Judgment at Nuremberg

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 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 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 US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.'s support for the first eugenics practices; 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.{{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}}{{cite book|last=Mann |first=Abby |title=Judgment at Nuremberg |location=London |publisher=Cassell |year=1961 |page=93}}

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 misled people such as him helped Adolf Hitler's antisemitic, racist policies out of naive 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.{{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}}

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.

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 Nuremberg trials that took place in the American Zone, none was still serving a sentence when the film was released in 1961.{{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}}{{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.}}

{{columns-list|colwidth=30em|

• Spencer Tracy as Chief Judge Dan Haywood
• Burt Lancaster as defendant Dr. Ernst Janning
• Richard Widmark as prosecutor Col. Tad Lawson
• Maximilian Schell as defense counsel Hans Rolfe
• Marlene Dietrich as Frau Bertholt
• Montgomery Clift as Rudolph Petersen
• Judy Garland as Irene Hoffmann
• William Shatner as Captain Harrison Byers
• Howard Caine as Hugo Wallner – Irene's husband
• Werner Klemperer as defendant Emil Hahn
• John Wengraf as His Honour Herr Justizrat Dr Karl Wieck – former Minister of Justice in Weimar Germany
• Karl Swenson as Dr. Heinrich Geuter, Feldenstein's lawyer
• Ben Wright as Herr Halbestadt, Haywood's butler
• Virginia Christine as Mrs. Halbestadt, Haywood's housekeeper
• Edward Binns as Senator Burkette
• Torben Meyer as defendant Werner Lampe
• {{ill|Martin Brandt|de}} as defendant Friedrich Hofstetter
• Kenneth MacKenna as Judge Kenneth Norris
• Ray Teal as Judge Curtiss Ives
• Alan Baxter as Brig. Gen. Matt Merrin
• Joseph Bernard as Major Abe Radnitz, Lawson's assistant
• {{ill|Olga Fabian|de}} as Mrs. Elsa Lindnow, witness in Feldenstein case
• Otto Waldis as Oswald Pohl
• Paul Busch as Schmidt
• Bernard Kates as Max Perkins

}}

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.{{cite news|first=Susan|last=King|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-oct-11-la-et-nuremberg-film-20111011-story.html|title='Judgment at Nuremberg' 50 years later|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=October 11, 2011|accessdate=August 22, 2023}} 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.{{cite news|first=Martin|last=Chilton|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/monster-mgm-spencer-tracy-toxic-man-hollywood/|title=The monster of MGM: was Spencer Tracy the most toxic man in Hollywood?|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=April 6, 2020|accessdate=August 22, 2023}} 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.{{cite web|first=Brogan|last=Morris|url=https://thequietus.com/articles/29084-film-montgomery-clift-centenary|title=Angel Of Death: Reframing Montgomery Clift At 100|website=The Quietus|date=October 16, 2020|accessdate=August 22, 2023}} (Clift was so eager to do the film that he worked just for expenses.{{cite book|first=Charles|last=Casillo|date=2021|title=Elizabeth and Monty: The Untold Story of Their Intimate Friendship|publisher=Kensington Publishing Corp.|location=New York City|isbn=978-1-4967-2479-3|page=272}}) 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.

• "Lili Marleen"
• Music by Norbert Schultze (1938)
• Lyrics by Hans Leip (1915)
• "Liebeslied"
• Music by Ernest Gold
• Lyrics by Alfred Perry
• "Wenn wir marschieren"
• German folk song (ca. 1910)
• “Wenn die Soldaten”
• German folk song (ca. 1840)
• "Care for Me"
• By Ernest Gold
• "Notre amour ne peur"
• By Ernest Gold
• "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen"
• German folk song, arrangement by Ernest Gold
• "Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13"
• By Ludwig van Beethoven

The world premiere was held on December 14, 1961, at the {{lang|de|Kongresshalle}} in West Berlin, Germany. 300 journalists from 22 countries were in attendance{{cite journal |last=Scott |first=John L. |date=December 24, 1961 |title=Berlin 'Judgment' Draws Jas, Neins |journal=Los Angeles Times |page=Calendar, p. 4 }} 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 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".{{cite journal |last=Crowther |first=Bosley |authorlink=Bosley Crowther |date=December 20, 1961 |title=The Screen: 'Judgment at Nuremberg' |journal=The New York Times |page=36 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1961/12/20/archives/the-screen-judgment-at-nurembergpalace-shows-stanley-kramer.html |access-date=2024-02-18}} 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."{{cite journal |date=October 18, 1961 |title=Judgment at Nuremberg |journal=Variety |page=6 }} 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".{{cite journal |date=October 21, 1961 |title=Film Review: Judgment at Nuremberg |journal=Harrison's Reports |page=166 }}

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."{{cite magazine |last=Gill |first=Brendan |date=December 23, 1961 |title=The Current Cinema |magazine=The New Yorker |page=68 }} 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."{{cite news |last=Coe |first=Richard L. |date=February 15, 1962 |title='Nuremberg' Is Great Film |newspaper=The Washington Post |page=D6 }}

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."{{cite journal |date=February 1962 |title=Judgment at Nuremberg |journal=The Monthly Film Bulletin |volume=29 |issue=337 |page=19 }}

