Nuremberg (2025)
Genre: Historical drama,
Director: James Vanderbilt
Screenplay: James Vanderbilt
Based on: The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai
Release dates: September 7, 2025 (TIFF); November 7, 2025 (United States)
Stars: Russell Crowe (Hermann Göring), Rami Malek (Douglas Kelley), Leo Woodall (Sgt. Howie Triest), John Slattery (Burton C. Andrus), Mark O’Brien (John Amen), Colin Hanks (Gustave Gilbert), Wrenn Schmidt (Elsie Douglas), Lydia Peckham (Lila), Michael Shannon (Robert H. Jackson), Richard E. Grant (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe), Lotte Verbeek (Emmy Göring), Andreas Pietschmann (Rudolf Hess), Steven Pacey (George C. Marshall), Paul Antony-Barber (Francis Biddle), Jeremy Wheeler (Edmund Phipps-Hornby), Wolfgang Cerny (Baldur von Schirach), Dan Cade (Cpl. Jones), Donald Sage Mackay (J. William Fulbright), Dieter Riesle (Julius Streicher), Wayne Brett (Col. Franks), Mesterházy Gyula (Erich Raeder), Sam Newman (Alben W. Barkley), Philippe Jacq (Günther von Rohrscheidt), Peter Jordan (Karl Dönitz), Tom Keune (Robert Ley), Blake Kubena (Sgt. Powell), Michael Sheldon (Geoffrey Lawrence), Fleur Bremmer (Edda Göring)
Plot: Following the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany during World War II, United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson is told about the arrest of Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring and plans for an International Military Tribunal to charge the surviving top Nazi leaders with war crimes. The Allies must establish proceedings without precedent and charge individuals for enormous crimes that lack any written foundation. Encouraged by his secretary, Elsie Douglas, on whom he relies for advice, Jackson agrees to serve as the lead American prosecutor. He takes a leave of absence from the Supreme Court and meets Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, the British deputy prosecutor. The lead British prosecutor, not portrayed in the film, is Sir Hartley Shawcross.
Douglas Kelley, a U.S. Army psychiatrist serving in Germany, arrives for a new assignment and is met by Sergeant Howie Triest, his aide and German-English interpreter. Kelley learns from Colonel Andrus he will serve as prison psychiatrist for the Nazi leaders, a task he feels would make great material for a book that can leave a lasting impression on the world. Kelley appraises Göring as intelligent, charismatic, imaginative, and highly narcissistic, noting his steadfast admiration of Adolf Hitler. During their initial meetings, Göring admits he established concentration camps as a means of forced labor, but blames Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, both then deceased, for their evolution into extermination camps. Göring confides to Kelley that he believes he will somehow escape execution by the Allies.
Other indicted war criminals include naval commander Karl Dönitz, propagandist Julius Streicher, and labor leader Robert Ley, the latter of whom suffers a nervous breakdown and, despite Andrus’s efforts to prevent suicides, succeeds in strangling himself in his cell. As the trial draws near, Kelley attempts to communicate with Hitler’s former deputy Rudolf Hess, whom he believes is feigning amnesia, and persuades Göring to assist in exchange for delivering letters to and from Göring’s wife Emmy and daughter Edda. Kelley develops a rapport with the Göring family during visits. He also develops a friendship with Lila, a journalist for The Boston Globe, in his off-hours.
Andrus decides Kelley’s objectivity has been compromised and brings in psychologist Gustave Gilbert to provide a second opinion. Göring reveals to Kelley that he plans to deliver a statement to the tribunal when called upon to enter his plea. Kelley relays this to Jackson, who realizes that Göring intends to use the trial as a platform to defend Nazism and delegitimize the Allied occupation of Germany. Kelley learns that Emmy has been taken into custody for alleged involvement in Göring’s art thefts, while Edda has been handed over to a convent. On the first day of trial, the judges silence Göring’s attempt to address the court. A graphic documentary film of Nazi concentration camps is screened as evidence for the prosecution; a shaken Kelley angrily confronts Göring in his cell afterwards. Göring coldly deflects responsibility, going so far as to suggest the film was staged and compares the concentration camps to alleged atrocities by the Allies. After Lila publishes crucial, confidential information that Kelley drunkenly revealed to her, Andrus dismisses Kelley from his position and directs him to leave. Andrus also discloses that Emmy and Edda were released. At the train station, Triest reveals to Kelley that he was born in Germany to Jewish parents, who later perished at the hands of the Nazis, while his younger sister escaped to Switzerland. After Triest warns of the dangers of impassivity towards evil, Kelley decides to surrender all his private notes on Göring to Jackson.
Jackson, who has not prosecuted a case in years, subjects Göring to an ineffective examination in court. Göring gives drawn-out answers and denies any knowledge of atrocities. He claims his decree authorizing the Final Solution has been mistranslated, and should be read as a “complete solution” to emigrate the Jews out of Germany, rather than extermination. After Jackson’s increasing ire towards Göring prompts a stern rebuke by the judges, Maxwell Fyfe takes over the cross-examination of Göring. Fyfe successfully goads Göring into professing his continued loyalty to Hitler. The tribunal finds Göring guilty of war crimes and sentences him with several of the other accused Nazis to death by hanging.
On the eve of his execution, Göring commits suicide by swallowing cyanide. Andrus orders the execution of the remaining condemned Nazis to proceed, beginning with Streicher, who suffers a nervous breakdown on being informed. Triest, who had pretended to befriend Streicher with the intention of revealing his Jewish heritage right before his execution, is instead forced to gently persuade him to the gallows, where Streicher spends his final moments yelling anti-Semitic slurs at the witnesses and predicting that the United States will someday be conquered by the Soviet Union. Kelley later publishes a book regarding his experiences in Nuremberg, 22 Cells in Nuremberg, which he has trouble promoting. End titles reveal that the book sold poorly. Plagued by alcoholism and increasingly distraught over the possibility of another regime like Nazi Germany emerging in the future, Kelley took his own life with a cyanide capsule in 1958. Triest managed to bring his sister home to America, while the Allies’ efforts to prosecute Göring and the others later formed the foundation for international prosecution of war crimes.
* * *
Nuremberg (2025) | Transcript
What follows is based on the accounts
of those who lived through it.
And those who didn’t.
Adolf Hitler is dead.
The Nazi High Command is in disarray.
Seventy million people have died across the globe,
more than in any other conflict in human history.
MAY 7, 1945
Last Day of the War in Europe
Move! Move!
Hands! Let me see your hands!
Jesus Christ, that’s Hermann Göring.
Who?
Hitler’s second-in-command.
With fear and waiting.
What did he say?
He asked us to get his luggage.
Washington, D.C.
[agent] Justice Jackson?
[Justice Robert H. Jackson] That depends on if you have a good reason to be banging on my door at three in the morning.
[agent] They captured Hermann Göring, alive.
[Jackson] Where?
Austria.
[Jackson] What are they going to do with him?
Well, that’s the real question, isn’t it? Can I come in?
[Jackson] No.
But it’s raining.
[Jackson] I can see that. Are they going to shoot him?
Not that I know of.
[Jackson] Well, for a long time they were going to shoot him.
Yes, sir.
[Jackson] Churchill and Roosevelt signed the order themselves.
On order that you oppose.
[Jackson] I’m a Supreme Court Justice. I tend to frown on executing men without a trial.
That’s what I’m here to talk about.
[Elsie] It can’t be done.
[Jackson] You keep saying that.
[Elsie] Because it can’t be done.
[Jackson] Give me one good reason why not.
[Elsie] There’s no legal precedent for a trial. There’s no international law to base the charges on. No one has ever tried war criminals outside of one nation’s jurisdiction because the whole concept of international law is that one country can’t tell another country’s citizens how to conduct themselves.
[Jackson] Elsie.
[Elsie] Trying these men in a German court would be different. But what you’re talking about is trying them in some sort of legal limbo that doesn’t exist using case law that hasn’t been written yet. And on the off chance that you’re not keeping track, that’s about four good reasons why not.
[Jackson] I’m getting you a drink.
[Elsie] I don’t want a drink.
[Jackson] Then I’m getting me another and getting you one for show.
[Elsie] Who do you put on trial? The German commanders? Enlisted men? What about the judges who enforce the racial codes?
[Jackson] Obviously we’d have to work that out.
[Elsie] And once you decide who to put on trial, what do you charge them with?
[Jackson] Conspiracy to wage aggressive war on the world.
[Elsie] And you want the United States to argue that as prosecution?
[Jackson] I do.
[Elsie] Against Germany? A country that never attacked us?
[Jackson] Say just for a second it could be done.
[Elsie] Robert.
[Jackson] Don’t you want to know how I’d do it? It would have to be a completely international effort. All of the allies would have to participate. The US, Britain, France, Russia. You can’t do it without the Russians. Four international judges.
