Over 60 years after it was made, a documentary on the Nuremberg Trials is to have its official world première. Nuremberg: Its lesson for today tells the story of the tribunal where leading figures from Germany's Nazi regime were brought to justice in the aftermath of World War II.

The German version of the documentary was made after World War II, commissioned by the US Defence Department. The film was shown in German cinemas to present the German public with an unflinching account of horrors of the Holocaust and to show the perpetrators being brought to justice in 1945-46.

The international military tribunal sentenced 11 of the 22 prominent Nazis to death. Almost all the others were given lengthy jail terms.

Restored rough-cut
After 1949, this unique cinematic document of the trial disappeared into the archives. An English-language version of the film was never completed and the original negatives and soundtrack vanished. Years later, Sandra Schulberg, the daughter of the director, came across a damaged rough-cut of the film.

With the help of a number of institutes, including the Dutch National Archive, the material she discovered was painstakingly restored.

The Nazi Plan
The documentary (which you can watch here) contains footage of the trials and excerpts from the film The Nazi Plan, which was shown as evidence on a screen in the courtroom during the hearings. We have the US prosecutors to thank for the existence of the footage: it was they who decided in the preparatory phase of the trials that filming should be permitted in court.

Today, the restored version of the film has its première in The Hague, on the same day that former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz is awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.

Listen to a 2006 interview with Ben Ferencz

World's legal capital
The Hague is often regarded as the legal capital of the world, as the city is home to the most prominent international tribunals. They include the International Criminal Court, in whose archives the documentation of the Nuremberg Trials is stored. The events of Nuremberg are widely seen as laying the foundation for our modern-day system of international law.