It's been said that history is written by the winners, yet the most damning history of World War II was derived from evidence compiled by the vanquished Nazis. Within months of the surrender, the victorious Allies convened a series of military tribunals in Nuremberg, where high-ranking German prisoners were confronted by their own documents about Nazis war crimes.

The Nuremberg trials became the basis for a much-honored Hollywood drama, but American audiences have waited more than 60 years to see footage of the real thing. A documentary crew filmed the trial of Hitler's two-dozen closest associates, and the resulting movie was used to pacify German audiences in 1948, but the horrifying film never played in American theaters.

Now Sandra Schulberg, the daughter of the original director, has restored the movie, which mixes a dry outline of the Nazis' rise with visceral footage of their atrocities. "Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today" may be the most powerful lesson in cause and effect that cinema has produced.

The black-and-white film follows the trajectory of the trial, as the American prosecutor methodically presents evidence against the defendants on four charges.

These war crimes were largely untested concepts, but the ambiguity of the charges is offset by the specificity of the evidence, most of which is translated by narrator Liev Schreiber. The Nazis' internal documents and graphic film footage expose the lies behind the well-known sequence of events, from the takeover of adjoining countries to systematic annihilation of non-Aryans, particularly Jews.

Because the movie was made by U.S. propagandists in the immediate aftermath of the war, it doesn't mention the mixed reaction to the trials, let alone the Allies' own transgressions. Yet the freeing of the few innocent defendants and the sorrow of the condemned ones is evidence that the moral argument was won.

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"Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today"

Three and a half stars (out of four) • Rating Not rated • Run time 1:18 • Content War footage and nudity • More info Producer Sandra Schulberg will introduce the film today at Plaza Frontenac