[Elsie] You’re talking about a tribunal.
[Jackson] Exactly. The world needs to know what these men did.
[Elsie] It’s a logistical nightmare.
[Jackson] I know. But it has to be done.
Mondorf, Luxemburg
[Douglas Kelley] Pick a card.
[Lila McQuaide] I don’t think so.
[Kelley] Ask me to pick one.
[Lila] Pick a card.
[Kelley] Now ask me to please remember it and put it back in the deck.
[Lila] Please remember it and put it back in the deck.
[Kelley] Now shuffle.
[Lila] Now what?
[Kelley] My card was a three of spades.
[Lila] Oh, that’s hardly a trick.
[Kelley] Turn over the top one.
[Lila] Who are you?
[Kelley] I’m a psychiatrist.
[Lila] Oh, and why are you going to Mondorf?
[Kelley] I wish I knew.
[Lila] They send psychiatrists on secret missions now.
[Kelley] I’m pretty sure I’m the first.
[Lila] How did you do that? With the cards?
[Kelley] I didn’t do anything. You’re a really good magician.
Dr. Kelley. Sgt. Howie Triest at your service. I’m going to run you under the commandant’s office.
[Kelley] Tigers, huh?
Yes, sir.
Perhaps I’ll see you around.
Jiminy. Who is that?
[Kelley] That Howie was a very attractive woman.
She’s a commandant. Ah, yes, sir. Colonel Andrews.
[Kelley] So can you tell me what I’m supposed to be doing here? I thought the war was over.
I couldn’t say.
[Kelley] You couldn’t say because you don’t know, or you couldn’t say because somebody told you you couldn’t say?
I couldn’t say. Don’t get sore with me, Doc. I’m just a translator.
[Kelley] Translator for what?
We’ll see.
Grand Hotel Mondorf
CODENAME: Ashcan
Dr. Kelley. Apparently Central Command thinks you’re some kind of hotshot headshrinker. I imagine you have some questions for me.
[Kelley] More than a few.
Let’s get to it. You are standing inside a secret military prison. It currently houses what’s left of the Nazi high command. The governments of Russia, France, Great Britain, and our United States are deciding right now whether to put these men on trial for their lives. You have been brought in to inspect and ensure the prisoners’ mental health should that trial go forward. Suicide. That’ll be the main concern with most of the prisoners. Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler have already taken their own lives. We cannot afford any more losses. Goebbels and Himmler did it with this. Hidden cyanide capsule. The one you’ll have to watch the closest is Göring.
[Kelley] Göring? As in Hermann Göring?
That’s the one.
[Kelley] Hermann Göring’s here?
Sergeant, is it possible that he made you suffer a large blow to his head on the way to my office?
Not that I’m aware of, sir.
[Kelley] Sorry, it’s just a lot to process.
I’m sure it is. Try and do it faster.
[Kelley] Yes, sir.
When Göring surrendered, he was traveling with his family. He had over a million dollars in German currency and jewelry, and a large quantity of these. We had them sent back to the States for classification.
[Kelley] Hydrocodeine. Fairly potent painkiller. I’m a fan.
He says they’re for his heart.
[Kelley] Well, then, I have a rather large bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. These have nothing to do with the heart. They’re an opiate. How many pills does he take a day?
Sergeant…
Forty, sir.
[Kelley] Well, I think it’s safe to say the Reichsmarschall’s got a drug problem. Where’s his family now?
They’ve been released, and they’re not your concern. Your only job is to evaluate Göring and the others. That is it.
[Kelley] Sir, I’m a good doctor, but the entire Nazi high command might be a little bit beyond my area of expertise.
Believe me, Major, this was not my idea. Dismissed.
[Kelley] He was not great about tox, is he?
Kalman’s not known for his warmth, sir.
[Kelley] I wanna meet him.
Who?
[Kelley] Göring. Right now.
You don’t want to get settled first?
[Kelley] I want to know what I’m dealing with.
All right, well, don’t be too intimidated.
[Kelley] I’m not. Tell me about him.
Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, President of the Reichstag, Minister of Aviation, Commandant in Chief of the Luftwaffe, Minister of Economics, a founding member of the Kastafel secret police, was appointed Hitler’s successor in 1939 and is the highest ranking German military officer of all time.
Okay.
[Kelley] Now I’m a little intimidated.
Don’t be. You’ll be good.
Reichsmarschall!
[Kelley] Reichsmarschall Göring, my name is Dr. Douglas Kelley.
My name is Dr. Douglas Kelley.
He says, wonderful, a doctor.
[Kelley] I am. I’m going to take your pulse.
Yeah, yeah.
He’s been asking for his pills. He wants you to get them for him.
[Kelley] I understand you’ve had heart trouble.
[Kelley] Can you open your shirt, please?
[Kelley] Respiration is rapid and shallow. Don’t translate that. The pills help with the pain as well.
He says he was shot down in World War I. He has a bullet in his right hip. In 1923 he was shot in the groin during the Munich pooch.
[Kelley] You’ve been shot a lot, sir.
Occupational hazard.
[Kelley] Well, if you really want to look after your heart, the best way to do that is to lose some weight.
I’m assure you are looking at the best physique in all of Germany. Just ask my wife.
[Kelley] Oh, I’m sure you’re right, sir, but the guards here call you fat stuff. I’m sure it would be difficult for a lesser man to lose this weight, but you possess a fortitude and discipline that others do not, yes?
You see, this man is different.
We’re going to be good friends, I’m sure of it.
[Kelley] I look forward to that.
[Kelley] Good day.
Auf Wiedersehen.
[Kelley] Inflated sense of self. Charming. Speaks English.
What? What? What? What?
[Kelley] The way he looked at me when I called him fat. He understood me. He’s been playing you.
No, no, why would he pretend?
[Kelley] Translation gives him more time to consider his answers. He thinks that gives him an advantage.
Wait, hold on. You’re saying I spent the last three months mumbling to myself while he understood everyone?
[Kelley] Pretty much.
Are you going to tell him that you know?
[Kelley] No, no.
He’s going to tell me when he’s ready. When’s that?
[Kelley] When he determines I’m not a threat. I want to meet the rest of them. Who’s next?
Dr. Robert Ley, chief of the German labor front, one of Hitler’s earliest followers. He once wrote a book that was so complimentary that Hitler had the entire run destroyed because he was so embarrassed.
Ley, who spearheaded the Nazi slave labor program, was captured in his pajamas, calling himself Dr. Distelmaier.
[Dr. Robert Ley] I’m not like these other power-hungry men you have locked up in here. I can smell the Jews.
Great admiral Karl Dönitz, the German navy’s commander in chief, architect of the U-boat attack that crippled the British navy.
The fanatical Nazi with the arrest of Dönitz. The Third Reich is ended forever.
I’ve been in custody for 76 days. I have yet to be formally arrested or charged with a specific crime, which is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. Charge me or release me.
Julius Streicher, Hitler’s director of propaganda, publisher of the national anti-Semitic paper, De Sturma.
Streicher, docked the high priest of anti-Semitism and the beast of Franconia, led the Jewish boycott and ruled Nuremberg with an iron fist.
He wants to know if you’re a Jew.
[Kelley] No.
But you work in a Jewish profession.
What do you fight for, doctor?
[Kelley] Göring is the key. A leader of a nation in exile. He binds them all together. He’s begun a strict self-imposed diet and exercise regimen and is going cold turkey on the pills. It’s almost as if he’s training for something. If one were to write a book about him, it…
[Kelley] Is there a library in town?
You want to go to a libray?
[Kelley] Yes!
At 2:33 in the morning?
[Kelley] Yes, get your coat.
I’ll get my coat.
[Kelley] The sheer amount of narcissists we got locked up in that hotel, I bet at least half have books in here written about them or written by them. We’re going to figure these guys out.
Do you speak any German, doc?
[Kelley] Not even a little. How’d you learn?
My mother spoke German. I wanted to be like her. You really think you can do it?
[Kelley] Do what?
Well, get these guys to open up to you.
[Kelley] Sure.
How?
[Kelley] Everybody wants to be listened to. It’s a natural instinct. I learn about them. I get them to trust me. They open up.
I make it sound so easy.
[Kelley] What if we could dissect evil? What sets these men apart from all others? What enabled them to commit the crimes that they did?
It almost took over the world.
[Kelley] You’ve heard about the work camps for Jews? Rumor has it they weren’t just work camps.
I’ve heard.
[Kelley] So how do people become like that? We actually have a shot to figure that out. To find out what makes the Germans different.
Different?
[Kelley] From us. A man who writes a book about that can make a lot of money.
You know, for a second I thought you were being noble.
