These Universal News outtakes contain the end of"We Accus" (1945) in English. The narrator is Everett Sloan. This may be the only surviving fragment of"We Accus" left in the world. There are several versions of the film,"We Accuse" in Russian, Spanish, and English languages, and each version may possibly use different footage. We have not been able to locate a copy of"We Accus" in any archive. According to the National Archives & Records Administration,"We Accus" (1945) is a factual and powerful document, being photographic coverage of the actual trial of Captain Wilhelm Langheld; Reinhard Retzlaff, an official of the German field Police; Lieutenant Hans Ritz, an SS company commander, and one Bulanov, a Russian traitor. The trial was a serious and entirely dignified proceedings completely devoid of any Roman circus atmosphere which might be expected in view of the fact that the spectators comprised many people whose families had been murdered. Every statement in the trial was translated into German, and each defendant was represented by counsel. Many witnesses were called, and the defendants themselves testified. Captain Langheld stated that he had personally beaten women to death but pointed out that he was not the only one."The entire German Army is like tha", he said, adding that he felt that he should receive consideration because of his advanced age. Retzlaff specialized in the loading of women and children into trucks (with the help of clubs and rifle butts) which were fitted with hoses attached to the exhaust. Crowded into the vehicles, the victims were stifled by carbon monoxide gas. Ritz presided over the wholesale shooting of men and women by SS troopers with submachine guns. Bulanov worked for the Gestapo. He drove truckloads of people who were to be shot. He accompanied the men who dragged starving and sick children from the Nizhns-Chirskaya Children's Hospital, loading them into trucks, drove them to a place where graves had been dug (telling them that they were being taken to their aunts and uncles in Stalingrad), shot each child in the head and kicked the bodies into the pits. Accompanying the testimony was motion picture coverage of the scenes where many of the atrocities had been committed, showing hundreds of bodies of victims of the German occupation of Kharkov. According to the testimony of a witness, Dr.Djinchviladze, he was in the operating room of the hospital when he heard an explosion. Nurses ran to him, their clothes on fire - the Germans had nailed up the doors and had thrown incendiary bombs into the building, which began to burn. Wounded Russian soldiers dragged themselves to the windows, their bandages burning. As they attempted to crawl out, they were shot by German troops on the outside. Views of the charred ruins of the hospital show rows of twisted metal beds containing skeletons of Russian soldiers who had been burned to death in their beds as a result of the events described by the witness. Another witness, Mrs. Koslova, testified that when she ran to the burned-out ruin, she searched among the disfigured charred bodies for her husband. When she found the dead body, in a bed covered with blood, the eyes of the dead soldier had been gouged out. After the pleas by the attorneys for the defense and the statement of the Prosecutor, the four defendants were sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out in the public square of Kharkov.
Title: UNIVERSAL NEWSREEL. SOVIET PARADES ITS ARMED MIGHT IN RECORD REVIEW. MOSCOW, U.S.S.R. Infantry units march in formation in Moscow’s Red Square. Soviet officers salute from platforms above. Narrator describes this as the “greatest display of might and power ever staged by Soviet Russia.” Artillery, motorcycles and tanks speed by, all meant to show the success of Russia’s mass production. Josef Stalin speaks and looks at the planes of the Russian Air Force flying in formation above. The narrator declares the parade “an assurance to communists and a warning to Russia’s enemies.” Men and women in bathing gear line up outside of tents: “GLACE” and “MJOLK.” A woman pays for a treat in a brown paper bag. Family around a small table on the grass. Other people lounge. Beach-goers wade in the water and take kayaks out. Two young women in bathing suits emerge from a white tent and run into the water. Two men emerge from a beach camper in robes. They briefly speak and then walk away. Scenes from the Kharkov Trial in December 1943 with narration from"We Accus". The crowd attentively listens and watches as Russian traitor Mikhail Bulanov delivers his plea of guilt. The narrator reads the end of Bulanov’s speech in which he refers to the Germans as “fascist barbarians” and says that he “committed the crimes under the threat of German arms.” The military tribunal finds Bulanov and the three German prisoners of war, Wilhelm Langfeld, Hans Rietz, and Reinhard Retzlaff, guilty. From a podium the judge reads the sentence of death for the four men. A large crowd gathers in a square. They watch as Bulanov and the three POWs are led up to the gallows. The four men are hanged at once. The narrator declares the Kharkov trial “the beginning of justice, a promise of wider justice to come.” Soldiers march down the Champs-Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe in the BG. Infantry units marching in different locations. Soldiers on a city street take cover from their enemy while preparing to fire. A grave with a cross inscribed, “LT JAMES F. CROWLEY.” Soldiers walk through a field of graves marked by identical white crosses. Young men and women in a classroom. Children run outside as the narrator announces “the extermination of fascism and all its evil-doers for all time is the only basis for an enduring peace.” He declares this “the pledge to the dead and the living.”
Soviet parade; beach; Kharkov Trial verdict; US soldiers in Paris