The film centers on a military tribunal led by Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood (Tracy), before which four judges and prosecutors (as compared to sixteen defendants in the actual Judges' Trial) stand accused of crimes against humanity due to their senior roles in the judicial system of the Nazi German government. The trial centers on questions regarding Germans' individual and collective responsibility for the Holocaust, with the backdrop of a tense international situation including the onset of the Cold War, the Berlin Blockade, and the geopolitical ramification of the later Nuremberg Trials upon German support for the Western Bloc, placing great pressure on Haywood's efforts to reach a just verdict. In addition, the judge faces emotional challenges in his personal relationships with German people outside the courtroom who consistently claim ignorance of Nazi atrocities, but who the judge suspects may have known more than they will admit.
An earlier version of the story was broadcast as an episode of the same name of the television series Playhouse 90 in 1959.[4] Popular interest in this effort caused an expanded focus on its dramatic elements. Maximillian Schell and Werner Klemperer portrayed the same characters in both productions.
Judge Dan Haywood is the chief judge of a three-judge panel of Allied jurists who will hear and decide the case against the defendants. Haywood is particularly interested in learning how the defendant Ernst Janning, a respected jurist and legal scholar, could have committed the atrocities he is accused of, including sentencing innocent people to death.
Haywood seeks to understand how the German people could have been deaf and blind to the Nazi regime's crimes. In doing so, he befriends the widow of a German general who had been executed by the Allies. He talks with other Germans who have varying perspectives on the war.
Other characters the judge meets are US Army Captain Harrison Byers, who is assigned to assist the American judges hearing the case, and Irene Hoffmann, who is afraid to provide testimony that may bolster the prosecution's case against the judges. (Hoffman's character bears a resemblance to Irene Seiler, a key figure in the notorious Nazikangaroo court case, the Katzenberger Trial.)
German defense attorney Hans Rolfe argues that the defendants were not the only ones to aid or ignore the Nazi regime. He claims the United States has committed acts just as bad or worse than the Nazis, such as US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s support for the first eugenics practices; the German-VaticanReichskonkordat of 1933, which the Nazi-dominated German government exploited as an implicit early foreign recognition of Nazi leadership; Joseph Stalin's part in the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, which removed the last major obstacle to Germany's invasion and occupation of western Poland, initiating World War II; and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final stage of the war in August 1945.[7][8]
Meanwhile, as a strict constructionist jurist, Janning refuses to testify or participate in a legal proceeding that he profoundly feels is no better than a post-WWII Western kangaroo court of its own. As the proceeding becomes more and more intolerable to him, he dramatically breaks his silence. He chooses to testify before the Tribunal as a witness for the prosecution, admitting he is guilty of condemning to death a Jewish man of "blood defilement" charges — namely, that the man had sex with a 16-year-old Gentile girl — when he knew there was no evidence to support such a verdict. Janning explains that well-meaning people such as him helped Adolf Hitler's antisemitic, racist policies out of patriotism despite knowing it was wrong, and that all of Germany bears some measure of responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.
Haywood must weigh considerations of geopolitical expediency against his own ideals of justice. The trial is set against the background of the Berlin Blockade, and there is pressure to let the German defendants off lightly to gain German support in the growing Cold War against the Soviet Union.[9]
While the four defendants maintain their pleas of "not guilty" in their closing statements, Janning and fellow defendant, Werner Lampe, show clear remorse for their actions, while a third, Friedrich Hofstetter, claims they had no choice but to execute the laws handed down by Hitler's government. Only the fourth defendant, Emil Hahn, remains unrepentant, telling the Americans that they will live to regret not allying with the Nazis against the Soviet Union. Ultimately, all four defendants are found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Haywood visits Janning in his cell. Janning affirms to Haywood that his verdict was a just one, but asks him to believe that, regarding the mass murder of innocents, he never knew that it would come to that. Judge Haywood replies it came to that the first time Janning condemned a man he knew to be innocent.
The film's events relate principally to actions committed by the German state against its own racial, social, religious, and eugenic groupings within its "in the name of the law" (from the prosecution's opening statement in the film), from the time of Hitler's rise to power in 1933. The plot development and thematic treatment question the legitimacy of the social, political, and alleged legal foundations of these actions.
The real Judges' Trial focused on 16 judges and prosecutors who served before and during the Nazi regime in Germany, and who embraced and enforced laws—passively, actively, or both—that led to judicial acts of compulsory sexual sterilization and to the imprisonment and execution of people for their religions, racial or ethnic identities, political beliefs, and physical handicaps or disabilities.
A key thread in the film's plot involves a "race defilement" trial known as the Feldenstein case. In this fictionalized case, based on the real life Katzenberger Trial, an elderly Jewish man had been tried for having a "relationship" (sexual acts) with an Aryan (German) 16-year-old girl, an act that had been legally defined as a crime under the Nuremberg Laws, which had been enacted by the German Reichstag. Under these laws, the man was found guilty and was put to death in 1942. Using this and other examples, the movie explores individual conscience, collective guilt, and behavior during a time of widespread societal immorality.
