Campfire burning. Hamilton, Stevens and others on ground cooking, drinking coffee. Change of scene, jeep Toluca covered with snow. Stevens in front of jeep Toluca shakes hands with crewcut American (Major Dick Cahoot). CUs, they are smoking, dressed in winter parkas (handwritten annotation to LoC cataloger's notes indicates that this footage was shot in Belgium). At Dachau, by a railroad track, empty boxcars, some snow on ground. Frozen corpse lying in coal beside track. Gruesome CU of snow covered huddled corpse by boxcar. Several gruesome shots of battered corpses of German SS. Frozen bodies covered by snow in boxcar. Stacks of concentration camp victims in boxcar being photographed by member of camera unit. There follows a series of photographed documentation of corpses.
George Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. During World War II, Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a film unit from 1943 to 1946 under General Eisenhower. His unit shot footage documenting D-Day — including the only Allied European Front color film of the war — the liberation of Paris and the meeting of American and Soviet forces at the Elbe River, as well as horrific scenes from the Duben labor camp and the Dachau concentration camp. Stevens also helped prepare the Duben and Dachau footage and other material for presentation during the Nuremberg Trials. In 2008, his footage was entered into the U.S. National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress as an"essential visual recor" of World War II. The Special Coverage Unit (SPECOU) was placed under the control of the Supreme Headquarters' Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). The SPECOU consists of 45 people: writers like Ivan Moffat, William Saroyan and Irwin Shaw; cameramen like Dick Hoar, Ken Marthey, William Mellor, Jack Muth; sound operators as Bill Hamilton, who comes from Columbia, assistant directors, as Holly Morse, who has worked with Hal Roach.
GIs; battered corpses; Dachau camp victims
Locations must be verified, as there is some discrepancy to whether it is Belgium or Germany.