The Eichmann Trial

SESSIONS 115-119 of the trial of Adolf Eichmann took place from the morning of Monday, December 11 through the afternoon of Tuesday, December 12, 1961. In these sessions, following a four-month adjournment for deliberation, the three judges deliver their verdict. Eichmann is found guilty on all 15 counts of the indictment, with partial acquittals on seven counts.

Because so little footage survives from the reading of the verdict, and because the published trial transcripts do not delineate the breaks between these five sessions, they are presented here as a single video.

Unlike the first 114 sessions of the trial, which were recorded onto videotape, the final sessions were recorded using film cameras. Because of the expense and complexity of procuring, developing and storing film, most of the verdict was not recorded at all, and only about 20 minutes survives altogether. As none of the footage beyond SESSION 114 was preserved among the official trial tapes, the footage presented here has been cobbled together from a variety of sources. As such, video and audio quality varies significantly, and much of the material includes watermarks, timecode and edits made by those respective sources. The beginning and end of the recording, during which Court is not in session, feature image but no audio. Conversely, a significant portion of the surviving material from SESSIONS 115-119 was preserved via a commemorative vinyl record, and does not feature any synced image. In some instances, images from elsewhere in the session have been used to cover this section, resulting in video that is not synced correctly with the audio. The 30 seconds preceding the reading of the full text of the conviction, beginning at 17:53, features no audio. Portions of the audio of the reading of the conviction itself survive only in English- and German-language spoken translations.