It is Guring’s turn to testify and to answer the questions of Justice Robert Jackson, United States prosecutor.

Jackson had been appointed US Attorney General in 1940.

He had worked tirelessly to create the rules of the trial and devise the categories of charges.

A lot hinged on his performance that you should suppress all individuals.

But Jackson, for all his expertise as a lawyer, lacked experience at cross-examination.

I asked to have you shown.

I I asked to have you shown uh document 710, United States 5009.

Guring had decided to defend himself.

He immediately appeared unrepentant.

Was on the 22nd of April 1938 when you published penalties for veiling the character of a Jewish enterprise within the reich was it not [Music] recital.

He then set about answering Jackson’s questions, often speaking at length.

He spoke without notes.

His detailed recollection of events underlining his total command of the situation.

It started to become obvious that Jackson was not up to the job.

It seemed the allies and Jackson in particular had underestimated the man who sat before them.

[Music] Before the trial, Guring had trounced his codefendants in the US Army IQ test.

Now he showed he had regained much of his mental agility and incisive thinking.

The great Nazi show trial was starting to unravel.

One English lawyer even described how Guring impressed him.

Suave, shrewd, he quickly saw the elements of the situation.

His self-control too was remarkable.

And yet because of the Jackson managed to lay some blows about Guring’s persecution of the Jews before 1939, as well as his horde of plundered art treasures of any kind to bear to prevent that step.

But none of this was enough to tie him to a major crime committed during the war.

Guring repeatedly wormed his way out of the questioning.

Soon he started to gain the upper hand.

He spoke English and understood Jackson’s questions well before they were translated.

This gave him plenty of time to plan his answer.

Guring was getting away with it.

International law doctrine of reprisal.

Luckily, a man was standing by, ready to step into the breach.

Sir David Maxwell Fe was the chief British prosecutor and a seasoned courtroom lawyer well used to cross-examination.

[Music] He immediately set about demolishing Guring’s defense and pinning him to specific crimes against the Jews.

If the Jews there did not want to work, they were shot.

If they could not work, they had to succumb.

They are just pure parasites.

Next, he pinned a war crime on Guring, the shooting of British prisoners of war who escaped from a Luftwaffer camp in 1943.

Would you look at document D569? Garing was rattled.

looked first at the top left hand corner.

Finally, he placed Guring at the heart of the Fura’s wars of aggression by the commando.

Soon, the Russians weigh it in with precise questioning on Guring’s role in the invasion of the Soviet Union.

By March the 22nd, the cross-examination was over.

In July 1946, 4 months after Guring first took the stand, all the defendants had spoken and the defense councils had given their final speeches.

By then, Guring’s only defense was that he had simply been motivated by love of his country.

He denied ever having ordered the death of any single individual or any single atrocity.

The world would have to wait until October the 1st, 1946 to find out what fate would befall the star exhibit.

As the judges considered their verdicts at Nuremberg, typical of the nationwide ruin Hitler brought upon Germany, justice was done to the men who sent millions of innocent citizens to death and torture.

The voice of Lord Justice Lawrence pronounced the verdict of mankind.

Defendant Herman Vilhelm Guri, the international military bill sentences you to death by hanging.

[Music] Judgment had been handed down.

Guring reacted calmly and left without saying a word.

But as he was led away to the cells, he had already planned his final act of defiance, and it would surprise everyone.

The day after his sentence, Guring wrote to the military tribunal.

He demanded he face a firing squad like a proper soldier.

He argued he should not be hanged like a common criminal.

But his request was refused.

As the days passed before the execution, Guring saw his wife Emmy and daughter Eder and began to make his final preparations at the Nuremberg jail.

The allies made sure that none of the convicted Nazis could cheat the gallows.

Anything that could be used to commit suicide was removed.

The prisoners were kept under constant surveillance.

Contact with the outside world was strictly controlled.

Their guards never left their side, and the Nazis were forbidden to talk amongst themselves.

Herman Guring was just too precious to lose.

On October the 7th, 1946, he received a visit from his wife, Emmy, for the last time in the courthouse gymnasium.

And the gallows had been prepared and Guring’s executioner selected.

Master Sergeant John C.

Woods would be the hangman.

The execution was planned for 2:00 a.

m.

on October the 16th, 1946.

It was supposed to be kept top secret, but Guring found out the day before.

That evening, the prison chaplain visited Guring in cell 5.

The German dispensed with any idea of religious forgiveness and declared he felt at ease.

The gallows were then just 4 and 1/2 hours away.

Guring received one last visit from his doctor at 2244.

Guring’s duty guard saw him convulse and exhale.

He was dead.

He had committed suicide by cyanide capsule.

He had cheated the gallows in a final act of defiance.

Now the question was, how had Guring smuggled in the capsule? Rumors circulated that Guring’s suicide had been abetted by an accomplice.

Candidates included his wife, Emmy, who was said to have slipped during the suicide pill during their farewell kiss.

The official story is far simpler, and Guring ensured no one was blamed for the capsule.

In a letter left in his cell addressed to the prison commandant, he boasted that he had two capsules hidden in his belongings at all times.

[Music] The one he used was hidden in a pot of cream he had kept to treat his eczema.

[Music] So it was that Nazi Germany’s last senior figure escaped execution.

[Music] To some of the victims of the Holocaust, it seemed unjust that the seniormost Nazis would never be formally punished for what they had done.

But for others, the regime was at least made to face up to what it had done thanks to Nuremberg.

Guring may have escaped the noose, but he was the most senior Nazi party figure to stand trial.

And in the end, he had seen his dreams of a place in postwar Germany shattered.

[Music] Stripped of all the shiny accessories and opulence of his past life, he was made to face his crimes in black and white, like a common criminal.

For such a vain man, this process must have hurt.

And that fact will at least be some compensation for those who felt he never accepted the magnitude of his crimes.

[Music]

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