The 1945 documentary, which was based on the work of combat cameramen serving with the armed forces and newsreel footage, was produced by Sidney Bernstein, then a British government official, with participation by Alfred Hitchcock.

[2][3] The title of the film was derived from a line of narration written for 1945 documentary: "Unless the world learns the lesson these pictures teach, night will fall.

It includes archival footage gathered for German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, a 1945 British documentary, as well as recent interviews with survivors and liberators.

Director Alfred Hitchcock was recruited to work on the 1945 documentary, and Night Will Fall includes a recording of an interview with him about the project.

In his interview in Night Will Fall, Branko Lustig, producer of Schindler's List and an internee at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, theorizes that the 1945 work was shelved for political reasons, such as shifting relationships between the Allies and the imminence of the Cold War.

Lustig relates hearing the unearthly music of bagpipes when Bergen-Belsen was liberated, as, apparently, British forces were led by Scots playing the pipes.

[6] Andre Singer, director of Night Will Fall, said in an interview that, after the war ended in Europe in May 1945, "government priorities shifted [in Britain].

"[2] Later in 1945, the 22-minute short film Death Mills was produced by Billy Wilder for United States government authorities from some of the footage assembled for the 1945 documentary.

A German-language version of Death Mills, directed by Hanus Burger, was shown to German audiences in the United States occupation zone in January 1946.

His interest in telling the story behind it, as well as following up with survivors and other participants of the documented events, led him to make Night Will Fall, which was produced by Angel and Brett Ratner,[2] with funding coming from production companies in Great Britain, Israel, Germany, the United States, and Denmark.

It aired on major networks around the world during the week of 27 January, Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.