The film grossed $6 million in the United States and $10 million in worldwide release.{{cite web |title=Box office / business for Judgment at Nuremberg |website=IMDb |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055031/business |access-date=21 February 2016 |archive-date=31 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160331203717/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055031/business |url-status=dead}}

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.{{cite news |url=https://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/this-day-in-politics-088518 |title=600 begin Selma-to-Montgomery march, March 7, 1965 |first=Andrew |last=Glass |date=7 March 2013 |work=Politico |accessdate=28 April 2021}} 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.{{cite book |first=Barbara Harris |last=Combs |title=From Selma to Montgomery: The Long March to Freedom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WgQ3AgAAQBAJ |date=26 November 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-17376-9 |page=40}}{{cite book |first=Emilie |last=Raymond |title=Stars for Freedom: Hollywood, Black Celebrities, and the Civil Rights Movement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxA1CgAAQBAJ |date=8 June 2015 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-80607-5 |page=195}}

• In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten Top Ten" after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Judgment at Nuremberg was acknowledged as the tenth best film in the courtroom drama genre.{{cite web | publisher = American Film Institute | title = AFI's 10 Top 10 | access-date = 2019-11-18 | url = https://www.afi.com/afis-10-top-10/ | archive-date = 2021-03-08 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210308001304/https://www.afi.com/afis-10-top-10/ | url-status = live }} Additionally, the film had been nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies.{{Cite web|url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/movies400.pdf|title=AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies Nominees|access-date=2011-12-10|archive-date=2013-10-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131026011242/http://afi.com/Docs/100Years/movies400.pdf|url-status=dead}}

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.{{cite web |url=https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Spencer-Tracy/dp/B0002CR04A |title=Judgment at Nuremberg |work=MGM Home Entertainment |date=September 7, 2004 |publisher=MGM Holdings |location=Beverly Hills, California |asin=B0002CR04A |access-date=November 9, 2016 |archive-date=February 16, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216084449/https://www.amazon.com/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Spencer-Tracy/dp/B0002CR04A |url-status=live}}

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.{{cite web |url=http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Blu-ray/49205/ |title=Judgment at Nuremberg Blu-ray Limited Edition |publisher=Blu-ray.com |access-date=November 11, 2014 |archive-date=November 10, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141110231711/http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Blu-ray/49205/ |url-status=live}}{{cite web |url=https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Blu-ray/133294/ |title=Judgment at Nuremberg Blu-ray |access-date=September 10, 2019 |publisher=Blu-ray.com |archive-date=September 3, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180903114041/http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Blu-ray/133294/ |url-status=live}}

The Australian Blu-ray was released as part of The Hollywood Gold Series.{{cite web |url=http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Blu-ray/101179/ |title=Judgment at Nuremberg Blu-ray Hollywood Gold Series |publisher=Blu-ray.com |access-date=April 30, 2014 |archive-date=October 25, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141025141047/http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Judgment-at-Nuremberg-Blu-ray/101179/ |url-status=live}}

In 1985, a Soviet stage adaptation of the film under the title Judgment was produced for Baltic House Festival Theatre, with Gennady Egorov as director.

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.{{cite web | url=http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Judgment.html | title=Judgment at Nuremberg Theatre Review | first=Thomas | last=Burke | date=March 27, 2001 | website=Talkin' Broadway | access-date=May 11, 2018 | archive-date=September 24, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924121130/http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Judgment.html | url-status=live }}

{{Portal|Crime|Film|Germany|Politics}}

• German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, British and American army film of the camps
• List of Holocaust films
• Message picture
• Nuremberg Trials (a Soviet film on the trials)
• Spencer Tracy filmography
• Trial films
• War crimes trials
• Nuremberg, a 2000 TV miniseries about the actual Nuremberg Trials

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Wikiquote|Judgment at Nuremberg|Judgment at Nuremberg}}

{{commons category|Judgment at Nuremberg (1961 film)|Judgment at Nuremberg}}

• {{IMDb title|0055031|Judgment at Nuremberg}}
• [https://www.allmovie.com/movie/judgment-at-nuremberg-am6741 Judgment at Nuremberg at AllMovie]
• {{TCMDb title|id=22842}}
• {{AFI film|id=23848|title=Judgment at Nuremberg}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|judgment_at_nuremburg}}

{{Stanley Kramer}}

{{David di Donatello Best Foreign Film}}

{{Nuremberg trials}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Judgment At Nuremberg}}

Category:1961 films

Category:1961 drama films

Category:1961 war films

Category:American black-and-white films

Category:American legal drama films

Category:American courtroom films

Category:American docudrama films

Category:1960s legal drama films

Category:1960s English-language films

Category:Films scored by Ernest Gold

Category:Films about capital punishment

Category:Films about lawyers

Category:Films about Nazi Germany

Category:Films based on television plays

Category:Films directed by Stanley Kramer

Category:Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award–winning performance

Category:Films featuring a Best Drama Actor Golden Globe winning performance

Category:Films produced by Stanley Kramer

Category:Films set in Germany

Category:Films set in the 1940s

Category:Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe

Category:Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award

Category:Films about the aftermath of the Holocaust

Category:Nuremberg in fiction

Category:United Artists films

Category:United States National Film Registry films

Category:United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals

Category:Nuremberg trials

Category:World War II war crimes trials films

Category:1960s American films

Category:English-language war films