A definitive, if ponderous, courtroom drama

Rating: 8/10 (20 March 2009)

This dour and lengthy (3 hours) courtroom drama deals with the tail end of the Nuremberg trials of 1946-48, when many of the Nazi leaders were tried for their part in the totalitarian nightmare which engulfed Germany between 1933 and 1945. By 1948 the chief villains had been dealt with and the Tribunal had moved on to the supporting players, in this case four of the judges who had worked for the Nazi state. The particular trial, based on an earlier TV film also written by Abby Mann, is fictional, but founded on fact. A very high quality cast keeps the viewer engaged. How was it that many high officials, let alone ordinary Germans, did not admit to knowing the true horror of the "final solution"? How was it possible that eminent lawyers would co-operate with the Nazi regime despite their distaste for it? How could their conduct be defended, let alone be excused?
As Hans Rolfe, the youthful defence counsel for the most prominent judge, Ernst Janning (a noble-looking but rather wooden Burt Lancaster), Maximilian Schell gives the Tribunal of three American judges plenty of histrionics. It is evident that Germany, and not just the judges is on trial. But the scriptwriter does not allow the defendants off the hook. One, played by Werner Klemperer, is unrepentant, another is befuddled. Only Ernst Janning puts up any kind of defence, to the effect that he thought he could ameliorate things by playing along with the Nazis. This did not stop him from ordering sterilization of mental defectives and the execution of an old Jewish man for allegedly having sex with a 16 year old non-Jewish girl.
The problem, of course is a very large number of Germans approved of repressive policies towards Jews. The Nazis were overtly anti-semitic from the start and it needs to be remembered that in the election in January 1933 which brought Hitler to power the Nazi party got the largest proportion of votes cast, 43%. Hitler brooked no opposition, and anyone who got in the way was disposed of summarily. Only the aristocratic army officer corps offered any real resistance, and then only late in the piece because they saw Hitler as ruining Germany. For someone like Janning exile was not an option Â– it was either play along or go to a concentration camp for opposing the regime. He admits his mistake, but of course it's cold comfort to the victims.
Spencer Tracey could make just about any character likable, and our sympathies are soon captured by the affable and apparently fair-minded Judge Hayward. But he proves incapable of getting to the bottom of the matter. Justice of a sort is done, and the defendants have their day (actually several months) in court, but the whole proceeding has some of the elements of a show trial. Ironically, both the prosecutor (a relentless Richard Widmark) and the Tribunal members are for political reasons pressured by people in the military who should have known better to go easy on the defendants.
Currently we have kangaroo court style US military tribunals set up by the late unlamented Bush regime to deal with people picked up in the invasion of Iraq and elsewhere. Fortunately it looks like the regular courts will wind up disposing of these cases. However, the Nuremburg Tribunal, victor's justice it may have been, can be defended on the grounds there was nothing else. In retrospect it was an imperfect exercise. This film remains a worthy attempt to give an account of it.