[Kelley] You wanna noble? Fine. We could psychologically define evil. We could make sure something like this never happens again.
[Kelley] What’s going on?
Hermann Göring can’t breathe.
Move!
Hallie!
His airway is clear.
That’s good, right?
[Kelley] And he’s having a heart attack.
Without the prison doctor.
He’s on his way.
Tell him to hurry.
Hallie, get some aspirin.
Plain old ordinary aspirin.
You’re going to not go.
Hey, hey.
Your heart’s still beating.
Which means you’re alive.
I’m going to keep you that way.
I need you to stay calm.
Breathe with me. In and out. In and out. I’m here. I’m here. Look at me. I’m here. I’m not going to let you die. In and out. Is that your wife? She’s here. She’s here. Breathe with me. Hand me a few of those, Hallie. Thank you, Hallie.
Best thing for the heart.
Trust me.
Breathe in and out.
Your pulse is slow.
Hey, guess what?
You’re alive.
You’re alive.
I am.
Well, how about that?
[Göring] Thank you.
Let’s get him to the infomerica, mon.
He smiled for it.
He said thank you in English.
Truman wants to win reelection in 48.
He’s not going to do that coddling of the Nazis.
That’s true enough.
Plus, a trial means giving them a chance to tell their stories to the world.
What are we afraid to hear them tell?
We won the damn war, Bob.
If you do this, it’ll turn into the biggest boondoggle of all time.
Cameras in the damn courtroom.
Well, what if they’re sympathetic?
What if all this does is provide them with a platform for antisemitism all over the world?
You won’t be responsible for that.
You want to know if I’m comfortable executing a few dances without trial?
Damn right I am.
It doesn’t matter anyway.
I’ll never get the Russians.
We got the Russians.
What?
We got the Russians.
We did?
Truman called Stalin himself, looking at Nikichenko for lead prosecutor.
That’s fantastic news.
I have no idea who you are.
Colonel John Ammons, sir.
I work for the Judge Advocate General.
So, the Army sent us a lawyer.
Yes, sir. I bring greetings from General Eisenhower, who says he wants you to know that he’s not for hanging anyone without a trial.
Well, that’s progress.
He also says he hopes the trial won’t take too long so we can get on with hanging them.
Have a seat.
I’ve read a lot about you, sir. They say you’re going to be the next Chief Justice.
The President promised him the seat personally.
And swore me into secrecy, so let’s maybe not tell everyone who walks into the office about it, okay?
Well, everyone in my office says there’s no way you get the trial.
What do you say?
I say I like an underdog.
[Kelley] Good morning, Julius. I’m going to show you a series of cards, each with ink blots, and you’re going to tell me what each ink blot makes you see. Perhaps it will reveal something about your character, your intelligence, creativity, and everything here stays between us.
A doctor?
[Kelley] Yes.
I can speak to you in English if it is of some help.
[Kelley] Only if it makes you comfortable. Shall we begin?
Butterfly.
I’m Hexen.
This is your director, Torpedo Trevor.
Torpedo Head.
Somebody has spilled something.
I see 10,000 horses.
I see the Valkyries ride.
A vagina.
A vagina?
A vagina?
A Jewish vagina.
A Jewish vagina.
This is blood.
[Kelley] This is blood.
Or ink.
[Kelley] You can say a lot of things with ink.
I’m sorry, Bob. Word came down tonight. It’s going to be a no.
Congress is going to say no to the trial. They just want executions. I’m out of moves.
What about the president?
The president wants someone to hide behind. That’s why he needs Congress. Neither will do it without the other.
So you need someone bigger to back it?
Oh, come on. Who’s bigger than the president?
Jesus Christ.
[Jackson] Literally. Are you a Catholic?
I am now.
The Holy Father will see you now.
[Pope Pius XII] You wish to put this man on trial for their lives. Then you have come to ask for the Church’s blessing in this.
[Jackson] Your support would go a long way to building an international consensus.
[Pius XII] No one denies these men are evil. But an eye for an eye is not the answer.
[Jackson] Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure where I first read about it.
[Pius XII] Are you Catholic?
[Jackson] No, sir.
[Pius XII] A religious man?
[Jackson] Not especially.
[Pius XII] And yet at home they call you a justice.
[Jackson] I didn’t pick the name.
[Pius XII] If you sit long enough in judgment of others, you come to believe the laws of man outweigh the laws of God.
[Jackson] I don’t believe that.
[Pius XII] Then what do you believe?
[Jackson] I believe in man, in our capacity to save ourselves from men like the Nazis. I believe this to be a good act.
[Pius XII] Once so good, you must circumnavigate your own laws to achieve it. I’m sorry, but the Catholic Church cannot support you in this.
[Jackson] But you could support them in 1933.
[Pius XII] I’m sorry?
[Jackson] You signed the Concordat with Hitler yourself.
[Pius XII] That was a different matter.
[Jackson] You lived in Munich. You were the nuncio to the German Empire. The Catholic Church was the first world power to acknowledge the pure state. You gave the Nazis credibility.
[Pius XII] In order to protect Catholics in Germany.
[Jackson] Isn’t it a pity the Jews didn’t have someone to do that for them?
[Pius XII] Do you think I condone what they did?
[Jackson] People will remember, sir. What you did in 1933. What you do now. They’ll tell their children. Did the Catholic Church stand with the Nazis? Or against them?
Did you just blackmail the Pope?
[Jackson] I don’t want to talk about it.
[Kelley] Word came down last night. There’s going to be a trial.
[Göring] A trial? Good. Good. As it should be.
[Göring] Those cards that you showed me. What did they teach you about me?
[Kelley] Honestly, that you are highly intelligent.
[Göring] I could have told you this.
[Kelley] And that you’re a narcissist. You’re into an expansive and aggressive fantasy life. With a strong ambition and drive to subjugate the world as you find it. To your own pattern of thinking.
[Göring] And you were surprised by this?
No.
[Göring] Then the cards have taught you nothing.
[Göring] Now, Tris, he tells me you do magic. Einsauber.
Sorry.
Yes.
[Göring] Perhaps if it’s not too much trouble, we don’t get entertainment.
Why not? Here’s an average ordinary silver dollar.
Tada!
[Göring] Very good. Very good. I will show you a magic trick one day.
What’s that?
[Göring] I am going to escape the hangman’s noose.
How do you plan on doing that?
[Göring] If I were to tell you, it would not be a trick.
No, I’m not.
This is the end of the episode.
You see what the allies are capable of? There is nothing left.
You said that.
[Jackson] The palace of justice. The roof has been damaged by the air raids. Fire gutted the upper floors and collapsed the clock tower. But this court room should be able to hold 600 people when it’s finished.
What’s with all the supplies?
[Jackson] The Nazis fought their last stand here when the city was taken.
And so they will again. All the beautiful cities in this conquered land. You want to try them in this bombed out husk?
[Jackson] This is Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, assistant prosecutor for the British.
Yes, sir, we do. For one thing, we can control the space. For another, there’s an adjoining prison with room for up to 1200 inmates.
When he needs space for 22.
Sorry, 22, sir?
That’s the number of men we’re indicting for the first trial. You see, if we don’t win that trial, there won’t be any more trials to come. And you, myself and Justice Jackson and our respective governments will be the laughingstock of the world, defeated by the very men we’ve imprisoned. So that will be fun.
My friends in Washington say opinions turn to him against you. There’s talk that you won’t get the Chief Justice’s seat when Stone steps down.
[Jackson] Well, who’s truly going to pick? Benson? Benson’s too political.
Yes, but he’s there. This whole thing’s become a sideshow, Robert. It hasn’t even begun. They say you’re writing all the briefs yourself, refusing help from other lawyers.
[Jackson] Because it has to be done right.
And it will, but you can’t do it alone.
[Jackson] Oh, everything will be fine once we actually get to trial.
You say that, as though trying the Nazi high command with untested case law, the whole world watching is going to be the easy part.
[Jackson] Well, when you put it like that.
Anything less than total victory will be considered utter defeat, which means you don’t just have to win, Robert. You have to be flawless.
[Jackson] No pressure.
I love him a lot.
Your cells are made of stone, nine feet by thirteen. Your beds are bolted to the wall. Your mattress is stuffed with straw instead of springs. Your desks are made of cardboard and will not support a man’s full weight. Your chairs are never allowed against any wall and will be removed every night at sundown. When you sleep, your head and hands will remain above your blanket visible at all times. You will be given no belts, you will be given no shoelaces, you will be given no toilet seats, you will be given nothing with which to use as a weapon to take your own lives. Welcome to Nuremberg.
[Göring] Now this is a cell.
You approve?
[Göring] Sherman-built. How could I not? … They say they will charge us soon, yeah.
You’re looking forward to it?
