At the conclusion of World War II, Nazi officer Hermann Göring surrenders to the Allies. While awaiting Göring’s trial, an army psychiatrist works to psychologically understand what made the Nazi commit such atrocities. Nuremberg delivers lessons about history and the true nature of evil. Some foul language, discussions of war atrocities and real concentration camp footage are the film’s biggest difficulties.
As American soldiers lean off to the side of the muddy and battered German roadway, their intention is to just to grab a bit of rest, have a cigarette.
They watch as clumps of displaced and ragged German citizens shuffle by. Hitler is dead, the world war is at a close. It’s been an exhausting and deadly undertaking, and these weary, cig-puffing Joes are some of the lucky ones.
But then a large limousine pulls toward them with small swastika flags flapping on its hood. The soldiers quickly drop their Marlboros and raise their rifles. This vehicle isn’t supposed to be here. And neither is the rather rotund officer in a heavily decorated suit who steps out, clicks his heels and surrenders to them, asking that they fetch his suitcases.
The man is none other than Hermann Göring: the highest-ranking Nazi officer still living.
Back stateside, discussions are swirling over Göring’s capture. Certain factions want to simply shoot the man and be done with it. But U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson is of another persuasion. He wants Göring and others of his ilk put on public trial.
Only then will the atrocities these men committed be seen in the bright, glaring light of day. Only then will the world agree that nothing Hitler or his comrades did should be considered justifiable under the curtain of war. Only then will those atrocities be prevented from ever happening again.
Of course, this public trial also comes with a great deal of risk. For one thing, a trial of this sort has never been done before. What is the legal precedent? Who has the authority to preside over such proceedings? For that matter, what if a public forum allows the Nazis to plead their innocence or, worse, spread their antisemitic hatred?
Meanwhile, there’s Göring himself. He and the other captured officials must be handled wisely: The prisoners need to be physically and mentally fit to stand before the world. For that task, army psychiatrist Doug Kelley is called in and tasked with keeping the men’s spirits up. He’ll need to keep them talking and eating, keep them looking forward to their day in court. Men committing suicide won’t serve any purpose.
Fortunately, Kelley is well suited to the job at hand. He’s bright and sees past the Nazis’ deceptions and ploys. He asks the right ego-preening questions; he plays cards, entertains with magic tricks. Kelley, in fact, makes particular inroads with Göring. The doctor quickly realizes that Göring can speak perfect English, though the prisoner pretends not to, and Kelley uses that knowledge to open up discussions that play out like games of chess.
Of course, Kelley’s interactions with Göring aren’t perfectly altruistic. The young psychiatrist has long been interested in writing a book that might elevate his professional stature. And what better source material for a book than Hermann Göring!? If Kelley can psychologically define the “purest of evil,” the corruption that allowed this man to commit such atrocities, it would be monumental.
Now, they just need to keep the various juggling balls in the air until the trial date arrives. However, that may be harder than Kelley first thought. For Göring, it appears, is not only a narcissist; he’s a genius, too. And he hasn’t even begun to reveal his card tricks.
As a means of getting through to Göring, Kelley breaks military regulations and delivers a letter from Göring to the man’s wife and child. But the psychiatrist is surprised to find that Emma and Edda Göring are very sincere and caring individuals who seemingly only know Göring as a loving husband and father. With time, Kelley becomes very protective of this pair. He goes out of his way to help the mother and daughter when the Army heartlessly arrests them and pulls them apart.
A German-speaking American interpreter reveals that he is a Jew who was born and raised in Germany. His family used what little they had to help him emigrate to America as a boy. He goes back as an adult to find any family members who have survived the war: He finds a sister.
Despite his family’s suffering at the hands of the Nazis, this Jewish-American soldier stops to help a sentenced Nazi face his end with dignity. The film promotes that graceful choice as an example to all.
In his efforts to see the Nuremberg trials happen, Justice Jackson approaches the Catholic Pope for support. And the church leader is reluctant to give it. “An eye for an eye is not the answer,” the Pope declares. “Maybe not, but I know where I first read about it,” Jackson retorts. Jackson goes on to decry the Pope’s past actions when it came to Hitler’s regime. “Isn’t it a pity that the Jews didn’t have someone to stand with them?” The Pope relents and gives his support.
As you would expect in a film about atrocities committed against people of the Jewish faith, that faith is a present part of the equation. We only hear one man speak briefly about his spiritual connection to Judaism, however.
Göring tells a story of his family being taken in by a wealthy Jewish man when he was a boy. He strongly implies that his mother was regularly visited by this man for sexual intercourse. (We don’t see any interaction.) It’s also implied that Kelley spends the night with a woman after an evening of heavy drinking.
