Watching Nuremberg left me feeling as if I had been allowed a glimpse into the inner workings of the Nuremberg trials and the minds of both the prosecution and those on trial — but a few parts were still unsatisfying.
To begin with the satisfying bits, I enjoyed the psychological elements of the film, particularly watching Captain Gilbert interview the defendants and extract from them morsels of guilt. The image of a Jewish psychologist sharing a room with Nazi criminals and genuinely trying to understand how they came to commit the atrocities they did was striking. Though Gilbert’s revelation of evil as the “total lack of ability to feel empathy with another human being” felt a bit dramatic, he reached his conclusion through these conversations in which some of the defendants broke down completely, unable to understand their own actions, wrought with guilt, while others were completely unfazed and unreflective.
I also thought Göring’s relationship with Tex, to whom he bestows the swastika-branded lighter, was a fascinating one which may speak to how fascism appeals to so many young white men today. Here was this terrible criminal, Göring, and this young, disillusioned American. The former exudes power and confidence despite his imprisoned state, the latter wants that same power and confidence for himself and finds in Göring not a terrible criminal, but rather a sympathetic mentor — both being white men who see their power slipping away and wish to hold onto it.
As for the unsatisfying bits, I wish the film hadn’t wasted time on Robert Jackson and Elsie’s romance, and instead had given us a bit more legal background so that we could truly understand the charges at the end of the film. It felt very abrupt to suddenly be presented with these four counts on which the defendants might be charged, including “Crimes against Humanity,” a completely new charge born out of the Nuremberg trials themselves. We didn’t get a sense for which charges were considered worse, or worthy of more severe punishment, according to international law. We also learned very little about some of the defendants, such that seeing them all be sentenced was confusing because we didn’t have enough background information as an audience to deliberate for ourselves whether they deserved their sentences. I went in expecting a true, Twelve Angry Men– style courtroom drama, and came out feeling as if I’d experienced a psychological thriller of sorts.
That being said, Nuremberg reaffirmed a lot of my research and reporting on the current German ethos to the Israel-Gaza War and how the German “staatsraison” or raison d ‘etre of the state, is so deeply dependent on reclaiming its international reputation through supporting Israel as a Jewish state. Though the film did not deal with the formation of Israel directly, the trials were also a crucial part of German rehabilitation in the eyes of the international community. In many ways, the trials were less about convicting Nazis, and more about a) making an example of them on an international stage to prevent further such atrocities and define terms for how to deal with such crimes in the future and b) to absolve Germany and present the appearance of an “old Germany” (the fascist, Nazi Germany), and the “new Germany” which wished to be seen as nationally powerful without being associated with the old regime (despite incorporating some former Nazis into the new government). These politics continue to undergird German foreign policy and domestic conversations today, so I do think this film is a useful background to anyone hoping to report on modern Israeli and/or Palestinian experiences in Germany.