[Göring] I believe I am. I will have, as you say, my day in court. Do you know this Jackson, the Justice Jackson?
No, I do not.
[Göring] He will try to outfit me, but he will not succeed.
Very sure of yourself.
[Göring] Doctor, no man has ever beaten me. There are books filled with the names of those who have tried.
I hear you said, Sherman-built.
[Göring] You think I am at some sort of disadvantage because I sit in a cell. I will remind you, I surrendered. This is exactly where I desired to be.
Göring remains an enigma to me. The closer we get to the indictments, the more confident he becomes. I need to figure out a way to get closer to him.
So how do we do that?
We ask for his help.
With what?
Rudolf Hess.
Rudolf Hess is coming here.
Rudolf Hess, deputy to the Fuhrer. Third in line for succession following Hitler and Göring. Hess transcribed my income for Hitler while the two were in prison and was known as one of his most fanatical followers.
Sieg Heil!
Never do that in my prison again.
On May 10th, 1941, at the height of the war, Hess climbed into a Messerschmitt fighter plane alone and flew over the North Sea. He bailed out somewhere over Scotland and broke his ankle upon impact. Upon his discovery, he announced that he was Rudolf Hess. Hess was third in line of the German high command and he was here on a mission of peace and wanted to speak with Douglas Douglas Hamilton, the 13th Duke of Hamilton, whom Hess had met at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. After some obstacles, Hess was granted his meeting. There he announced his intention to meet with King George VI, have Winston Churchill fired, and negotiate a truce with Britain allowing the two nations to join forces and defeat the Soviet Union. Hess was immediately thrown into the Tower of London. There Hess began claiming he had no memory of past events, even his childhood. This lasted until February 1945 when he said his previous amnesia had been faked. He then flipped again and said his amnesia had returned in July 1945 when Germany collapsed.
So now you would come to Hermann Göring to discredit my old friend. What would be in this for me?
What do you want?
My wife and my daughter. No one has been able to locate them since I surrendered. I need you to find them for my daughter and to give to them these letters.
First we talk to Hess and then your family.
How about that? So what? This guy almost takes over the whole world and now he wants to do a mail run for it?
I’m a deeper with this guy than anyone’s ever been. And reading his family will only tell me more.
[Göring] So, Rudolf, do you remember me?
[Hess] We were together, yes. That must have been the case. But I don’t remember anyone.
[Göring] It was the three of us, Rudolf. You and I. And Adolf. We ruled an empire.
[Hess] I’m sorry. You may well have been a friend. But I don’t know you anymore.
[Göring] He is lying. He has just spent an hour to say he does not remember me. But when he arrived in the prison and he saw me, what did he do? Salute. Sieg Heil!
That was very good.
This is dumb. I’m dumb.
[Kelley] I knew you’d come through for me.
Yeah, because I’m a dummy.
[Kelley] How’d you find him?
Local gossip. Told me they were in Baldurstein. Smoke?
[Kelley] Never seen you smoke.
Yeah, I don’t. Gave it up. My parents hated this.
[Kelley] You always got them on you.
It’s a trick to get in good with the officers. Tell myself I’ll have a smoke when the war is done.
[Kelley] The war is done, Howie.
It’s not too much for them.
[Kelley] Mrs. Göring. Mrs. Göring. My name is Douglas Kelley. I work at the prison. I’m a psychiatrist.
My name is Douglas Kelley. I work in the hospital. I’m a psychiatrist.
[Kelley] Your husband asked me to bring you some letters.
Your husband asked me to bring you some letters.
Hermann?
[Kelley] Yes.
Yes.
How is he?
[Kelley] He’s good. He’s holding it up.
Edda.
[Kelley] Was that you playing? It was beautiful.
Ah, she said “he’s a friend of your father.”
Edda.
How is papa?
[Kelley] He’s doing very well.
Is he being brave?
[Kelley] Very brave. He wants you to be brave too.
Very brave. He wants you to be brave too.
He wrote you a letter.
He wrote you a letter.
Thank you.
Thank you.
She will read it hundreds of times, thank you.
Thank you.
Doctor… for Hermann.
[Kelley] I don’t know if I can…
Bitte.
Ok…
Come back.
Okay, doc.
[Kelley] What the hell?
[Colonel Amen] Hermann Göring?
[Göring] I am Reichsmarschall, Hermann Göring.
[Colonel Amen] Hermann Wilhelm Göring, you are hereby charged by the United States of America, the French Republic, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the following four counts. Crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity and of a common plan or conspiracy to commit those crimes. The crimes against humanity you are accused of include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts. This is a copy of your indictment. Do you have any questions?
[Göring] Nein.
[Colonel Amen] Good day.
[Colonel Amen] Who’s next?
[Colonel Andrus] Streicher.
[Colonel Amen] Do you have any questions?
[speaks in German]
[Colonel Amen] What did he say?
[Sergeant Triest] He said he wants a Jewish lawyer.
[Ley] [in German] I’m not going to trial.
[Sergeant Triest] I’m not going to trial.
[Colonel Amen] You are, Dr. Ley.
[Ley]] [in German] I never killed anyone.
[Sergeant Triest] I never killed anyone.
[Ley starts screaming]
[Kelley] It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. Robert…
[Ley] Don’t touch me!
[Colonel Andrus] Hold him!
[Ley] Come on! Don’t try me as a common criminal! Come on! Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!
[Lila McQuaide] Rough day?
[Kelley] Lady from the train.
[Lila] Magic man. How goes the secret mission?
[Kelley] It’s hit a few obstacles.
[Lila] I can see that.
[Kelley] What are you doing here?
[Lila] I came in with the press. Hermann Göring and the Nazis are being indicted today.
[Kelley] No say.
[Lila] Strap yourself in. This city is about to become the greatest show on earth.
[Kelley] From your wife.
[Göring] Did you see her? Tausend Dank.
[newsreel] Dateline Nuremberg: As dark rumors continue to swirl about the true purpose of the Nazi work camps, the legal teams are assembling for what promises to be the trial of the century. Through this tunnel, the Nazis will be taken to the courtroom. Now being rebuilt for the trial. There, the film lights will be so bright that the court goers will be provided with sunglasses. Hermann Göring and his Hitler-loving cronies are scheduled to face off with our boys in one week. Will justice prevail or will the fascists go free? This reporter desperately hopes that the Allies run into no problems.
[Colonel Amen] We have a problem. Operation Wieserbund was the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in 1940. In the textbook aggressive war, the Nazis, they rolled tanks and they occupied neutral country. Except they’re going to claim that the invasion was a preemptive strike.
To preempt what?
The British plan to invade Norway.
[Jackson] Well, that’s ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous. I’m in complete agreement.
[Jackson] It concerns me that you’re in this room right now.
Well, in addition to being ridiculous, it also happens to be true. The idea was to use the country as a staging area to hold the Nazis back.
[Jackson] And to prosecute the Nazis for planning aggressive wars if you guys were planning aggressive wars.
I bet there’s a certain logic there.
Can the Nazis prove it?
The German law has already put in a request for documents, but they don’t have it. Not yet.
Then we’re in the clear.
[Jackson] Maybe. But it raises a bigger issue. We have to know what the Nazis know, what their defense strategy is.
How exactly to propose we do that?
[Jackson] Dr. Kelley, you are going to meet someone very important this evening. This might actually be your chance to find the bee of some use.
[Jackson] Impressive, right? Hitler was building it to be the largest stadium on the planet.
[Kelley] You’re Justice Jackson.
[Jackson] And you’re the shrink. This is where they held the rallies. Every year, Hitler would pack this place, speak to the Nazi party as a whole. They filmed it. In 1935, this is where he announced the Nuremberg Laws. You know the laws? The Nuremberg Laws defined a Jew as any person having three or four Jewish grandparents. It didn’t matter if you practiced Judaism, if you converted to Christianity. This was about blood. The laws stripped all Jews of German citizenry. They made it illegal for Jews and Germans to marry each other because of the fear of Rasenschande. Defilement of the blood. Under the laws, Jews were prohibited from using state hospitals. And not allowed access to public education beyond the age of 14. Libraries, parks, and beaches were closed to Jews. War memorials had all Jewish names on them. Expunged. All of that was announced right here on this very ground.
[Kelley] What do you want from me?
[Jackson] Your patients? I need you to start asking them the right questions.
[Kelley] What are the right questions?
[Jackson] What they tell their lawyers? How they plan to defend themselves?
[Kelley] You want me to be a spy?
[Jackson] I want you to do your duty for your country.
[Kelley] No, you want me to break Dr. Patient Confidentiality.
[Jackson] I think you already have, doctor. We read every report. We need more.
[Kelley] Why not just shoot them? Just whatever he wants. I mean, if you’re just gonna cheat…
[Jackson] That’s not cheating.
