The Ending of “Judgment at Nuremberg” And the Film’s Lesson for Today

The film “Judgment at Nuremberg” ends with a stunning indictment from Spencer Tracy’s character that should offer a chilling lesson for today.

The 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg, directed by Stanley Kramer and written by Abby Mann, presents a fictionalized trial based on real events following World War II. There were twelve trials in military courts in Nuremberg, Germany regarding Nazi crimes committed during the war. The movie centers on a trial similar to the actual trial of jurists and lawyers (sometimes called “The Judges’ Trial“). [Warning: This post contains some spoilers for the movie.]

Judgment at Nuremberg features many great actors of the time, including Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift, Maximilian Schell (who won the Best Actor Oscar) and a young William Shatner. Much of the fim, though, centers on the characters played by Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster.

Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster

Spencer Tracy, who was 61 at the time and looked older, plays Chief Judge Dan Haywood, one of the judges overseeing the trial. Tracy’s Maine judge is in many ways the heart of the film, as we see through his eyes the war-torn streets of Germany and the moral questions surrounding the war and the atrocities.

Lancaster, plays Dr. Ernst Janning, one of the German defendants. Initially appearing defiant, Janning is troubled by what the Nazi’s did. Eventually, Janning takes the stand as a witness for the prosecution. During his testimony indicting the works of the Nazis, he confesses his own role in sentencing a Jewish man to death for having sex with a 16-year-old Gentile girl when he knew the charges were not true.

Lancaster was a great handsome movie star, and he brings his gravitas to the role, evoking sympathy from us for the guilt he feels and for his willingness among the defendants to admit the sins of the Germans. Tracy and Lancaster were long-time movie stars by this point, and we were familiar with Tracy as a trustworthy character and Lancaster as a strong man with a vulnerable heart and intense eyes.

The Final Confrontation

Janning: “Those people . . . Those millions of people. I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it. You must believe it.”

Haywood: “Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.”

At the end of the film, we do finally get a one-on-one scene between the two heavyweight actors. After Janning and the other three defendants are found guilty and sentenced to life in prison, Janning asks Judge Haywood to visit him in his cell. And Judge Haywood agrees. Throughout the film, Tracy has played Haywood as a man conflicted about how blame may be assessed among the living for the crimes of the Nazis, and we have seen him moved by Janning’s acceptance of guilt. So, the viewer may expect that this final scene of the two men (and great actors) meeting alone, will provide some common understanding between the two judges. But that is not what happens.

The two men complement each other. Lancaster’s Janning tells Spencer’s Haywood that his decision of the court was a just one. Haywood responds that Lancaster’s testimony was what needed to be said.

Then, Burt Lancaster’s Janning turns to the reason he wanted to talk to the judge in private. He does ask for some type of understanding, if not forgiveness from Spencer Tracy’s judge, explaining he did not know the extent of the horrors and the killings of the Jewish people. He pleads, “Those people . . . Those millions of people. I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it. You must believe it.”

But Spencer Tracy’s judge does not give forgiveness or understanding, only an indictment. He replies, “Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.” The camera captures Lancaster’s pained and haunted face as the movie ends with his prison door closing.

America’s Dilemma

That scene from Judgment at Nuremberg has always stayed with me, and I have been thinking about it a lot lately. In the news, we have read and seen about the Trump administration rounding up immigrants and sending them to an inhumane prison in El Salvador. A few years ago, it might have been hard to imagine the United States sending convicted criminals to such a place, but because these men are not citizens of the U.S. and the administration asserts they are members of the MS-13 gang, so far we have mostly accepted sending people who have been convicted of no crimes.

As we find out more about some of the men sent, we should be more troubled. There is Andry Jose Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist who sought asylum in the United States last year. He was sent to the prison based on a signature from a disgraced former police officer, now a private prison contractor, with a record of lying.

Merwil Gutiérrez also was sent to the El Salvador prison. The 19-year-old with no criminal record and reportedly no gang affiliation was taken from the Bronx and sent to the prison. Reportedly, he was seized after an ICE agent realized he was not who they were looking for. But another agent responded “take him anyway,” so they did. Gutiérrez’s father is still trying to get information on his son.

