Sometimes “history” tells us as much about the present as it does about the past. James Vanderbilt Nuremberg– the latest video footage of the International Allied Military Tribunal at Nuremberg – vividly illustrates this idea. That is, what we decided to emphasize in the main Nuremberg trials speaks to our current political problems, as well as how we understand the end of the Second World War in Europe.
Vanderbilt's vision of the trial of 22 surviving Nazi leaders (21 were actually in the dock) in the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain and France reflects his concern over the 80 years since the trial began to the present day. At the first public meeting in Nuremberg on November 20, 1945, journalists announced the discovery of “trial of the century” Nuremberg's message to the law and politics of the last century was that claiming to be “simply following orders” should not negate individual responsibility for large-scale atrocities.
“I was just following orders” became a meme before there were memes. He became recognizable slogan for the legacy of Nuremberg in various cultural, legal and even scientific contexts of the 20th century – from Stanley Milgram experiments with electric shock comics— and it was a particularly poignant headline for activists protesting America's handling of the war in Vietnam.
Vanderbilt's film suggests that it is time for a new message in terms of Nuremberg's meaning for the 21st century. Nuremberg of today – that is, in the film version – emphasizes that no one should be above the law, because the dark side of humanity exists in each of us. In other words, the debate about the wider application of ideas about responsibility should concern everyone, including “people with great power” everywhere, in catchy phrase Chief US Attorney, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.
By highlighting this message, you Nuremberg The film also aims to resolve another age-old debate sparked by the trial, namely whether there was something uniquely evil about the Germans. Today this question sounds simply naive; It was a heated debate during the trial.
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The point is not only that evil is banal (a slogan not quite rightly derived from Hannah Arendt articles about another famous trial involving a number of crimes against humanity). The fact is that the exaltation of the moral authority of the Allies – and especially the Americans – led to the suppression, distortion or disregard of responsibility under the law in a very selective way. It was not without reason that the governing statutes of the Nuremberg trials defined certain international crimes as “what the Nazis did.” It was simply not possible to define such a thing as unlawful aggression in a way that included the Third Reich but excluded, for example, the Soviets and Britain in Finland. Nuremberg picks up this issue of hypocrisy in one of the bitter arguments between the highest-ranking Nazi defendant, Hermann Goering (a magnificently grinning, sausage-fingered Russell Crowe) and one of the prison psychiatrists, Douglas Kelly (Rami Malek, in a convincingly combative performance).
Ideas about the role of law are central to Vanderbilt's interpretation. He deftly navigates the mountain of international law required to understand why the trial was groundbreaking and why it caused so much controversy even among the Allies who ostensibly agreed with Nazi criminality.
Telling this story quickly is one of Vanderbilt's boldest decisions. It seemed clear to him, he said in recent interviewthat even widely understood 20th century labels such as the “Final Solution” will need to be explained to many young people, no matter how incredible it may seem to him at first. This is how he explains. It sounds awkward at times, but he emphasizes that his goal was to create a film that wasn't just for history buffs. It's a bold move because it risks alienating experts, but it's clear: he wants everyone to be able to come to the film and take something away, even those who have never heard of the Nuremberg Trials.
The film also effectively focuses on the essential lawlessness of the Third Reich's rule over its own population, even as that regime pretended to be legitimate. The so-called Nuremberg Laws of 1935. stripped Jewish Germans (and later black and Sinti-Gypsy Germans) of their citizenship and civil rights. The scenario suggests that throwing people into legal limbo is a harbinger of dark times to come. In other words, this could will happen here – and perhaps it will.
