Us and Them

Film Review: Judgment at Nuremberg 1961 United Artists

I was scrolling through YouTube the other night, looking for a film to watch.

My attention was drawn to a 1961 classic called Judgment at Nuremberg. Perhaps the upcoming new film starring Russell Crowe of the same name made this oldy jump up the potential viewing list.

I had seen Judgment once before. It’s something of an exercise in commitment, being one minute short of three hours. Believe me, it’s worth every moment.

An incredible cast featuring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner, and Montgomery Clift, the film takes us through the post war Nuremberg Military Trial of four senior German Judges charged with war crimes.

I’m a big Spencer Tracy fan. The soft lenses used in close-up on Marlene Dietrich confirm her as a favourite also. Maximilian Schell steals the show as the defence attorney for the four judges. He rightly won the Academy Award for Best Actor that year. Burt Lancaster has an incredible presence throughout, playing defendant Dr. Ernst Janning. This, even though his dialogue is sparse.

The four judges are fictional and based on an actual Nuremberg Trial of 1947. Known as ‘The Judges’ Trial’, 16 jurists and lawyers were tried for their part in promoting and upholding the Nazi ‘Racial Purity’ laws.

Through the lens of friendships and associations with ordinary German people while the trial proceeded, we see Tracy’s character, Chief Judge Dan Haywood struggle with the notion put to him that regular German citizens did not know (or knew little) of the atrocities committed by The Third Reich in concentration camps across Europe. The depravity of what happened in those places is displayed via film reel to the courtroom to the horror of everyone.

The viewer is left to wonder whether the panel of judges will favour leniency (under the doctrine that suggests that they were simply enforcing the law) or whether the notion that they ‘must have known’ that the laws were unjust and, therefore, were complicit by their ascent. This is set to a background of Soviet aggression in Eastern Europe and the first throes of the cold war.

In the end, in a majority ruling, each of the defendants is sentenced to thirty years in prison.

By way of a number of artifices, we learn that the German people are upset buy the verdict; either believing that the Judges should have given lighter sentences or none at all. We are encouraged to consider the notion that German people, at that time, were struggling with the reality of what their government – their nation – had perpetrated upon the Jewish people, among others. The verdict is seen as a judgment upon all German citizens.

The film closes with Judge Haywood preparing to return to the US and two conversations that occurred shortly before his flight.

The first sees the defence counsel Hans Rolfe (Schell) telling Haywood that none fo the defendants would still be held in gaol in five years’ time. A clear inference that Schell (and perhaps all Germans) see the judgment as a political one. Haywood responds that Rolfe’s position may be logical, but was without reverence for justice.

The final encounter is between Haywood and Dr. Ernst Janning in the latter’s prison cell. Janning concedes to Haywood that he believed his judgment was sound and correct. He then pleads with Haywood to accept that Janning never believed that The Third Reich’s actions would come to the mass murder of innocents. Janning is almost tearful in his pleading.

Haywood looks Janning in the eye. “Herr Janning, you knew that the first time you convicted an innocent man to death.”