Review of Nuremberg written by James Vanderbilt and Jack El-Hai and directed by James Vanderbilt Rating ****
This film starts slow but gains momentum thanks to great performances by Russell Crowe and Rami Malek. There were some things about this story I knew beforehand and a few things I picked up after watching the film. For example, I didn’t know that this was the first time anyone had been charged for war crimes.
This film focuses almost exclusively on the relationship between Herman Goring, played by Russell Crowe and Douglas Kelly, a psychiatrist played by Rami Malek. As a result, the filmmakers left out huge chunks of the story, most importantly, is the fact that each of the defendants had their own legal representation and were questioned both by the prosecution and their own attorneys. The film makes it appear as though the defendants represented themselves.
When it comes to Hermann Goering, his claim was that he was unaware of what was taking place in the camps. In the film, the only proof they showed that he was aware of the atrocities and had approved them was an ambiguous letter he had signed. They left out way more direct evidence such as communications about exterminations, internal memos, and minutes from the meeting where the final solution was first mentioned. Any one of these would have been more dramatic than the letter they decided to use, most likely because Goring argued that the letter was about immigration and not extermination, and there was a possibility that he might get off because of that.
In the film the defendants are found guilty and hanged almost immediately. In real life, each defendant had a chance to appeal the decision, and the death sentences were not carried out until two weeks later. That still may seem rushed, but this was a military tribunal and not a civil trial.
The idea of charging people for war crimes and crimes against humanity is something I am in favor of. Rodrigo Duterte, the former President of the Philippines, is currently in ICC custody in the Netherlands, awaiting trial for crimes against humanity related to his extrajudicial killings of drug traffickers and users. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has an arrest warrant out for charges related to war crimes for his attacks against the Palestinian civilian population and using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.
Make sure you stay for the end credits where the filmmakers provide updates on the various characters in the story. They tell a story as dramatic as what is shown on screen. Unfortunately, they did not show film from the actual trial (unless I left too early).