The 1945-46 Nuremberg trial of Nazi leaders for crimes against humanity was the first international criminal tribunal. It was also the foundation of international justice and human rights policies. Following are reviews of three books and three DVDs.
Justice at Nuremberg
By Robert E. Conot
Basic Books, 1993, 590 pages
Originally published in 1983, Justice at Nuremberg was the first, and is still the most comprehensive, account of the trial of 21 Nazi military and civilian leaders for atrocities they committed before and during World War II. Norman Birkett, one of the British judges, called it “the greatest trial in history.” Conot reconstructs both the proceedings at Nuremburg and the offenses with which the accused were charged. As sickening and dispiriting as the atrocities were, they are balanced by the dignity and fairness with which the trial was conducted.
Nuremberg Diary
By G. M. Gilbert
Da Capo Press, 1995, 488 pages
This book is both spellbinding and chilling. Dr. Gilbert, the prison psychologist at Nuremberg, watched and questioned the Nazi war criminals. With scientific dispassion he encouraged Göering, Speer, Hess, Ribbentrop, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, Streicher, and the others to reveal their innermost thoughts. In the process Gilbert exposed what motivated them to create the distorted Aryan utopia and the nightmarish worlds of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. In Nuremberg Diary, he describes their day-to-day reactions to the trial proceedings; their off-the-record opinions of Hitler and the Third Reich; their views on slave labor, death camps, and the Jews; their testimony, feuds, and desperate maneuverings to deny their guilt.
The Nuremberg Legacy: How the Nazi War Crimes Trials Changed the Course of History
By Norbert Ehrenfreund
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 288 pages
$21.24 hardcover, $15.37 Kindle
Ehrenfreund presents “a case for adhering to the Nuremberg legacy of fair treatment for even the most odious offenders” (Kirkus).
'Judgment at Nuremberg'
Starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximillian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift. Directed by Stanley Kramer
MGM Studio, 1961
This fictionalized version of the trial examines the questions of individual complicity in crimes committed by the state. Spencer Tracy plays Dan Haywood, the American judge selected to head the tribunal. Maximillian Schell won an Oscar for his role as counsel for the defense. The courtroom scenes depict graphic accounts of murder and crimes against humanity, including actual historical footage, exceptionally gruesome for a mainstream film in 1961, of huge piles of naked corpses bulldozed into pits.
'Nuremberg'
Starring Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox, Christopher Plummer, Jill Hennessy. Directed by Yves Simoneau
Turner Home Entertainment, 2001
This TV movie drives home the point that the prosecutors took a big risk in trying the Nazi high command for war crimes, which was then a novel and controversial concept. There was a passion for vengeance in the countries that had suffered under the Nazis; no international criminal laws existed; and the there was no assurance that the prosecutors would win convictions. If acquitted, the defendants would go free. “The political maneuvering between Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union that made [the trial] possible is explained fairly well in the early portions of the film,” said reviewer Robert J. McNamara.
Alec Baldwin stars as Robert Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court justice who served as the chief prosecutor for the Allies at Nuremberg. “Baldwin at times delivers lines that seem to have been lifted from a high school history textbook,” said McNamara. But Brian Cox’s portrayal of the manipulative defendant Hermann Goering (Hitler’s deputy) is brilliant.
'Nuremberg: Tyranny on Trial'
The History Channel (A&E Home Video), 1995
This documentary film features some of the men who were present at the trials, including the chief counsel for the prosecution, telling how they planned the case against the defendants, knowing that the eyes of the world and the judgment of history watched their every move.