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Judgment at Nuremberg
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== 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 Germany|Nazi]] regime. 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 of World War II|Allies]]. He talks with other Germans who have varying perspectives on the war. Other characters the judge meets are [[United States Army|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 [[Nazi]] [[kangaroo 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 [[Supreme Court of the United States|US Supreme Court]] Justice [[Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.]]'s support for the first [[eugenics]] practices; the German-[[Holy See|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 [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact|Nazi-Soviet Pact]] of 1939, which removed the last major obstacle to Germany's [[Invasion of Poland|invasion]] and [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/288385 |last=Nixon |first=Rob |title=Pop Culture 101: ''Judgment at Nuremberg'' |website=Turner Classic Movies |year=2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715094348/http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/288385%7C0/Pop-Culture-101-Judgment-at-Nuremberg.html |archive-date=2018-07-15 |url-status=live |access-date=2012-11-02}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Mann |first=Abby |title=Judgment at Nuremberg |location=London |publisher=Cassell |year=1961 |page=93}}</ref> Meanwhile, as a [[strict constructionism|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 "[[Rassenschande|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 misled people such as him helped [[Adolf Hitler]]'s [[Antisemitism|antisemitic]], [[racism|racist]] policies out of naive patriotism despite knowing it was wrong, and that all of Germany [[collective guilt|bears some measure of responsibility]] for the [[Nazi war crimes|atrocities committed by the Nazi regime]]. Haywood must weigh considerations of [[Geopolitics|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]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/JudgmentAtNuremberg.html|title=Judgment at Nuremberg|access-date=2008-09-27|last=Bradley|first=Sean|publisher=[[University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]]|quote=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.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080913190543/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/JudgmentAtNuremberg.html|archive-date=2008-09-13|url-status=dead}}</ref> 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 [[superior orders|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]]. German defense attorney Hans Rolfe meets Haywood after the trial to inform him on his estimation that no defendant will probably stay in prison for more than 5 years. Haywood replies that Rolfe's position may be logical but without reverence for justice. At Janning's request, Haywood visits him in his prison 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. Frau Bertholt, the general's widow, refuses to take Haywood's phone call, following which he departs; a [[title card]] informs the audience that, of 99 defendants sentenced to prison terms in [[Subsequent Nuremberg trials|Nuremberg trials that took place in the American Zone]], none was still serving a sentence when the film was released in 1961.<ref name="AFI">{{cite web |title=''Judgment at Nuremberg'' (1961) |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/23848 |access-date=2024-02-18 |website=[[AFI Catalog of Feature Films]] |publisher=American Film Institute}}</ref>{{efn|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]].}}
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