazis on movie footage after her seize by Allied forces. (Courtesy of Kino Lorber)
As Schulberg labored on this main enterprise, she relied on her father’s archive to enlighten her concerning the creation of his documentary.
“There have been two individuals who performed a key function in serving to me to grasp the historic significance of the movie, and who have been the primary to assessment my father’s papers,” Schulberg mentioned.
“They’re Raye Farr, former head of the Steven Spielberg Movie and Video Archive on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the late Ronny Loewy, former head of the Cinematography of the Holocaust initiative of the Fritz Bauer Institut,” she mentioned.
Director Klotz mentioned he was struck by the youth of the members of the staff who hunted down and labored with the Nazi footage and puzzled about how the repeated publicity to such harrowing pictures affected them.
“It was unimaginable. Stuart Schulberg was solely 23. It will need to have been the primary time in his life that he noticed issues like this,” Klotz mentioned.
In response to Sandra Schulberg, her uncle Budd Schulberg “left Germany in December 1945 and carried a hatred of Germany just about for the remainder of his life. He was very unforgiving. He would inform me how laborious it was for him to grasp that Stuart had been in a position to make actual German buddies.”
Stuart was most actually affected by his work for the trials, however the truth that he stayed on in Europe making his documentary and dealing on behalf of the Marshall Plan gave him a extra nuanced view of the state of affairs.
Left to proper: Former Director of the USA Division of Justice, Workplace of Particular Investigations Eli Rosenbaum, producer Sandra Schulberg, and director Jean-Christophe Klotz on the US Division of Justice, December 2019. (Courtesy of Kino Lorber)
“We be taught from letters that my mom [who had joined my dad in Europe after the trials] wrote to her father that Stuart took his denazification obligations very severely. He received to determine many circumstances by which an individual’s profession could be destroyed or resurrected. And he got here to understand and make distinctions between un-resurrected Nazis and those that tried to withstand — if solely of their minds and hearts,” Schulberg mentioned.
Accordingly, Stuart and Barbara gathered round themselves Germans who hated Hitler and all he stood for.
Nonetheless, additionally they shared the little they’d with impoverished German strangers who have been hungry and freezing within the bitter winter of 1947-1948. After dropping Stuart off at his Berlin workplace each day, Barbara would drive up and down the Kudamm providing lifts to passersby.
“Stuart appears to have had a dedication to not oversimplify, to search for subtlety and nuance, to make allowances for human weak point and above all, to withstand judging his fellow women and men,” Schulberg mentioned.
“To this present day, I’m grateful for this legacy of compassion that I received from my dad and mom’ instance and which was a spoken and unstated principle in our household,” she mentioned.
