Reviews for Judgment at Nuremberg

The average rating for Judgment at Nuremberg based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-31 00:00:00 Charles Rainey I'm not sure I ever watched the whole movie of Judgment at Nuremberg, so I was intrigued to find a script of the play done on Broadway in the early 2000s. The author of the play, Abby Mann (born Abraham Goodman), grew up in East Pittsburgh, where his father was a jeweler. He suffered anti-semitic remarks in school and in the Army, from which he was discharged after basic training because of poor eyesight. Later, while working as a Hollywood screenwriter, he became intrigued with the Nuremberg trials -- particularly the later trials in which some of Germany's leading judges were put on trial, and that became the basis for his play. It's quite a short play -- just two acts, moving from the courtroom to a few domestic and prison scenes, and then to the final confrontation between an American judge and a once distinguished German jurist whom he had just helped convict. Mann wrote the original screenplay for Judgment at Nuremberg in 1957, at the height of McCarthyism, and the parallels were not lost on him. As he described it in a forward, much of the play's material came directly from transcripts he read and interviews he conducted in Germany, including the stories of a young man who was sterilized because his family were Communists, and a young woman who was accused of having sex with an older Jewish man, who was executed for the alleged offense. Mann is unsparing in his view that German civic leaders bore as much blame as the Nazi hierarchy, but he is also careful to show how much the whole world was at fault for Hitler's rise. The German defense attorney says to the tribunal: "What about the rest of the world, Your Honors? Did they not know the intentions of the Third Reich? Did they not hear the words of Hitler broadcast all over the world? Did they not read his intentions in Mein Kampf, published in every corner of the world? Where is the responsibility of the Soviet Union, who in 1939 signed a pact with Hitler and enabled him to make war? Are we now to find Russia guilty? Where is the responsibility of the Vatican who signed the Concordat Pact in 1933 with Hitler, giving him his first tremendous prestige? Are we now to find the Vatican guilty? Where is the responsibility of Winston Churchill, who said in an open letter to the London Times, in 1938 -- 1938, Your Honors! -- 'Were England to suffer a national disaster, I should pray to God to send a man of the strength of mind and will of an Adolf Hitler.' Are we now to find Winston Churchill guilty? Where is the responsibility of those American industrialists who helped Hitler to rebuild his arms and profited by that rebuilding? Are we to find the American industrialists guilty?" Clear-eyed, but with a sense that when evil overtakes humanity, there are many, many dirty hands. To this day, a powerful play.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-10-26 00:00:00 Jeremiah Haist Powerful indeed. People are very complicated.