The film is notable for its use of courtroom drama to illuminate individual perfidy and moral compromise in times of violent political upheaval; it was the first mainstream drama film to not shy away from showing actual footage filmed by American and British soldiers after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.[11] Shown in court by prosecuting attorney Colonel Tad Lawson (Richard Widmark), the scenes of huge piles of naked corpses laid out in rows and bulldozed into large pits were considered exceptionally graphic for a mainstream film of the time.
According to numerous sources, Tracy's climactic monologue was filmed in one take using several cameras.[12] Clift had trouble remembering his lines, so Kramer told him to do the best he could, correctly figuring that Clift's nervousness would be central to his character's mental state.[13] (Clift was so eager to do the film that he worked just for expenses.[14]) Lancaster speaks only three lines (none in the courtroom) until his lengthy monologue roughly 135 minutes into the film. Meanwhile Garland was so happy to be working in a motion picture again after seven years away that it took her a while to get into the proper frame of mind to break down and cry.
The world premiere was held on December 14, 1961, at the Kongresshalle in West Berlin, Germany.[1] 300 journalists from 22 countries were in attendance[15] and earphones offering the soundtrack dubbed in German, Spanish, Italian and French were made available.[1] The reaction from the audience was reportedly subdued, with some applauding at the finish, but most of the Germans in attendance leaving in silence.[15]
Kramer's film received positive reviews from critics and was lauded as a straight reconstruction of the famous trials of Nazi war criminals. The cast was especially praised, including Tracy, Lancaster, Schell, Clift and Garland. The film's release was perfectly timed, as its subject coincided with the trial and conviction in Israel of Nazi SS officer Adolf Eichmann.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times declared it "a powerful, persuasive film" with "a stirring, sobering message to the world".[16]Variety wrote: "With the most painful pages of modern history as its bitter basis, Abby Mann's intelligent, thought-provoking screenplay is a grim reminder of man's responsibility to denounce grave evils of which he is aware. The lesson is carefully, tastefully and upliftingly told via Kramer's large-scale production."[17]Harrison's Reports awarded its top grade of "Excellent", praising Kramer for employing "an ingenious device of fluid direction" and Spencer Tracy for "a performance of compelling substance".[18]
Brendan Gill of The New Yorker called the film "a bold and, despite its great length, continuously exciting picture", which asks questions that "are among the biggest that can be asked and are no less fresh and thrilling for being thousands of years old". Gill added that the cast was so loaded with stars "that it occasionally threatens to turn into a judicial Grand Hotel. Luckily, they all work hard to stay inside their roles."[19]Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post declared it "an extraordinary film, both in concept and handling. Those who see this at the Warner will recognize that the screen has been put to noble use."[20]
The Monthly Film Bulletin of Britain dissented, writing in a mostly negative review that "this large-scale trial film undermines faith in its philosophical and historical merit by colouring the better part of its message with hackneyed court-room hysteria", explaining that "in a series of contrived scenes ... the point is hammered home right down to the last shock-cut. The same specious technique (zoom-lens shots and camera-circlings predominant) and showmanship turn the trial into little more than a travesty—notably in the melodramatic switch in the character of Janning."[21]
The film grossed $6 million in the United States and $10 million in worldwide release.[22]
The television network premiere of the film was shown on ABC on 7 March 1965; it was interrupted to show news footage of the violence on "Bloody Sunday" during the Selma to Montgomery marches.[23] The juxtaposition of the film about Nazi atrocities and the news footage of violence against African-American people resulted in sympathy and greater support for the civil-rights cause.[24][25]
Judgment at Nuremberg was released in American theatres on December 19, 1961.
CBS/Fox Video first released the film as a two-VHS cassette set in 1986. MGM re-released the VHS version in 1991, while the 1996 and 2001 reissues were part of the Vintage Classics and Screen Epics collection respectively. In addition, the special edition DVD was released on September 7, 2004.[29]
Three Blu-ray versions of the film were also produced. A limited edition Blu-ray was released by Twilight Time on November 14, 2014. Kino Lorber re-released the Blu-ray as a standard release in 2018. The BFI released a 2-disc Blu-ray on January 20, 2020.[30][31]
The Australian Blu-ray was released as part of The Hollywood Gold Series.[32]
In 2001, another stage adaptation of the film was produced for Broadway, starring Schell (this time in the role of Ernst Janning) and George Grizzard, with John Tillinger as director.[33]
Nuremberg, a 2000 TV miniseries about the actual Nuremberg Trials
Notes
^This does not refer to the 1946 Nuremberg trials of the leadership of Nazi Germany, which was in front of an international panel of judges, not solely American ones. Of the 20 defendants in that trial, as of 1961 three men still remained in prison: Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach.
^Mann, Abby (1961). Judgment at Nuremberg. London: Cassell. p. 93.
^Bradley, Sean. "Judgment at Nuremberg". University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Archived from the original on September 13, 2008. Retrieved September 27, 2008. He argues that the love of country led to an attitude of "my country right or wrong." Obedience or disobedience to the Fuehrer would have been a choice between patriotism or treason for the judges. [...] Why did the educated stand aside? Because they loved their country.
^Casillo, Charles (2021). Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship. New York City: Kensington Publishing Corp. p. 272. ISBN978-1-4967-2479-3.
^ abScott, John L. (December 24, 1961). "Berlin 'Judgment' Draws Jas, Neins". Los Angeles Times: Calendar, p. 4.
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