Nuremberg: The Trial of the Nazi War Criminals

From the producers of Nuremberg, the story of how in just 13 years, Adolf Hitler led a fringe sect with less than a hundred members and outlandish ideas to be the dominant force in German politics.

It is also about the forgotten players from these early years who played crucial roles in the Nazi Party's rise to power. This new scripted podcast takes listeners into the intrigues, the personalities, the knife-edge decisions which would ultimately lead to forty million dead in the world’s greatest catastrophe.

Starring Sir Derek Jacobi as President Hindenberg, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and Alexander Vlahos as Joseph Goebbels. With Toby Stephens, Nancy Carroll, Laura Donnelly and Juliet Stevenson as the Narrator. Written and directed by Jonathan Myerson. Producer - Nicholas Newton. A Promenade production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

On 30th September 1946, the Judges announce their verdicts. And the sentences to be imposed – death or imprisonment or freedom. But come the night of the executions, Hermann Goering has one last surprise.

And now it’s time for the verdicts: 11 will be hanged, 7 are given prison sentences and 3 are set free. Everyone is surprised by the acquittals and at a hasty press conference, the free men trade autographs for chocolate (but are re-arrested by German authorities as soon as they leave the building). Meanwhile Sergeant Woods, the US Army’s hangman, is on site, building the gallows. The night comes but Goering has managed to hide one last cyanide capsule to evade the noose. Starring Nicholas Woodeson as Sir Geoffrey Lawrence and featuring Nathan Wiley as Master Sergeant Woods, the US Army’s executioner.

Emma Schwabenland - NATALIE DORMER

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

January 1946, the army psychologist assigned to look after the Accused has a never-to-be-repeated chance to examine evil, close-up, day-by-day. What made these 22 men capable of such horrific acts? He spends time with them, he runs tests: just what will it reveal?

Gustav Gilbert, a German-speaking US Army Psychologist, is assigned to Nuremberg Prison to examine and watch over the defendants. The defendants value the chance to speak to him and he lets them – he writes up daily, copious notes of his conversations. Will he find the mystery of human evil? Starring Ed Stoppard as Gustav Gilbert, a New York psychologist, and featuring Jasper Britton as Joachim von Ribbentrop, once Hitler’s Foreign Minister.

Gustav Gilbert - ED STOPPARD

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

The trial is underway but the accused men in the dock seem almost proud of what they did. Some of the Nazi documents are chilling but there are simply too many of them. It will need something much more real to show the world the enormity of their crimes.

And soon it’s clear there’s a danger of the American team relying too heavily on documents alone – the trial is becoming bogged down. The Defendants are even starting to feel they’re winning...until the American Prosecutors change tack and show a 60-minute film of footage taken at the Concentration Camps. Nobody has seen anything like it. The courtroom is reduced to silence, the defendants finally cowed. Featuring Hari Dhillon as Colonel Robert Storey, Deputy American Prosecutor, and Andrew Woodall as Adolf Hitler.

Tatiana Sablikova - AMANDA RYAN

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

20th November 1945 and the Defendants take their place in the dock – 22 of the most senior Nazis, representing each component of Hitler’s machine. But without simultaneous translation the trial will be unworkable – are the interpreters ready? Can they manage 100 words-per-minute? This has never been done before.

Nuremberg was the first ever use of simultaneous translation of every spoken word, into at least three other languages...they said it couldn’t be done. But it was. And the trial would have been impossible without it. And once the indictments have been read, Robert Jackson, Chief US Prosecutor stands to make the opening speech. Starring Amanda Ryan as Tatiana Sablikova, a Russian translator and Joseph Mydell as Robert H Jackson.

Tatiana Sablikova - AMANDA RYAN

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

October 1945 and the trial starts in less than a month – but do the Russians genuinely want it to happen? They seem to be employing delaying tactics – is it because they can also be accused of war crimes? Or is it just another regular SNAFU?

Each day brings a new problem: first, to find enough German lawyers to represent the 22 defendants (but access to American PX supplies closes the deal for most of them)...can Russia provide translations of its documents (Stalin had executed most people in Russia who could speak a foreign language)?...the rivalry between the judges (Biddle expected to be appointed President of the Court, but Truman conceded it should be the British judge)...and yet, somehow, they manage to start on time. Starring Nicholas Woodeson as Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, the President of the Court and Nathan Wiley as Judge Parker.

Major Airey Neave - FREDDIE FOX

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

September 1945. Everyone is gathering in Nuremberg for the ‘Trial Of The Century’ except the courtroom isn’t ready, the judges are still in Berlin and none of the Nazis have lawyers – and exactly who will be formally accused?

It’s the last few weeks before the trial: who will actually be indicted? The names keep changing – and there are still some surprises...and blunders. And will the courtroom be rebuilt on time? It doesn’t help when the floor collapses. And who will actually serve the indictments on the defendants? Major Neave, fluent German-speaker and first man to escape from Colditz, is tasked with serving the indictments. Starring Freddie Fox as Major Airey Neave, Court Liaison Officer, and featuring Clive Wood as Francis Biddle, Principal American judge.

Major Airey Neave - FREDDIE FOX

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

When Allied soldiers first encounter the Concentration Camps in Germany, it’s hard to believe: millions worked or starved to death. But now the investigators start to hear about the camps in the East – especially a place called Auschwitz – designed only to exterminate.

And in Hamburg, two Jewish German refugees now lead the British Army investigation into Tesch & Stabenow AG. It appears to be a harmless pest-control company...but it also marketed Zyklon B, the principal poison gas used in the camps. The trouble is, the British Administration needs Tesch & Stabenow to keep working, needs its products to fumigate factories and ships in the harbour. Featuring Mark Edel-Hunt as Captain Anton Freud and Andrew Woodall as Sergeant Fred Pelican, War Crimes Investigators.

Cast:

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

August 1945, the war is over, and the evidence is building up. If anything there’s too much paperwork, too many files – the Nazi machine insisted on recording everything. But are these documents sufficient – or will they need to hear from the victims themselves?

Meanwhile, across Germany, ordinary soldiers are stumbling across the concentration camps, shocked and stunned by what they find. The British drive into Belsen having been told it was ‘just a typhus hospital’. But when they start taking affidavits from prisoners, the investigators start to hear about a place in the East called Auschwitz-Birkenau – and the witnesses talk about gas chambers and industrial-scale killing. It’s unbelievable. Starring Luke Norris as Roger Barrett, lawyer in charge of the Nuremberg Documents Room, and featuring Rosie Sheehy as Ada Bimko, a Polish Survivor of Auschwitz.

Cast:

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

The victorious Allies have agreed to put the ‘top-notch Nazis’ on trial. But it turns out the Americans have one concept of a trial and the Russians another entirely. And what precisely will these men be charged with – exactly what is ‘A Crime Against Humanity’?

But it isn’t easy to agree a new trial procedure – Russia and France don’t use cross-examination and America is insisting on a charge of Conspiracy, unknown in France. But procedure is nothing compared to the problem of the Four Indictments: they will have to invent new words – ‘Genocide’ enters the language. Starring Forbes Masson as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the Chief British prosecutor and Henry Goodman as Iona Nikitchenko, Chief Soviet Prosecutor.

Cast:

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds