Review: "Nuremberg"

Following World War II, the question arose about what to do with the captured Nazi leaders responsible for the killing of millions of innocent people.  Simply executing them risked the possibility of making them into martyrs in the eyes of their loyalists.

It was decided that a world court—the first of its kind in history—would be created to bring 22 former Nazi leaders to justice in an international court of law, made up of representatives of the allied forces who had won the war.

Among the men was Adolph Hitler’s second in command, Hermann Göring. In director James Vanderbilt’s new movie Nuremberg, Göring is played by Russell Crowe.

The movie begins with the fictionalized capture of Göring by American troops as he and his family try to escape.  He is imprisoned and eventually brought to trial in one of the greatest legal dramas of the 20^thcentury.

In order to determine whether Göring and his fellow Nazis are mentally fit to stand trial, a military psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley is summoned to the prison.  Rami Malek plays Kelley, a real-life character, in what is largely a real-life story about the Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes trial.

The movie is largely focused on these two characters.  From a professional standpoint, Kelley is initially excited about the prospect of interviewing and analyzing the architects and commanders of the Third Reich.  But then things get muddy.  He is pressured by the prosecution to break the confidentiality of the patient-therapist relationship in order to help convict Göring, who threatens to be a brilliant and formidable accused criminal in the courtroom. 

Kelley’s own ego and ambition get in the way, and he finds himself taking copious notes for book that he is sure will put him on the map and launch his career, following the war.  In real life, Kelley did publish a book titled “22 Cells in Nuremberg.”

The story of Kelley and Göring is based on the 2013 non-fiction book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” by Jack El-Hai. 

Nuremberg has some dark similarities to The Silence of the Lambs, with an investigator trying to probe the dark, twisted mind of a real-life monster with a superior IQ.  In this case, the story is much more terrifying because it actually happened.  While the fictional Hannibal Lecter had nine victims, Göring and the Nazis committed widespread mass executions, including the murder of six million Jews in the infamous concentration death camps.

The horror of these deaths is underscored in Nuremberg when actual documentary footage of the countless skeleton-like corpses being bulldozed into mass graves is shown in the courtroom as evidence, for the first time ever.

As painful as it is to watch, it serves as a grim reminder of an unimaginable atrocity that humanity must never forget.  It’s the reason that films such as the Alain Renais documentary Night and Fog (1956) and Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993) are made over the years. 

Without the documentation and depiction of the horrors, and the unflinching re-telling of this chapter of history, there is always the possibility of deranged politically driven denial by extremist groups, who, as time marches on, insist it never happened.

Nuremberg is one of those movies that isn’t fun to see, but it is one that everyone should see. 

Thankfully, feature films occasionally go beyond sheer entertainment in an attempt to educate and inform.  They serve as an essential culture glue, reminding us of the core morals and values that bind us together.

Nuremberg is powerful and dramatic and sobering.  Granted, it is slowly paced.  The run time is 2h 28m. But the escalating drama hits home in a way that most fictional movie dramas almost never do.  The events, though shocking, repulsive and disturbing, really happened.

While the movie is Oscar worthy for the writing, direction, acting and technical credits, its biggest accomplishment perhaps is in drawing comparisons to the chapter of history in which we are currently living. 

It’s a warning about powerful, charismatic leaders who create the fear of an enemy within, pit people against one another, and wage war for the sake of ruling the earth, sending humanity down a path of death and self-destruction in the process.

It's important that movies like Nuremberg get green lighted from time to time.  It’s even more important for people to see them and heed the warnings.  It’s a shameful chapter of history that we must be mindful never to repeat.