[Kelley] If you’re asking me to betray my oath… Why not just shoot them and be done with it?
[Jackson] After the last great war, we made Germany crawl. We humiliated them. Made them pay reparations they couldn’t afford. We made them hate us so much that in less than two decades… They went from a broken nation to near world conquerors. We have to do this right because if we don’t… If fifteen years from now they come back even stronger… I don’t know if we can beat them a third time. If we just shoot these men, we make them martyrs. I’m not gonna allow them that. There will be no statues of them. No songs of praise. I’m gonna put Hermann Göring on the stand… And I’m gonna make him tell the world what he did. So that it can never happen again.
[Kelley] You brought me here because of Göring.
[Jackson] No. I brought you here to show you that before the bullets were fired… Before tens of millions of men died… All of this started with laws. This war ends in a courtroom.
[Kelley] With Göring?
[Jackson] He’s the face of the Nazis now. As he falls, so do they all. But if I’m gonna do that… I need to be ready for it. Will you help me?
[Kelley] Let’s talk about Hitler.
[Göring] It is interesting you have not asked me this directly before.
[Kelley] I’m curious what the attraction was. There was a failed painter. Not a very good soldier yet. He was worshipped and revered.
[Göring] He made us feel German again.
[Kelley] How?
[Göring] Bears of white skinned Germany craft. And along comes a man who says… We can reclaim our former glory. Would you not follow a man like this?
[Kelley] Depends what else he wanted to do.
[Göring] The first time I saw Hitler talk was… 1922. Upstairs of a coffee shop. For maybe 30 people. This was peacetime, but it was a peace without food, jobs, shoes. And he stood up. And he said “French bellies are being filled with German pain. And then… If you make threats, you need bayonets. Griard. Down with Versailles.” So that night… I became a National Socialist.
[Kelley] Off of… One speech?
[Göring] I could tell he would appeal to the old soldiers. If they have the old soldiers, they have the manpower. Even with his antisemitism, it served a practical purpose. It brought towards us men who needed something else to focus their emotions. Something else to blame.
[Kelley] And the camps?
[Göring] They were to be work camps for our political opponents. Nothing more.
[Kelley] And you signed off on that?
[Göring] For work camps, yeah. Do not think that the Japanese entered by the Americans after Pearl Harbor were not put to work? Of course they were. I made the camps for the good of Germany, for the war effort. Not for death. Himmler. Heydrich.
[Kelley] They were responsible?
[Göring] If it is true, what they say happened at the camps. This is a grave blight on the great German Reich.
[Kelley] Have you told your lawyer about this?
[Göring] Douglas, I will not stand against the Fuhrer.
[Kelley] Not even if I can help you.
[Göring] These are not things people need to know, Doctor. Only you.
[Kelley] He can be sympathetic. It is going to be a problem for you.
He seriously claims that he thought they were only work camps.
[Kelley] That is right.
Do you believe him?
[Kelley] Himmler ran the camps. He was the head of the SS. Göring was the head of the Air Force. How often in America does the head of the Air Force know what the head of the Secret Service is doing?
I am sorry, but I cannot believe that we are having this conversation right now.
[Kelley] I am doing what you ask.
No, you are apologizing for him.
Gentlemen, please.
I am not the one defending the Nazi.
[Kelley] You think I am defending him? I am analyzing him, you provincial moron. Göring is, above all things, a narcissist. The only thing he cares about is building Germany up and then becoming her leader. He does not care about the Jews.
So he is fine with them dying.
[Kelley] And he is fine with them not. The only thing Hermann Göring cares about is Hermann Göring. Does that sound like a man who dedicates himself to the extermination of an entire race?
Well, Dr. Kelley, I really appreciate your thoughtfulness on this, but I have to admit it is very hard to believe.
[Kelley] You want to walk into that courtroom with a handful of assumptions? Fine. But he will eat you for breakfast.
I would like to apologize for my outbursts earlier. It felt much better.
[Kelley] Fine, doctor Ley.
And you? Something seems to be troubling you.
[Kelley] I am fine.
I am fine.
[Ley] Don’t worry. This will all be over soon.
[Kelley] Ley’s mood is markedly improved. He told us he has begun making arrangements for his defense. I feel as though for the first time he has reached out to me.
[Colonel Andrus] He ripped out the hem of his towel to make a rope. He stuffed his underwear into his mouth so he wouldn’t scream and then… just leaned forward, apparently with a great deal of determination. You didn’t see any of this coming?
[Kelley] He told me he was doing better.
[Colonel Andrus] He “told” you… You’re supposed to keep them alive.
[Colonel Andrus] I’m bringing in another doctor. It has been determined that a second opinion is needed for some of your patients. Dr. Gilbert arrives this afternoon. You will brief him.
[Kelley] How do you feel about suicide?
[Göring] It’s the last refuge of cowards, yeah.
[Kelley] And the last act of a desperate man?
[Göring] So all his exceptions, of course. You are in trouble.
[Kelley] Why would you say that?
[Göring] A new doctor, new tests. Since Ley died, they no longer trust you.
[Kelley] Your own?
[Göring] Oh, Douglas, when you are in a position of power, they will always come after you. You have to protect yourself.
[Kelley] Why would I have to protect myself from my allies?
[Göring] Just because a man is your ally does not mean he is on your side. My father was a diplomat, did I tell you this?
[Kelley] Nah.
[Göring] Yeah. He was posted to Africa. And it was there he was to meet his best friend, a man named Hermann von Epstein. I was named after him. Yeah. I was named for a Jew. We loved Uncle Hermann so much, he was very rich. He lived in Veldenstein Castle. And when I was six years old, he moved my entire family in with him. Can you imagine? It was a child’s dream to live in such a castle. I would run down the halls, pretending I was a knight. I would stare down from the battlements, envisioning armies forming to attack. Uncle Hermann, he lived in the largest and most beautiful room on the top floor. Down the hall, my mother had a bedroom, also beautiful. My father… he lived in a small bedroom on the ground floor. And I was to realize just how rich Uncle Hermann was. So rich that he could move my family in. So rich that he could put my father on the ground floor. So rich that whenever he wanted, he could walk down the hall and enjoy my mother. Just because a man is your ally does not mean he is on your side.
You found Hermann going to be imaginative?
[Kelley] I didn’t find him to be that way. The test did.
Well, that is what a second opinion is for. Which brings us to Rudolph Hess. I’m inclined to believe that his amnesia is genuine.
[Kelley] You mean the part where he forgets about being a Nazi?
Okay, look, Dr. Kelley, I’m not here to step on your toes, okay? I’ll share research with a coauthor.
[Kelley] Coauthor of what?
You don’t have to play coy with me. We’re both here for the same reason. Now, two books about the Nazi high command that’s going to cut into the market. I say we write it together.
[Kelley] Good luck with your tests.
Doktor.
She was in.
Thank you.
Come and see […].
[Göring] She was surprised?
[Kelley] Oh, she was, uh, astounded.
[Göring] Teach me this trick.
[Kelley] The coin by the ear?
[Göring] Yeah, yeah. Teach me this trick so I, too, can astound her.
[Kelley] I gave my silver dollar to your daughter. It’s the simplest trick in the world. And it works because, you know, people want to believe. Well, you hold up the dollar and you say, “Hey, folks, here is an ordinary average silver dollar. And you put it in your other hand. You focus on it. But really, it’s right here. You palm it in your right hand.
[Göring] Palm it?
[Kelley] You put it between these two fingers. You wrap your palm around it. But you focus on your left hand. And you feel the coin in there, the weight of it. And if you believe it, then they’ll believe it. And then you just, uh, well, you reach behind the ear. Abracadabra!
[Göring] What is abracadabra?
[Kelley] Uh, it’s a magic word. It gives the illusion of a cosmic weight.
[Göring] And it always must be abracadabra.
[Kelley] No, it can be anything. It can be presto.
[Göring] I think I prefer abracadabra. So it was your father who taught you this trick?
[Kelley] My father? No.
[Göring] You say that like it is unthinkable.
[Kelley] And my father was content to buy his trade and display a cheerful disposition. He was a man of no accomplishment.
[Göring] But you believe you are destined for more. You want to be known as a great man.
[Kelley] Yes.
[Göring] And I am your ticket. You will return to America as the great scholar of the Nazis. And I will have a trick to impress my daughter when this trial is done.
You stopped taking me with you to see him.
[Kelley] I didn’t want to bother you so late.
You’ve been seeing him a lot without me. What are you doing, doc?
[Kelley] Trying to learn something?
Are you sure that’s what this is still about?
[Kelley] Good night, Howie.
[Kelley] Are you going to defend yourself, Hermann?
[Göring] Oh, but not too late now.
[Kelley] I’m serious.