Ábrego García also sits in the El Salvador prison, though his case has already gone to the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawyer for the foreign-born Maryland father says he has no ties to criminal gangs. The U.S. has admitted it was a mistake to send García to El Salvador, and the Supreme Court has ordered the government to “facilitate” his return to the U.S. But the Trump administration continues to do nothing and claim both that they cannot do anything to get García back — and anyway García is still a bad guy who is not a citizen.

García’s case in particular might remind one of Spencer Tracy’s rebuke to Burt Lancaster’s character in Judgment at Nuremberg. After observing Lancaster’s sympathetic performance, like his character, we are reminded that one bore the blame for the atrocities that followed once one was complicit in the first injustice.

I don’t know if we are there yet, and of course we are not Nazi Germany. But there are lessons to be learned from history (and movies).

And many of us are surprised that more of our fellow citizens are not outraged at the thought of innocent people being sent to this inhumane foreign prison. And to have our government concede it committed a mistake that results in suffering and do nothing to correct it (even assuming anyone should be in this prison) is something out of a horror movie if you imagine what these people are going through each day.

The U.S. has never been perfect. And maybe in recent years the fact that people did not stand up to the horrors we perpetrated in the wake of 9/11 like torturing suspects and accepting the mistreatment, torture, and rapes at Abu Ghraib prison have made us immune to these atrocities committed by our country against non-citizens.

Twenty-five years ago, I would have thought that my fellow citizens would not have allowed these things to happen. Yes, some have stood up and many are fighting the administration’s cruelty and bullying today. For example, constituents showed up in Iowa at a Republican senator’s town hall to ask what was being done about getting García out of the prison where he does not belong.

Yet, how many of us will allow our government to send people to an inhumane prison without any type of due process?

Maybe like Burt Lancaster’s Janning character we will be thinking that later we will be able to claim that we never knew it would come to whatever comes next.

Find your representatives in Congress to call them athttps://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member. Leave your two cents in the comments.

Pop Culture Roundup for Late October 2011

Below are links to some of the latest pop culture stories you might have missed. . .

Halloween

Prince Charles
The new Dracula costume?

The Chicago Tribune‘s listed the top 25 scariest movies for Halloween.

Batty? Prince Charles claims he is related to Dracula.

Salon is featuring a slide show of the top ten Halloween special moments from The Simpsons.

Zombies rise again in pop culture. Wait, what’s that at my door. . . arrrrrr.. . .


Literature

Renovation of Edgar Allen Poe’s cottage in the Bronx, where he wrote “Cask of Amontillado,” is almost finished.

Did you know the original Pinocchio is a tragedy that ends with Pinocchio’s execution?


Movies

The Guinness Book of World Records named Samuel L. Jackson as highest grossing actor of all time. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness.

“He’s brought the theater of the absurd to the masses.”- Jack Black on Will Ferrell receiving Mark Twain Prize.

Check out this review of new documentary about the band The Swell Season, which features Once stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

Tim Burton has designed a balloon for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

A new biography delves into the life and career of Spencer Tracy.

The Princess Bride cast reunited for a recent photo shoot.

Washington Cougars Clock
Betty White is now a Cougar.

Television

Betty White received an honorary doctorate degree from Washington State Univ. She’s a Cougar now.

Survivor’s Rupert Boneham is running for governor of Indiana.

Music

U2 revisits Achtung Baby while pondering the band’s future.

Listen to Tom Waits’s new album, Bad as Me on the NPR website.

“I love to be in a barbershop where I know I don’t have to get a haircut.” — Tom Waits in interview about new CD.

The Flaming Lips will pay tribute to Steve Jobs by playing “Revolution” by the Beatles at the O Music Awards.

One writer gave a nice appreciation of Extreme’s “More Than Words” . . . with words. (from Popdose)

If you are a fan of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, you should check out this person’s blog.

Folk-singer Pete Seeger enters his ninth decade as an activist.

The iPod turns 10 this month. How has it changed music?


What are your favorite pop culture stories this month? Leave your two cents in the comments section.

  • Mississippi John Hurt: “Lonesome Valley”
  • The Heroic Death of Folksinger Victor Jara
  • Springsteen and Hansard “Drive All Night”
  • Bono and Glen Hansard: The Auld Triangle
  • The Ending of “Judgment at Nuremberg” And the Film’s Lesson for Today
  • “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and . . . Eddie Vedder (Duet of the Day)
  • (Some Related Chimesfreedom Posts)