The Ahnenerbe was a scientific institute in the Third Reich dedicated to research the archaeological and cultural history of the Aryan Race. The films deals with trials against the guilty ones of this part of the Holocaust.

To avoid Allied bombing, the Ahnenerbe relocated to Waischenfeld in Franconia on August 1943. There they remained until American forces took the city in April 1945. The war ended before the Ahnenerbe found another permanent home, and, during the interim period, a great number of documents were destroyed. Had the Ahnenerbe survived the war, Himmler planned to use its members to staff an SS-University at Leyden in the Netherlands. Those that survived the war faded back into academia under their own or false names.—Ulf Kjell Gür