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Topic: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (Read 1444 times) |
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
« on: 2009-05-01 06:29:33 » |
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[Blunderov] At one time "An Inconvenient Truth" was distributed by, I think, Al Gore, free of charge to any US schools that were prepared to accept delivery. (Many were not.) Perhaps something similar could be undertaken with the classic "Judgment at Nuremberg"?
The Divx format might provide a very effective vector to, for instance, congresspersons and similar. Maybe even Obama?
How do we get this meme-storm started?*
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055031/synopsis
Synopsis for:
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) )
Synopsis
Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) arrives in Nuremberg in 1948 to preside over the trial of four Nazi judges, each charged with having abused the court system to help cleanse Germany of the politically and socially undesirable, allegedly guilty of war crimes. The opening statement of the prosecuting attorney (Richard Widmark) is a vicious one, depicting the defendants as having been willing, evil, accomplices in Nazi atrocities, but Judge Haywood wonders if it is really that simple.
Confounded at how one defendant, a renowned German champion of justice named Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), appears to have played the greatest role in molding Germany's Ministry of Justice into a destructive instrument of Nazism, Judge Haywood resolves to gain some perspective on the period in which the German legal system strayed from a course of entirely objective justice.
Probing for the truth proves difficult, though, as nobody who lived in Germany during Nazism seems to admit to having much inside knowledge. He befriends Mrs. Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich), the widow of an executed Nazi army officer, but she offers few insights, more consumed by her personal experiences than the broader matters of Nazism. Mrs. Bertholt is focusing on being a catalyst for the cultural rebirth of Nuremberg, keen on remolding the image of a city that had become notorious as the site of the Nazi raliies. An attempt to discuss the period with his housekeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Halbestadt, who had lived near the Dachau concentration camp, proves equally fruitless for Judge Haywood, as they cannot help but focus on the loss of their child in the bombing and the fact that they nearly starved from poverty. Whether anyone knew anything mattered little, for Germans were looking forward, not backward, still grappling with, and recovering from, the hardships and losses that the war brought to them and their families.
Only in the courtroom will Judge Haywood have the opportunity to gain insights into the realities of the period. First hand evidence of a) all German judges having sworn to a Nazi oath of allegiance, b) human sterilization orders signed by the defendants and carried out, and c) the execution of a Jew merely for having relations with a non-Jew, painted an evil picture of the ways in which the law had been applied by the defendants during Nazism. Still, Judge Haywood cannot fully come to grips with why these judges had been willing to enforce the law in such a horrific manner. Not, at least, until the defendant Ernst Janning feels compelled to make a statement, against the advice of his counsel (Maximilian Schell).
In his statement made under oath, Janning speaks of how economically-stricken Germany had become a nation of fearful, desperate people, and how only such a people could submit to Nazism. Hitler's promises, Janning explained, in which he openly vowed the elimination of those accountable for Germany's hardships were, at first, soothing and reassuring to them. Janning then noted that, even once the complicit realized the unconscionability and inhumanity of Hitler's approach, they stayed at their posts to help things from getting even worse, but, predictably, failed to derail the atrocities of the times. He explained that national allegiance had motivated most of them to the point that they sacrificed their own personal senses of morality. In a deeply personal, yet self-damning, statement, he conceded that most of them should have known better, and that those that had gone along had betrayed Germany.
At long last, the issue at the heart of the case becomes clear to Judge Haywood - the choice that the defendants had to make was between allegiance to their country and allegiance to their own senses of right and wrong. Understanding the times and context in which the actions of the defendants took place, Judge Haywood is ready to pass judgment on the defendants. He sentences each to life imprisonment, noting that their actions were illegal under both International law and German law, and further notes that they were men of sufficient intellect, prominence and credibility in Germany that their refusal to help transform the German court system into an institution that, systematically, denied justice to enemies of the Third Reich might have made a difference.
As noted in the closing moments of the film, none of those condemned to a sentence less than death at any of the Nuremberg trials was still serving their term just over a decade later. Once Germany became a Cold War ally of America, it gradually opened the door for their release.
Page last updated by stumattana, 2 months ago
[Bl.] * Some additional links.
http://ampersan6.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/film-discussion-judgment-at-nuremberg/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLFEW0Hq7-0
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
« Reply #1 on: 2009-05-01 08:42:06 » |
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[Blunderov] Here is a transcript of the verdict gleaned from:
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/j/judgment-at-nuremburg-script-transcript.html
"Rather, the charge is that of conscious participation in a nationwide, government-organized system of cruelty and injustice in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations.
The tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support beyond a reasonable doubt the charges against these defendants.
Herr Rolfe in his very skillful defense has asserted that there are others who must share the ultimate responsibility for what happened here in Germany. There is truth in this.
The real complaining party at the bar in this courtroom is civilization. But the tribunal does say that the men in the dock are responsible for their actions. Men who sat in black robes in judgment on other men. Men who took part in the enactment of laws and decrees the purpose of which
was the extermination of human beings. Men who, in executive positions actively participated in the enforcement of these laws illegal even under German law.
The principle of criminal law in every civilized society has this in common; any person who sways another to commit murder, any person who furnishes the lethal weapon for the purpose of the crime, any person who is an accessory to the crime is guilty.
Herr Rolfe further asserts that the defendant Janning was an extraordinary jurist and acted in what he thought was the best interest of his country. There is truth in this also. Janning, to be sure is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and the death of millions by the government of which he was a part.
Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial. If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe.
But this trial has shown that under a national crisis ordinary, even able and extraordinary men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat through the trial can ever forget them. Men sterilized because of political belief. A mockery made of friendship and faith. The murder of children. How easily it can happen.
There are those in our own country, too who today speak of the protection of country, of survival. A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. The answer to that is: Survival as what?
A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world let it now be noted that here in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth and the value of a single human being."
[Bl.] Curiously, rather like Olbermann in full flight. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
I've had a happy little time this morning learning how to download videos from u-tube, so in case there is anybody who needs a quick pointer, YouTube-Downloader worked well for me (but I'm still an Microsoft Explorer user - what can I say - it suits my convenience).
Happy to report that The Politburo will be including this material in her teaching. The Politburo feels strongly that the veneer of civilisation is very delicate and must be jealously protected.
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Hermit
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Re:Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
« Reply #2 on: 2009-05-01 13:15:57 » |
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Video Download Helper for Firefox gives you access to a whole lot more media than just YouTube, performs conversions - and lets you avoid all the Internet Exploder issues. I have used it successfully for several years on Linux systems.
Kindest Regards
Hermit&Co
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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