Nuremberg (2025)

 

 

            “Nuremberg” was written, directed, and co-produced by James Vanderbilt. He began research in 2013 after reading the book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fateful Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII” by Jack El-Hai. He got Russell Crowe to star. Crowe was eight years older than the 53-year-old Goring. He reached 277 pounds for the role. Obviously the film was not filmed sequentially because Goering lost 65 pounds during his confinement. The film was nominated for several AARP Movies for Grownups awards: Best Supporting Actor (Michael Shannon), Best Screenplay, Best Ensemble, and Best Period Film. The movie was a box office success, making $73 million on a budget of $7-10 million.

            “What follows is based on the accounts of those who lived through it. And those who didn’t.” It is May 7, 1945, the day Germany surrenders. American soldiers watch a stream of refugees heading westward. One of the GIs pisses on a swastika. They stop a fancy car and Hermann Goring is captured. He is put in a prison with 23 other Nazi leaders. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Shannon) is appointed Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. In this position, he helps create an international code of laws governing war crimes. He insists the defendants deserve a fair trial. The fair trials includes having a psychiatrist interview the defendants to determine their mental capacity. Dr. Kelley (Rami Malek) is brought in for this job. He develops a relationship with Goring who he helps lose weight and kick his pervitin habit. (Pervitin was a methamphetamine that was given to German soldiers by the millions of pills.) Kelley enjoys verbal sparring with Goring, but he also has plans for writing a book about what made the Nazi leadership tick. Kelley acts a go-between for Goring and his wife and daughter, which was against the rules. Meanwhile, Jackson and his team are planning for the trial. They use footage of the death camps to show just how bad the “Final Solution” was. This builds to Goring’s time on the stand which is the moment he had been waiting for, confident that he will make fools of the prosecutors. He knows he will be found guilty, but loves the attention. The end is a foregone conclusion. However, the hangman is going to be disappointed.

            “Nuremberg” is a movie divided between two arcs that sometimes interconnect. The main core of the movie is the Kelley/Goring relationship. It is not quite the cat-and-mouse repartee that you would expect as the two men like each other and Goring is not trying to prove his innocence. He does insist he was not responsible for the death camps. Kelley is a strange bird as he violates orders, but sincerely cares about Goring’s wife and daughter and has some sympathy for Hermann. And yet, he becomes a spy for Jackson to help his prosecution efforts. There is some chemistry between Malek and Crowe. I don’t know how much Crowe fought for the role, but Goring is a fascinating person. Unfortunately, the film does not give him a lot of time on the stand. In fact, his confrontation with Jackson is something of a fizzle.

            The second arc is Jackson and his team preparing for the trial and then the trial itself. The movie glosses over the debate about whether Nazi leaders can be charged with crimes that did not exist before the war. There is no debate over the four charges that were arrived at. “Nuremberg” would seem to be a court room drama when it comes up short in that respect. Only Goring’s testimony is depicted and it is brief. By focusing on Jackson versus Goring, the film leaves the impression that Jackson wilted during the biggest moment in the trial. That may be true, but it is a disservice to his overall handling of the trial. There is no coverage of the defense offered for the defendants. The exoneration of two of the Nazis would have strengthened the theme of justice being served. And it would have been nice to know how their lawyers kept some off the gallows.

            The movie deserves credit for being mostly historically accurate. The transcripts from the trial were used for most of the dialogue in the trial scenes. The interactions between Kelley and Goring are accurate. And I assume his interactions with Streicher and Ley are probably true as well. I am confused that since there were 23 Nazis that Kelley interviewed, why were two of the least important ones focused on?

            I was disappointed in “Nuremberg”. It certainly is not in a league with “Judgment at Nuremberg”. The acting is excellent and is the main draw. As a behind the scenes look at the trial, it is interesting, but not fascinating. It provides Kelley with a traditional movie redemption that was not deserved, or true. It makes you wish that Goring versus Jackson had been given as much coverage as Goring versus Kelley.

GRADE  =  C+

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  Goring’s arrest was actually arranged as far as the time and place. He was not trying to escape. Kelley had worked with thousands of PTSD (called combat fatigue) during the war. (He did dabble in magic.) His job was to determine the competence of the defendants to stand trial. He did use Rorschach tests. He did plan on using his findings to write a book. He worked with all the defendants, but spent more time with Goring than any of the others. Kelley did deliver letters between the Gorings. Emma did get arrested, but it was Bill Donovan of the OSS who got her released. Ley did commit suicide by hanging. Howie Triest was his translator and his back-story is accurate. He did emigrate to America in the 1930s and lost most of his family in the Holocaust. He only worked briefly with Kelley. The scene at the railway station where he opens up to Kelley was historical license. Dr. Gustave Gilbert (Colin Hanks) did work with Kelley. They had an adversarial relationship The fight did not occur, although Gilbert did have reason to be upset as Kelley broke their deal to publish a book together. Kelley did not work with Jackson on how to handle Goring. Kelley was not dismissed. He went home before the trial to be with his wife and write his book. Goring cried when he learned Kelley had left him. (Goring had wanted Kelley to raise his daughter if something happened to Emma as well as Hermann.) Having Kelley in the audience for the trial is necessary for plot purposes, but hard to justify historically. Kelley’s book “22 Cells in Nuremberg” was a flop. Americans were not interested in a theory that the Nazi leaders weren’t evil, he instead theorized they were opportunists motivated by ambition, immorality, and nationalism. It was Gilbert who had success with his books “Nuremberg Diary” and  “The Psychology of Dictatorship: Based on an Examination of the Leaders of Nazi Germany”. He believed leaders like Goring suffer from narcissistic psychopathy. 

              Jackson was torn a bit on accepting the job, especially since he was opposed to the death penalty. However, his belief in a fair trial convinced him to take on the daunting task of not only developing the law to cover the trials, but also prosecuting the Nazi leaders. (By the way, Elsie is his secretary, not his wife.) He believed in justice over vengeance. His dialogue in the trial scenes is almost verbatim from the transcripts. He gavegreat opening and closing statements, but Goring got the better of him as shown in the film. Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Richard Grant) did save him. In reality, his questioning of Goring was not the overly simplified exchange of the movie. He broke Goring down by not responding to Goring’s baiting and he used persistent questioning to wear Goring down. It was not just Goring admitting he would still follow Hitler. The hanging of Streicher was accurate, as is Goring’s suicide. There is some belief that the hangman purposely put the Streicher’s noose so that he would not die immediately. Col. Burton Andrus (John Slattery) was a strict jailer, but the movie does not condemn him for gross negligence for not preventing the two suicides, especially Gorings since he clearly indicated he was not going to allow himself to be hanged.  

            The “adjustments” made to the facts are acceptable for a movie that is not meant to be a docudrama. The box office for a movie about Goring must have him smiling in Hell, but viewers do learn a good bit about the Nuremberg Trials. That is a good thing in today’s political landscape. Not that the movie is clearly commenting on that. It’s probably just a coincidence.