[Göring] Have you friends, doctor?
[Kelley] I think that word is a little too simple for what we are.
[Göring] But are you asking me this as a friend?
[Kelley] I am.
[Göring] Tomorrow, when I enter my plea, I will read a statement. I am going to say that I assume all responsibility for my actions. I will refuse, however, to accept responsibility for acts committed by others that I was unaware of and I would not have approved of. But I did. I did for my country. Tell me you have not done the same for yours.
[Kelley] They told me I could find you here.
[Jackson] In seven hours, the whole world is going to be focused on this room. This is it. This is everything.
[Kelley] This is the statement that Göring plans on reading tomorrow.
[Jackson] Thank you.
[Jackson] May it please your honors, the privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because we cannot survive their being repeated. In the prisoner’s dock said 20 odd broken men, we will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. Civilization can afford nothing with the men in whom these forces now precariously survive. Wars are no longer local. All modern wars become world wars, eventually. And none of the big nations can stay out. But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars in a system of international lawlessness is to make statesmen responsible for the law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, it must condemn aggression by any other nation, including those who sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law.
[Judge Geoffrey Lawrence] Hermann Göring. The defendants are to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges against them. They will proceed in turn to a point in the dock opposite to the microphone.
[Göring] I am Hermann Wilhelm Göring. I stand before the court today and the world and pledge only to tell…
[Judge Geoffrey Lawrence] The tribunal has reached the decision that the defendants are not entitled to make a statement. They will be permitted to address the court prior to their sentencing.
[Göring] As Reichsmarschall of Germany…
[Judge Geoffrey Lawrence] You are not Reichsmarschall here. You are only Hermann Göring, the prisoner. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?
[Göring] Nicht schuldig.
[Kelley] Emmy! Edda! Emmy! What happened? What happened? Where are they?
[in German]
[Kelley] What? Where are they?
They took them.
[Kelley] Who?
Americans!
[Kelley] Emmy! Emmy! Edda! Emmy! Edda! Emmy! Emmy Göring!
[Kelley] I need a favor.
[Colonel Andrus] You’ve got to be shitting me.
[Colonel Andrus] Thanks. I’m going to need it.
[Colonel Andrus] They arrested Emmy Gering on suspicion of complicity with her husband’s art thefts. The kid goes to the nuns. No contact allowed.
[Kelley] They’re women and children.
[Colonel Andrus] Yeah.
[Kelley] Sir, we’re supposed to be better than this.
[Colonel Andrus] It’s out of my hands! And you’re welcome. By the way, how did you know where she was hiding?
[Göring] Jesus… Did Edda play for you again?
[Kelley] She did.
[Göring] Ah…
[Kelley] She’s very talented.
[Göring] She likes you. Do you have the letters?
[Kelley] No. No letters, unfortunately.
[Göring] No?
[Kelley] Next time.
[Göring] He’s menu Doctor. We were just talking about my family.
[Dr. Gilbert] Ah, yes. I’m sorry to hear about that.
[Göring] About what?
[Dr. Gilbert] Their arrest? Your wife and daughter were arrested five days ago. He didn’t tell you?
[Kelley] Hey. Hey. What the hell was that?
[Dr. Gilbert] That was me being honest with my patients. Something you ought to try sometime.
[Kelley] You destroyed him in there!
[Dr. Gilbert] So?
Hey! Hey!
Stop!
[Colonel Andrus] Jesus Christ. You’re mental health professionals! For Christ’s sake! Doctor Gilbert, would you like me to place Doctor Kelley under arrest?
[Dr. Gilbert] No, sir.
[Colonel Andrus] Then get out of my goddamn office!
All rise!
[Jackson] May it please the court, the prosecution would now like to enter into evidence the following film footage. The images you are about to see have never before been shown in public. This film should offer a brief explanation of what the words “concentration camp” implied.
These are the locations of the largest concentration and prison camps maintained throughout Germany and occupied Europe under the Nazi regime.
The 4th Armored Division of General Patton’s 3rd Army liberated this camp early in April.
They see the woodshed where lime-covered bodies are stacked in layers and the stench is overpowering.
Slave labor camp at Nordhausen liberated by the 3rd Armored Division, 1st Army.
At least 3,000 political prisoners died here at the brutal hands of SS troops and pardon German criminals who were the camp’s daughter.
Nordhausen has been a depository for slaves found unfit for work in the underground B-bomb plants and in other German camps and factories.
Amid the corpses are human skeletons too weak to move.
Many of our medical battalions work two days and nights binding wounds and giving medications. But for advanced cases of starvation and tuberculosis there are often no cures. Survivors are shown being evacuated for treatment in Allied hospitals.
I’m Lieutenant Senior Grade Jack H. Taylor, U.S. Navy, from Hollywood, California. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve ever been in the movies. I was captured December 1st.
I was taken to this Mauthausen concentration lager, an extermination camp, where we have been starving and beaten and killed, fortunately my turn hadn’t come.
There were five or six ways by cast, by shooting, by beating, against beating with clubs, by exposure, that is, standing out in the snow naked for 48 hours and having cold water thrown on them in the middle of winter, starvation, dogs, and pushing over a 100-foot cliff. This is all true, has been seen, and is now being reported.
Nationalities and prison numbers are tattooed on the stomachs of the inmates.
In the official report, the Buchenwald camp is termed an extermination factory.
Bodies stacked one upon the other were found outside the crematory.
The body disposal plant. Inside are the ovens which gave the crematorium a maximum disposal capacity of about 400 bodies per 10-hour day.
A car near München, one of the oldest of the Nazi prison camp.
This is what the liberators found inside the building.
Hanging an orderly road were the clothes of prisoners who had been suffocated in a lethal gas chamber.
They had been persuaded to remove their clothing under the pretext of taking a shower for which towels and soap were provided.
Sanitary conditions were so appalling that heavy equipment had to be brought in to speed the work of cleaning up.
This was Bergen-Belsen.
[Kelley] How was that possible? How was that possible?
[Göring] Himmler.
[Kelley] Himmler wasn’t second in command. You were. 1200 camps? What am I supposed to believe that he didn’t know?
[Göring] Anyone can fake an atrocity.
[Kelley] So you’re saying the film was a fake? That’s your defense?
[Göring] What would you have me say?
[Kelley] How about the truth for once?
[Göring] Why? So you can run and tell Jackson? My friend, your hypocrisy is stunning.
[Kelley] My hypocrisy?
[Göring] You think American bullets and bombs don’t kill people? You vaporize 150,000 Japanese at the touch of a button and you presume to stand in judgment on me for all crimes?
[Kelley] We had every right to defend ourselves.
[Göring] How do you defend yourself on someone else’s soil?
[Kelley] There’s a difference between us bombing war factories and civilians dying as collateral damage and you building 1200 human slaughterhouses designed to exterminate an entire race. And you know it!
[Göring] What do you think war is?
[Kelley] Not what I thought today.
[Göring] What do you think the Russians do to German prisoners of war? You have your freedom and I am a prisoner because you’ve won and we lost. Not because you are morally superior! This trial will be a farce in 15 years. Great conquerors and not thought of as murderers. Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great…
[Kelley] You’re not Alexander the Great! You are a fat man in a cell. And you know.
[Göring] I have made a mistake. You are not destined for more. You will have an unhappy life, I think. It will all be overshadowed by this. By the time spent with me. You will write your volumes trying to relive it. The one moment in your life, when you actually stood with greatness.
[Kelley] You think you’re a great man? You think that’s your legacy?
[Göring] At least I will have one. You will leave no mark on this world. I am the book! You are merely a footnote.
[Kelley] They’re gonna kill you. They’re gonna hang you by the neck until you piss yourself. And die. Your wife will be a widow. Your daughter will be an orphan. And you will have done that to yourself.
[Lila] I know who you are. What he’s like?
[Kelley] You don’t wanna know.
[Lila] Jackson’s putting him on the stand day after tomorrow?
[Kelley] Jackson’s gonna get killed.
[Lila] Why do you say that?
[Kelley] Because Göring is ready for him. He was ready for all of us.
[Lila] Why don’t you tell me all about it?
[Colonel Andrus] Look at that! Your private conversations with Hermann Göring made the front page.
[Kelley] Sir, I…
[Colonel Andrus] You’re finished. I signed your transfer order this morning. You’re to be sent back to the states where you’ll be discharged. You have embarrassed me and this office for the last time.
[Kelley] I’m sorry, Colonel. You deserve better.
[Colonel Andrus] Yes, I do. And just so you know, we are releasing Göring’s wife and daughter. You were right. We are better than that.
[Kelley] Thank you, sir.
[Colonel Andrus] Your train’s at five o’clock. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I never wanna see you again.
[Kelley] Came to say goodbye?
