Here is the account of the execution of Sorge mentioned at the end of the video: It is hardly what Dietrich described as being "quick and merciful".
November 7. 1944 Sagumo Prison
"Sorge being a European and an atheist, the chaplain had closed the door of the golden shrine before Sorge entered the antechamber, but now Sensho offered him tea and cakes and the opportunity to pray if he wished. Sorge refused both politely. He appeared completely at ease, very much master of himself. Yet just as the guards moved forward to escort him from the anteroom, Sorge turned to Ichijima and made one final request. “May I have a cigarette?” he asked. Ichijima was a compassionate man who had come to like and respect Sorge. But he was also a prison governor of integrity. He could not break regulations out of favoritism. “No,” he replied regretfully but firmly, “it is against the rules.”
Yuda broke in impulsively. “Oh, let him have a cigarette!” he urged. “I know it is against the rules, but it is his last wish. You can say you let him have some medicine at the last minute.” But Sorge’s request struck a wrong note with Ichijima. It was too flippant; it smacked of bravado; it jarred in this awesome hour. “No,” he repeated with quiet finality, “it is against the rules.” Sorge seemed neither disappointed nor resentful.25 Like Ozaki, he remained calm, dignified, a gentleman to the last. With sincerity he thanked Ichijima and the other prison officials for all they had done for him. Then with composure he walked into that bare, sunlit room that had already claimed Ozaki.
From death he feared nothing and expected nothing. Once again the functionaries left the anteroom and took their places in the death chamber.26 The attendants bound his arms and legs, then melted into the background. In that precise moment Sorge spoke clearly and distinctly. His words tolled in the taut silence like funeral bells: “Sakigun [The Red Army]!” “Kokusai Kyosanto [The International Communist Party]!” “Soviet Kyosanto [The Soviet Communist Party]!”27 Man must worship as he must eat and drink and breathe. Let him deny there is a God, and he will invest with divinity some force within his understanding. So Sorge had set up his own trinity and called upon it in his last hour. Yet he spoke neither in German, the language of his boyhood, nor in the broken Russian of his adopted tongue; he spoke in Japanese, which always came haltingly to his lips.
Thus Sorge’s last words did not well up spontaneously; he had carefully selected them. He had to be sure that his audience understood, that they would report his words correctly, so that all would know he had died in the faith. A second time Sorge intoned his litany. The words, the dedication with which Sorge uttered them, his whole attitude impressed Yuda to his very soul. “There was no show-off in his manner,” said Yuda in retrospect. “Sorge was loyal and faithful to his cause to the end. He repeated his words like a person saying a prayer.” For the third time Sorge spoke his farewell salute to the world.* Then he snapped to attention.
Instinctively recognizing the sure moment, the executioners sprang the trap. It was exactly 10:20 A.M. Yuda’s eyes moved irresistibly to Sorge’s hands—much bigger than Ozaki’s, hands that quivered in the death struggle. Watching them, Yuda asked himself, “What are we accomplishing by executing these two men? Will this be a plus for us or a minus?” Ozaki’s body, submissive to fate, had released his spirit willingly. Sorge’s body had always kept his spirit earthbound; now it clung fiercely to life. Sorge took nineteen minutes to die".28
Source:
Prange, Gordon W.; Goldstein, Donald M.; Dillon, Katherine V.. Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring (p. 601). Open Road Media.
