Nuremberg opens the day before the official surrender of Nazi Germany. Hermann Goering (Russell Crowe), widely considered to have been the second-most powerful person in the Third Reich, surrenders to American soldiers in Austria. A war hero before he joined the Nazi Party and a long-revered figure in Germany, Goering is haughty even when surrendering. He is someone who is obviously used to being in charge and being treated with respect. In fact, he demands it.
Goering is one of the handful of high-ranking Nazis who have been captured after the fall of Germany. Many of the leaders of the Third Reich and the architects of the Holocaust, including Hitler himself, have committed suicide. Others have headed to South America or the Middle East, where they have assumed false identities and live in hiding. As for Goering and his fellow prisoners, they are going to be tried for War Crimes but no one is quite sure how to go about doing that. American Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) finds himself in charge of trying the Nazis. His solution is an international tribunal. Not only will men like Goering be put on trial but the world will also see the evidence of their crimes. The trial will take place at Nuremberg, Germany. Those on trial will face the prospect of execution, if convicted.
Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), a psychiatrist, is brought in to examine the Nuremberg defendants. Though he meets with and examines all of them, he finds himself fascinated by Goering, who turns out to be highly intelligent, highly charismatic, and highly manipulative. Goering even helps Kelley to win the trust of some of the other defendants. Kelley, who is originally only interested in writing a book about his experiences, finds himself falling for Goering’s claims of just being a patriot who didn’t truly know the full extent of Hitler’s crimes. However, once the trial begins, Kelley is confronted with not only the atrocities committed by the Nazis but also Goering’s role in them.
As a self-confessed history nerd, Nuremberg was a film that I was curious about. Director James Vanderbilt previously gave us Truth, a film that basically whitewashed the efforts of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes to push a verifiably false story about George W. Bush during the 2004 election. Since Truth was one of the most dishonest films that I’ve ever seen, I had my concerns with the idea of Vanderbilt directing Nuremberg. I’m happy to say that Nuremberg is a much better film than Truth. The film doesn’t shy away from documenting the crimes of the Nazis and it also makes clear that anti-Semitism was at the heart of the Third Reich. Considering that Holocaust denialism is on the rise and that, in America, anti-Semitism has been normalized to the extent that we have members of Congress and mayors of major cities who openly traffic in the type of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories that were previously exiled to the fringiest regions of the Internet, Nuremberg provides a history lesson that many would do well to learn.
(That said, some have no interest in learning. After he went on social media to accuse the Jews of controlling the weather, DC councilman Trayon White agreed to visit the Holocaust Museum but reportedly left after only a few minutes. He stayed long enough so he could claim to have been there but obviously had no interest in learning anything.)
That said, Nuremberg’s ambitions are occasionally beyond the scope of James Vanderbilt’s capabilities. Ending with a title card telling us that the Nuremberg tribunal later served as a model for the International Criminal Court would be more effective if the ICC itself hadn’t turned out to be such a joke. Visually, the film is well-crafted and has a good eye for historical detail but the it moves slowly and, at times, Vanderbilt seems to be more concerned with trying to craft Oscar moments than with holding the audience’s attention. The film’s strength lies with its cast, especially Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon, and Leo Woodall. (Rami Malek sometimes seems to be miscast but he’s still convincingly disillusioned.) It’s not a great film but it is a good one and, ultimately, an important one.