[Howie] Did you really mean it? You said Jackson had no chance?
[Kelley] Sure. It’s all just a big show for the cameras anyway. So it doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow. If Göring beats Jackson, so be it.
[Howie] Yeah, I don’t believe that. Neither do you. You know more about him than anybody on Earth.
[Kelley] Yeah, that’s right. I do. You know, I spent thousands of hours with him. I run hundreds of tests. You know what sets him apart from us? Nothing.
[Howie] I know.
[Kelley] You know?
[Howie] Because I’m one of them.
[Kelley] What are you talking about?
[Howie] I’m German, Doc. I grew up in Munich.
[Kelley] No, you grew up in Detroit. You said your mom spoke German.
[Howie] She did. So did my father. Because I was raised here.
[Kelley] You’re an American soldier. Why’d you leave?
[Howie] Why do you think?
[Kelley] You’re a Jew.
[Howie] You know, with the blonde hair and the blue eyes, I never got a hassle much. My father was a patriot. He fought for Germany in the First World War. We loved this country. Eventually he realized we had to get out.
[Kelley] How did you do?
[Howie] The problem was getting travel visas. Other countries wouldn’t take us. My dad had a cousin in New York who helped. We finally got our visa in 1940. But we only had enough money for one ticket out. My little sister, Margo… She was only 11, so… My parents didn’t want her traveling alone. So they sent me. Boy, I was seasick the whole way. When I landed, I stayed with my cousin. When the Nazis invaded Holland, my family never showed up. That’s when I went to Detroit. I got a job as an apprentice in a tool factory where the English listened to baseball on the radio. When Pearl Harbor happened, I was the first one in the recruitment office to enlist. You know what they said? They couldn’t take me. Because I wasn’t an American citizen. I’d have to wait to get drafted. So I did. I waited, and I waited. I checked the mailbox every day for two years. June 6th, 1944. Landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Four years earlier, I left this country, scared and alone in the middle of the night. But I came back with a goddamn army. I found Margo. She’s in Switzerland. She’s 16 now. She’s living with relatives. She’s good. She made it.
[Kelley] And your folks?
[Howie] The records show that my parents arrived at Auschwitz August 12th, 1942. The camp was liberated January 27th, 1945. No sign of them. The Nazis had a name for what they did to us. The Final Solution. Like we were some kind of nagging puzzle that they finally figured out how to solve.
[Kelley] So sorry, Howie.
[Howie] I want to tell Streicher. I want to tell him right before they put that rope around his neck, I’m going to tell that piece of shit that he was confining in a Jew. You say it doesn’t matter what happens tomorrow. It matters. More you know matters to me, to my family, to all of Germany. Göring has to fall. You think he’s going to beat Jackson? Doc, please. Do something about it.
[Kelley] I can’t.
[Howie] You can’t what?
[Kelley] I’m just a shrink.
[Howie] You want to know why it happened here? People let it happen. Because they didn’t stand up until it was too late. Have a safe trip home, Doc.
[Jackson] Yes, sir. Of course. No, I… I completely understand. Thank you.
[Jackson] Son of a gun. Truman’s just named Frederick Vinson Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Yeah, I didn’t want the job anyway.
Who would?
[Kelley] You’re walking into a trap.
[Jackson] Dr. Kelley, I was under the impression you’d been relieved.
[Kelley] Putting Göring on the stand gives him everything he wants. It’s why he surrendered in the first place. His last chance to redeem the Reich on the world stage.
[Jackson] After what I read in the paper this morning, I don’t believe I care what you think anymore.
[Kelley] You can’t beat him.
Guards!
[Kelley] Not without help. This is everything I have on him. Private files, off-the-book conversations. I know more about this man than anyone else on the planet. And it’s all in here.
[Jackson] Why do you have this?
[Kelley] I was gonna write a book. Make something of myself.
[Jackson] It’s okay.
[Jackson] So you really think I can’t beat him?
[Kelley] Honestly? I don’t know.
[Jackson] You know, I was gonna be Chief Justice. I’ll be lucky if there’s a place on the court for me when I return.
[Kelley] As of six hours ago, I was discharged from the army. There’s nothing left for us to do, sir. Might as well go finish the war.
[Kelley] The trick is to use his vanity against him. He is the Reich Marshall. And the Reich Marshall is never wrong. You can’t beat him. Every decision that’s led him to this place has to be the right one. So as much as he won’t want to talk about the camps and the SS and the final solution, you can make him own them.
Kelley’s right. Get him to admit to signing those orders. And you’ll have him.
[Jackson] I’ll have him.
This is your day. You’re ready.
[Colonel Andrus] Sergeant, what is Doc. Kelley still doing here?
No idea, sir.
All rise!
Justice Jackson, are you ready?
[Jackson] The prosecution now calls Hermann Göring to the stand.
[Jackson] For the record, is there any doubt in your mind that Adolf Hitler is dead?
[Göring] I have no doubt.
[Jackson] So you are aware that this makes you the only living man who can expound to us the true purposes of the Nazi party and the inner workings of its leadership?
[Göring] I am perfectly aware of this, yeah.
[Jackson] Your party from the very beginning intended to overthrow the Weimar Republic.
[Göring] That was our firm intention.
What the hell?
[Jackson] And upon coming to power, you immediately abolished parliamentary government in Germany.
[Göring] We found it to be no longer necessary.
[Jackson] Is that because you believe people are not capable of self-government?
[Göring] We were elected by the people and given a mandate for change. The systems that had previously existed had brought Germany to the verge of ruin. The old president of Roosevelt said there are certain peoples in Europe who have forsaken democracy not because they did not wish for it, but because democracy had brought forth men who were too weak. After you came to power, you regarded it necessary to suppress all opposition parties, correct? We found it necessary to no longer permit opposition. And you also considered it immediately necessary to establish concentration camps? The camps were set up as a measure against the communists and their violence. So it was necessary to erect a camp for them, run two or three camps, something like this.
[Jackson] You also had to have certain groups to carry out orders and fight for you if necessary, right?
[Göring] Certain groups…
[Jackson] Well, for example, if you wanted certain people killed, you had to have some organization that would kill them.
[Göring] Yeah, Germany had this level of political police that you would find in any other country.
[Jackson] And the SA and the SS were the organizations that carried out these orders and dealt with people on a physical level, were they not?
[Göring] The SA never received orders to kill anybody. Neither did the SS, not in my time. Beyond a certain point, I had no influence on it.
[Jackson] The SS carried out arrests. They handled the transportation of people to the concentration camps. Can you not recall a time when the SS began to perform the function of acting as the executor of the Nazi party?
[Göring] It would be very difficult for me to explain to an outsider whether the SS or whether the Gestapo may or may not be active.
[Jackson] Try.
[Göring] Perhaps as the police came more and more into the hands of Himmler, expectations may have changed. And, of course, it is well known that some SS units were guarding the camps and later performed some police functions.
[Jackson] And carried out other functions in the camps?
[Göring] To what functions do you refer?
[Jackson] They carried out all of the functions of the camps, didn’t they?
[Göring] If an SS unit was guarding a camp, and an SS leader was the camp commandant, send it to the rational to assume that they would have carried out all of the functions of the camp.
[Colonel Andrus] Bury him.
[Jackson] You have said that you wanted a strong German state to overcome the conditions of Versailles, is that correct?
[Göring] We wanted a strong German state, regardless of Versailles.
[Jackson] The first country to be absorbed by Germany was Austria, but it had not been part of Germany before the First World War, and it had not been taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, is that correct?
[Göring] That is not entirely correct.
[Jackson] The second territory taken by Germany was Bohemia, then Moravia, and then Slovakia. These were not taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, nor had they been part of Germany before the First World War, had they?
[Göring] These parts of Czech territory were not part of the smaller German Reich at the time of the Treaty of Versailles. However, formally, they were united to the German Reich for hundreds of years.
[Jackson] You still have not answered my question.
[Göring] I have answered your question. If the facts do not suit you, there is very little I can do.
[Jackson] Can you not answer yes or no? Time may not mean quite as much to you as it does to the rest of us.
Mr. Justice, the tribunal thinks the witness ought to be allowed to make what explanations he thinks right.
[Jackson] I trust that the court is not unaware that outside of this courtroom is a great social question regarding the revival of Nazism, and that one of the purposes of defending Göring is to encourage and perpetuate it by propaganda from this trial now in process.
Mr. Justice…
[Jackson] This witness has adopted in the witness box and the prisoner’s dock an arrogant and contemptuous attitude towards this tribunal, which is giving him the opportunity of a trial, which he never gave a living soul.
The ruling stands, Mr. Justice.
[Jackson] I must of course bow to the ruling of the tribunal and would simply request that the witness find a way to keep his answers succinct.
