Judgement At Nuremberg Themes

So far, Judgement at Nuremberg is an interesting film. I’ve only seen half of it, but I have a feeling that I already know the general tone of the film which is to prove that not all Germans are monsters, and that many of them were pressured into pledging allegiance to the Fuhrer because of fear of punishment by the government and other fanatical citizens at the time. This is clearly shown through the housekeepers where the Judge is staying, and, whom I believe is his love interest, Mrs. Bertholt. They are characterized as innocent people who did nothing wrong besides being a German in Germany during Nazi rule. This theme is also demonstrated through the drunk German men outside of a bar. We are introduced to these characters during the scene

In times of tragedy, both groups are able to still find the silver lining at the end. I dubbed this the “they’re just like us!” moment. This connection between Germans and Americans became even more prominent during one of the court scenes. The attorney Hans Rolfe reads a document to his client about sterilizing the stupid and lame, and then asked if he knew what it was referring to. While the audience in the court and myself assumed that he did know about it, it came as a shock when it was revealed that this document was in fact written by an American judge. Haywood in that moment probably felt even more conviction seeing that the wickedness that he and his peers were prosecuting people like the defendants for originated by the proclaimers of “freedom” and “liberty”; the very same people who helped create the moral standards for all civilized people were also the foundation of pure evil. Now, that is really hypocritical. And speaking of hypocritical, the West was now fighting Russia because of the threat it posed, but condemned Germany for doing the same during the war. What was also interesting to see was that the prosecutor who I presume is American looks like a