“JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG” (1961): A COURTROOM DRAMA FILM

It is a 1961 American film directed by Stanley Kramer, written by Abby Mann and starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark (the three actors have posts in my blog), Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner, and Montgomery Clift (he has a post in my blog).

Set in Nuremberg in 1948, the film depicts a fictionalized version of the Judges' Trial of 1947, one of the twelve U.S. military tribunals during the Subsequent Nuremberg trials.

The film centers on a military tribunal led by Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood (Tracy), before which four German judges and prosecutors (as compared to 16 defendants in the actual Judges' Trial) stand accused of crimes against humanity for their involvement in atrocities committed under the Nazi regime. The film deals with non-combatant war crimes against a civilian population, the Holocaust, and examines the post-World War II geopolitical complexity of the actual Nuremberg Trials.

An earlier version of the story was broadcast as a television episode of Playhouse 90. Schell and Klemperer played the same roles in both productions.

In 2013, Judgment at Nuremberg was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

Judgment at Nuremberg centers on a military tribunal convened in Nuremberg, Germany, in which four German judges and prosecutors stand accused of crimes against humanity for their involvement in atrocities committed under the Nazi regime. Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) is the chief trial judge of a three-judge panel that will hear and decide the case against the defendants. Haywood begins his examination by trying to learn how the defendant Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) could have sentenced so many people to death. Janning, it is revealed, is a well-educated and internationally respected jurist and legal scholar. Haywood seeks to understand how the German people could have turned blind eyes and deaf ears to the crimes of the Nazi regime. 

In doing so, he befriends the widow (Marlene Dietrich) of a German general who had been executed by the Allies. He talks with a number of Germans who have different perspectives on the war. Other characters the judge meets are US Army Captain Byers (William Shatner), who is assigned to the American party hearing the cases, and Irene Hoffmann (Judy Garland), who is afraid to provide testimony that may bolster the prosecution's case against the judges.

German defense attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) argues that the defendants were not the only ones to aid, or at least turn blind eyes to, the Nazi regime. He also suggests that the United States has committed acts just as bad or worse as those the Nazis perpetrated. He raises several points in these arguments, such as US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s support for the first eugenics practices (see Buck v. Bell); the German-Vatican Reichskonkordat 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.

Janning, meanwhile, decides to take the stand for the prosecution, stating that he is guilty of the crime he is accused of: condemning to death a Jewish man of "blood defilement" charges—namely, that the man slept with a 16-year-old Gentile girl—when he knew there was no evidence to support such a verdict. During his testimony, he explains that well-meaning people like himself went along with Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic, racist policies out of a sense of patriotism, even though they knew it was wrong, because of the effects of the post-World War I Versailles Treaty.

Haywood must weigh considerations of geopolitical expediency and ideals of justice. The trial takes place against the background of the Berlin Blockade, and there is pressure to let the German defendants off lightly so as to gain German support in the growing Cold War against the Soviet Union. 

In the course of the movie, it becomes apparent why the three other defendants supported the Nazi regime: one was afraid, one was following orders, and one actually believed in Nazism. All four defendants are found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

Haywood visits Janning in his cell. Janning affirms to Haywood that, "By all that is right in this world, your verdict was a just one," but asks him to believe that, regarding the mass murder of innocents, "I never knew that it would come to that." Judge Haywood replies, "Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent." 

Haywood departs; a title card informs the audience that, of 99 defendants sentenced to prison terms in Nuremberg trials that took place in the American Zone, none was still serving a sentence when the film was released in 1961.

Soundtrack

·                    Lili Marleen

o                               Music by Norbert Schultze (1938)

o                               Lyrics by Hans Leip (1915)

·                    Liebeslied

o                               Music by Ernest Gold

o                               Lyrics by Alfred Perry

·                    Wenn wir marschieren

o                               German folk song (ca. 1910)

·                    Care for Me

o                               By Ernest Gold

·                    Notre amour ne peur

o                               By Ernest Gold

·                    Du, du liegst mir im Herzen

o                               German folk song, arrangement by Ernest Gold

·                    Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13

o                               By Ludwig van Beethoven

RECEPTION

The world premiere was held on December 14, 1961 at the Kongresshalle in West Berlin. 

300 journalists from 22 countries were in attendance, and earphones offering the soundtrack dubbed in German, Spanish, Italian and French were made available. The reaction from the audience was reportedly subdued, with some applauding at the finish but most of the Germans in attendance leaving in silence.

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 official Adolf Eichmann.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times declared it "a powerful, persuasive film" with "a stirring, sobering message to the world." 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." 

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." 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." 

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." 

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."

The film grossed $6 million in the United States, and $10 million in worldwide release.