[Göring] Could you please repeat the question?
[Jackson] They were not taken from you by the Treaty of Versailles, were not?
[Göring] Of course Austria was taken by the Versailles Treaty and also Sudetenland. For both these territories would have been German territories for the simple rights of the people to self-determination.
[Jackson] I find that interesting, considering you just testified that people’s self-determination was the first thing you took away. From the very beginning, you regarded the elimination of Jews from the economic life of Germany as one phase of the four-year plan under your jurisdiction. Is that correct?
[Göring] Partially correct.
[Jackson] Partially. I see. I would like to review with you briefly public acts taken by you in reference to the Jewish question. First, did you proclaim the Nuremberg Laws? Yeah, I did. As president of the Reichstag, that was my job.
[Jackson] What date was that?
[Göring] The 15th of September, 1935.
[Jackson] And on the first day of December 1936, you passed an act making it a death penalty for Germans to transfer property abroad?
[Göring] That is correct. That was the decree governing restriction on foreign contracts.
[Jackson] And on April 22, 1938, you published penalties for concealing the character of the Jewish enterprise within the Reich.
[Göring] Concealing? Yeah.
[Jackson] Then on April 26, 1938, you signed a decree ordering the registration of all Jewish property inside and outside of Germany.
[Göring] If it is signed by me…
[Jackson] Then a decree on November 12, 1938 imposing a fine of one billion Reichsmarks for atonement on all Jews.
[Göring] Yeah, but that is…
[Jackson] And that all damages caused to Jewish property by the riots of 1938 must be repaired by Jews immediately at their own expense, and their insurance claims forfeited to the Reich.
[Göring] The are many details here. The insurance company…
[Jackson] And the decree on the 17th of September 1940 ordering the sequestration of all Jewish property in Poland.
[Göring] Yeah, in that part of Poland that was a former German province and…
[Jackson] …1941…
[Göring] …would return to Germany.
[Jackson] …a decree asking Himmler and Heydrich to make plans for the final solution of the Jewish question.
[Göring] That is not correct. I know that decree very well.
[Jackson] I ask to have you showed the document number 710, exhibit number USA509. I think it should be read into the record so we may have no argument about its translation.
[Göring] Danke schön.
[Jackson] That document is signed by you, is it not?
[Göring] That is correct.
[Jackson] Please correct me if I am wrong. Supplementing the task that was assigned to you on January 24, 1939, which dealt with arriving at through furtherance of immigration and the evacuation. “A solution of the Jewish problem as advantageous as possible, I hereby charge you with making all necessary preparations in regards to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a final solution of the Jewish question.”
He’s got them.
[Jackson] Am I correct so far?
[Göring] No, your translation is not correct.
[Jackson] Then please give us your translation.
[Göring] Supplementing the task which was entrusted to you in the decree dated January 24th, 1939 to solve the Jewish question by immigration and evacuation in the most favorable way possible. Given present conditions, I hereby commission you to carry out all necessary preparations with regard to organizational substantive and financial viewpoints. Now, here is the sentence for a complete solution, not a final solution, for a total solution of the Jewish question.
[Jackson] A complete and total solution.
[Göring] Complete and total, yeah.
[Jackson] A complete and total solution you wanted the chief of the SS to enact.
[Göring] Yeah, but I would like to make an explanation.
[Jackson] Oh, please do.
[Göring] I sent this letter to Himmler and to Heydrich because it was some 18 months now since the declaration of the 24th of January, 1939 and Heydrich had achieved very little. So I charged him to accelerate the task of dealing with the immigration of the Jews.
[Jackson] Immigration. You contend this letter was about immigration?
[Göring] It says so in the first line.
[Jackson] That’s just the first sentence. The letter goes on to state…
[Göring] …my desire for a complete solution to the Jewish problem and an end to their financial influence by their emigration and evacuation from Germany. It is in this document that you presented to me.
Are there any more questions for the witness, Justice Jackson?
Mr. Justice, is the witness excused?
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] I have a question.
The tribunal was under the impression the American prosecutor would be examining this witness today.
[Jackson] The United States is always happy to hear from our distinguished colleague from Great Britain.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] Just a few simple questions, your honors. It won’t take more than a moment. You’ve implied to this court that you lost some influence with Adolf Hitler in 1942. Is that correct?
[Göring] I believe this to be the case, yes.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] But you were still Reichsmarshal of Germany in 1942. Hitler’s successor, yes?
[Göring] Yes, I was the Reichsmarschall.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] And you’re telling me that you were totally unaware that three million Jews were murdered in 1942?
[Göring] I was unaware of this.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] In 1943, at least 800,000 Jews were executed in the camps. You were still Reichsmarshal in 1943, is that correct?
[Göring] That is correct.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] In 1944, an additional 800,000 Jews died in the camps. You were still Reichsmarshal in 1944, is that correct?
[Göring] That is correct.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] In 1945, 250,000, an estimated six million Jews in total, as well as Soviet and Polish citizens, Romani people, artists, scientists, writers, journalists, photographers, filmmakers, people killed, not in combat, not in enemy fire, but exterminated by the state of Germany. The state which you were the Reichsmarshal of, the preeminent political post of your country. You contend that you had no knowledge. At least give me this. Knowing what we know now, knowing what happened to six million Jews, I have to ask, would you still follow the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler?
[Göring] Yeah. I would.
Order! Order!
[Göring] Heil Hitler.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] No further questions.
I think this is as good a place as any to adjourn for the day.
[Jackson] Oh, great. Absolutely great. I survived.
You did.
[Jackson] You were right. I couldn’t beat him. Not without help.
[Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe] Göring cannot stand against the Fuhrer. Invaluable information, doctor.
[Kelley] So what now?
[Jackson] As Göring falls, so do they all. We’ll be okay. Here. You off?
[Kelley] One more thing I have to do.
[Göring] You helped them, didn’t you?
[Kelley] I did. I’m leaving.
[Göring] Leaving?
[Kelley] Going home. I’ve come to say goodbye.
[Göring] What do we do now, doctor? Do we shake hands? I know we were friends, Douglas. For a while.
[Kelley] Goodbye, Hermann.
[Göring] Years from now, I wonder what you will say about us. Will you even acknowledge we were human?
The judgment of the International Military Tribunal will now be read. Each defendant will be addressed in turn.
Hermann Göring, the evidence shows that after Hitler, you were the most prominent man in the Nazi regime. Your guilt is unique in its enormity. Your record discloses no excuses. The International Military Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.
Rudolf Hess, you are indicted…
[Colonel Andrus] The executions are scheduled for midnight tonight. In order to maintain discipline, the prisoners will not be informed until 11:45 pm, when they will be awakened in their cells and offered last rites. At 8 pm, eight handpicked journalists will arrive at the prison. Two French, two British, two American, two Russian. Lights out is at 9:30, which is when the doctor will do his normal final rounds. Any prisoner requesting a sleep aid will be given a placebo with baking soda. At 10 o’clock, we will bring the press down to the gallows, where I will brief them on the final preparations for tonight.
[Göring] Abracadabra.
[Colonel Andrus] The prisoners will be brought in one by one and given the opportunity to speak their last words. They will then… Excuse me.
[Colonel Andrus] Who is it?
Göring, sir.
Shit! … No, no, no, no! No, you son of a bitch! You don’t get to do this!
He’s dead, sir. Cyanide
[Colonel Andrus] God damn it! Oh, you son of a bitch!
[Colonel Andrus] I’m sorry, sir. We have a decision to make. We can either scrub the executions for tonight or proceed.
Let’s just get on with it.
Sir, I… Streicher is refusing to put his clothes on.
Get out of here! You fucking stupid whore!
Let him go! Let him go!
Julius. Julius.
You… You…
Come on. Let’s do it together. Come on.
Give me the shirt.
Ask him his name.
You know my name.
Any last words?
Oh, damn it!
[Kelley] Son of a bitch… He escaped…
I have to be honest, Dr. Kelley. I find some of the conclusions in your book quite unbelievable. You were dealing with the Nazis, who you must admit are unique people.
[Kelley] They are not unique people. There are people like the Nazis in every country in the world today.
Not in America.
[Kelley] Yes, in America. Their personality patterns are not obscure. There are people who want to be in power. And while you say they don’t exist here, I would say I’m quite certain there are people in America who would willingly climb over the corpses of half the American public if they knew they could gain control of the other half.
Doctor, please.
[Kelley] They stoke hatred. It’s what Hitler and Göring did, and it is textbook. And if you think the next time it happens we’re going to recognize it because they’re wearing scary uniforms, you’re out of your damn mind.
More with our panel when we return.
Yeah, uh-huh. They’re not going to invite you to stay for the next segment. Let’s go. And just so you know, trashing our country is probably not the best way to sell your book.