Though not truly sexual in nature, we see a naked man with his back to us being sprayed down with a powerful hose.
At the film’s open, we’re told that the just-ending second world war killed more than 70 million people worldwide. An aerial flyover gives witness to the massive destruction that bombings and artillery barrages caused in Nuremberg, Germany.
That theme of deadliness and destruction carries over into black-and-white slides and film reels capturing the death and carnage doled out in concentration camps. A large map shows the locations of thousands of camps that were scattered throughout Germany alone.
We’re then shown footage of hundreds and hundreds of naked human corpses stacked about in sheds and warehouses like so much cordwood—requiring a tractor for removal, in some cases. We’re told of people who were shot, starved, gassed, beaten with clubs, left exposed in the winter freeze and pushed off cliffs. And we’re given visual evidence. We see giant ovens filled with human remains. And we’re shown emaciated men and women who were left barely alive.
It’s obvious that the filmmakers were selective in their image choices. They use enough film reels to convey the horror while keeping some outrages just out of the camera’s sight. All of these scenes and images are given a heightened emotional punch as the atrocities are revealed to people in the Nuremberg court room for the first time (to expected reactions).
A prisoner is found after committing suicide, his neck wrapped and face blue. Göring has a heart attack, clutching his chest in pain and gasping for air. In a flashback scene, a man jumps out of a crashing plane and breaks his ankle. We see his single-prop plane in flames behind him.
The film’s dialogue contains a couple uses of the s-word and one or two uses each of the words “d–n,” “h—” and “b–ch.” Jesus’ name is misused three times, and God is combined with “d–n” on two occasions.
We see Justice Jackson drinking small glasses of cognac on several occasions—sometimes while meeting with British counsellor Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, who drinks tea spiked with booze. Military personnel and some journalists drink and smoke in a military canteen.
Kelley smokes habitually throughout the film, and we see others doing so in a variety of locations. Göring smokes cigars.
When Göring surrenders, he does so with a huge supply of Percodon in tow. He claims that the opioid is for a heart condition. Kelley chews up a tablet to confirm Göring’s claim; he proclaims that Göring is an addict.
Several people kill themselves with cyanide caplets.
A Nazi official declares that he can smell Jews. And other Nazis make crude, antisemitic comments as well. Göring declares that antisemitism had a “practical purpose” even though he didn’t directly ascribe to it.
When Kelley talks to Göring about the crimes of the concentration camps, the Nazi claims that he doesn’t know what Kelley is talking about: “If it is true what they say happened in the camps, this is a great blight on the German Reich.”
As the Nuremberg trials draw near, Justice Jackson doubts that he’ll have enough evidence to verbally entrap the wily Göring. So he asks Kelley to give him inside information to convict the man. Kelley balks at the idea of betraying his oath as a psychiatrist. But he gives in anyway. And ultimately, he lies to Göring’s face, despite the level of trust they’ve established.
Since the end of World War II on Sept. 2, 1945, there have been literally thousands of movies made about the events that took place. And whether the filmmakers work with documentary exactitude or lean into dramatic embellishment, we moviegoers can’t seem to get enough of the subject.
These films have often represented a good-versus-evil ethos. They’ve lifted morale. They’ve shown us many heroes’ perspectives. But by and large, these movies have also become illustrations of the terrible evils of the past—or, perhaps, harbingers of some evils we fear in the future.
The strength of Nuremberg, however, is that the film doesn’t focus primarily on any of that. (Though the black-and-white pictures and reels of dead bodies, bone-filled ovens and emaciated concentration camp survivors are emotionally wrenching.)
Instead, this movie’s main task seems to be to give us historical context and then ask us some trenchant moral questions: Why were the Nazis such uniquely abhorrent people? What made them so violent and terrible? How could they be so unlike us?
Those queries are essentially what we watch Hermann Göring and Doug Kelley (played brilliantly by Russell Crowe and Rami Malek) hammer out together.
What the film eloquently answers, however, is that Göring and his Nazis were … human. And indeed, exactly like us.
Kelley lands on what amounts to a biblical assessment by the end of his notetaking and study: We fool ourselves into thinking we’re better or set apart from the arrogant, robin-egg-blue-clad Göring, Kelley declares. But we’re made of the same broken stuff. We may try to be better—even Göring had his loving side—but we’re all part of a fallen mankind, saved only through God’s grace.
Now, Nuremberg doesn’t make that declaration exactly, nor in so many words. And its lesson isn’t always as clear or easy to watch. But the lesson is there, and people of faith will definitely recognize the truth of it.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
