Nuremberg: Its Lessons for Today (***1/4)

This documentary was compiled in 1948 but qualifies as new based on the addition of narration by Liev Schreiber. (The text is by the late writer Budd Schulberg and his brother, Stuart.) The subtitle is misleading*, as the film simply summarizes the celebrated 1946 trial of 19 accused Nazi war criminals. Footage of the proceedings is intercut with documentary evidence of the case being made. The first half mainly shows how the Nazi conquests were planned well ahead of time, and systematically accomplished. On screen we see, for example, letters signed by Adolf Hitler in 1939 stating Germany's peaceful intentions toward nations such as Denmark, or Switzerland. Then we see footage of the invasions, Poland first, then much of Europe by the end of 1940. Those on trial are referred to as “Defendant Goebbels,” “Defendant Goering,” and so on. Collectively they are simply “the conspirators.”

The second half of the film concentrates on the war crimes and the idea “total war” that allowed no sympathy for the enemy, whether that was Soviet POWs, resistant villagers, or, above all, the Jews. Any educated person has seen images of emaciated Jews, dead and alive, from the concentration camps. (Indeed, even in the ghettos there were starvation conditions.) In 1948 undoubtedly they would have been altogether startling to most people, and even upon repetition seeing such disregard for human life does not lose the power to shock.

The film ends by drily reciting the verdicts. Indeed, it is a dry presentation of facts, which is actually its strength. Such truths need no dramatic staging. In clips of several of the final statements, the defendants apologize, or state their ignorance of most of what happened, or blame Hitler for betraying Germany and themselves. Of the four prosecutors, the American, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, perhaps most effectively summarizes the collective case against them by essentially ridiculing the idea that, despite holding high positions of authority, each had virtually no knowledge of the horrible things the others were doing. Despite this, the focus is not the individual guilt of each defendant, but the actions of the Nazi regime collectively. I can only guess how I would have reacted had I been learning about these things for the first time.

* Though it’s correctly spelled with no apostrophe, which is nice to see.

IMDB link

viewed 5/18/11 at Roxy and reviewed 5/19/11