Liberation Footage Reveals Nazi Crimes as Global Leaders Convene to Secure Peace
About This Footage
The April 26, 1945 edition of the Universal Newsreel documents a profound turning point at the close of World War II. U.S. forces reveal the full horror of Nazi concentration camps in Germany, while in San Francisco, delegates from forty-six nations convene to draft the United Nations Charter. This reel contrasts liberation and atrocity with the hopeful beginnings of a new world order.
a) WWII German Concentration Camps – Holocaust Film Evidence
This segment exposes the atrocities committed at Nazi camps liberated in April 1945. At Grasleben, U.S. POWs—emaciated survivors of the Battle of the Bulge—wave to passing American troops as medics provide food and care. At the Hadamar Euthanasia Center, gravediggers exhume mass graves revealing 35,000 murdered political prisoners. At Ohrdurf, Generals Eisenhower, Patton, and Bradley confront torture gallows, charred corpses, and lime pits, forcing local Nazi officials to view the evidence. Buchenwald shows 20,000 survivors amid cremation furnaces and tattooed corpses, while at Nordhausen, starved bodies lie in heaps as German civilians are compelled to bury the dead. These images became enduring film evidence of the Holocaust.
b) Drafting Charter To Form The United Nations
Across the Atlantic, the San Francisco Conference opens with forty-six Allied nations drafting the United Nations Charter to secure lasting peace. President Harry Truman, speaking from the White House, declares, “if we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace.” Delegates include Anthony Eden, Jan Smuts, MacKenzie King, Vyacheslav Molotov, Tom Connally, and Harold Stassen, joined by French and Saudi representatives. Inside the convention hall, Edward Stettinius officially opens this historic gathering, laying the groundwork for the postwar international order.
This single newsreel captures both the unspeakable crimes uncovered in Nazi Germany and the hopeful establishment of the United Nations—a juxtaposition of tragedy and resolve that defined the final months of World War II. For researchers, educators, and documentary filmmakers, the April 26, 1945 reel provides invaluable firsthand footage of humanity at a crossroads.