August 30, 2026
Spiritually Speaking at the Movies: “Judgement at Nuremberg” 1961, 2h59m, not rated (but I would give it NC-17 - No children under18). Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximillian Schell, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift and William Shatner.
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tracy), Best Actress in a supporting role (Garland), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Clift) and Winner of Best Actor in a Leading Role (Schell).
The Quick Review:
“Judgement at Nuremberg” is not a “popcorn” movie. It’s a deep study of moral choices in the aftermath of WW II, in a courtroom. It’s a discussion still alive today. In that way, this excellent 1961 film is relevant and even important. We still must choose.
The film asks, on what basis will we make those choices? Political expediency as in Machiavelli? Military concerns? Personal peace and prosperity? Survival?
Or is there a higher calling?
Should you see it? Yes, if you are ready to confront the tangle of what is right and wrong on a grand scale. There are far too many significant interchanges in “Judgement at Nuremberg” to point out in a short review, That alone is so rare in films, it makes this one a treasure.
A heart-rending example is when a “simple-minded” man (Clift) takes the stand, and says he was sterilized unwillingly by the defendants for the “crime of being simple-minded.” It is a riveting exchange (Clift was nominated for an Academy Award).
There are many more such dramatic exchanges, notably from Lancaster and Garland. You will be involved from start to finish. It’s not a hard movie to watch, in general, but it does require a thoughtful process.
Spencer Tracy as Chief Judge Dan Haywood, says in a heart-to heart moment with a German military widow (Dietrich), “Mrs. Bertholt, I don’t know what I see. I want to understand. I do want to understand. I have to.” and sets the tone for viewers. Do you want to understand this crucial, significant event of the past 100 years…or not?
I recommend that you do.
A Deeper Dive into “Judgement at Nuremberg.”
The setting is a military tribunal in Germany led by an American jurist, Dan Haywood (Tracy). But there are scenes out of the courtroom where various perspectives surface during informal settings. Tracy has a late-night sandwich with German servants in the kitchen at the house he is staying. He talks to them about Hitler and the war. They are hesitant, afraid, but have significant perspectives of the times. Those scenes add humanity — our humanity. Things can be said candidly from the heart, that cannot be said in a courtroom, but in a kitchen. Choose what is right.
A German military widow, born to the nobility (Dietrich) tells Tracy in a coffee bar, “I learned to hate all Americans for the vengeance the victors took out on the vanquished, my husband, who hated Hitler and what he stood for. But we must forget, if we are to survive and move on.” The oft-repeated Jewish reply to that is, “Never forget.” Also, a common phrase in use today is, “Those who are ignorant of history, are doomed to repeat it.” It makes forgetting seem dangerous, yet hate is all consuming. Choose.
In the courtroom, defendants and witnesses repeatedly say, “I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth, and withhold and add nothing.” These words are a signifiant inclusion, not window dressing, and impossible to ignore. If everyone, everywhere said this in the morning — and meant it — it would change the world we live in. Isn’t that the point? Choose to do this or not.
“Judgement in Nuremberg,” is also an eire shadow, a type of what divine judgement looks like. Men in their final hours, are standing before a judge who will scrutinize every bit of the charges brought before him, who will then discern and decide their fates.
The defendants in the film cannot escape, or wake up far from this uncomfortable reality no matter how much they desire it. In the story, judgement is done by faulty men under pressures and conflict of interests the film underscores.
The irony is, will the American judges bow to expediency as the German judges, the defendants, did?
There will be no such conflict in the Final Judgement. In that sense, “Judgement at Nuremberg” should, at the very least, give us pause to consider just what excuses men make to expediency, in the face of evil.
The Defense Counsel (Schell), perhaps unintentionally, destroys the argument that the people Germany were “unaware” of Germany’s “ultimate intentions.” He attempts to indict the entire world in their complicity to the holocaust by saying “If these defendants are guilty, is not the whole world guilty? Did it not know the intentions of the Third Reich? Did it now know the words of Hitler broadcast all over the world? Did it not read his intentions in “Mein Kampf” published in ever corner of the world?”
A fair point. But In doing so, he cuts the legs out from under his fellow German citizens who say, “We didn’t know.”
Lancaster, as a defendant Judge Ernst Janning, powerfully takes the stand and says, “I was aware that, above all, there was fear in Germany (prior to the war). It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. It’s not easy to tell the truth, but if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt, must admit it, whatever the pain and humiliation.”
Spiritually Speaking we can agree with this point of view in all areas of life. Their confessions cause us to see one over-arching truth: we live in a broken world, hopelessly mired in our feeble human concepts of how to proceed daily. Many times those faulty concepts have cost the lives of hundreds of millions in the 20th century alone. Students of war should dive in and tangle with the truth.
The rest of us should take heed: how in the world did a literate society, Germany, look the other way when presented with Der Fuhrer’s blueprint for mass murder on a scale that boggles the humanity within us?
Instead of arrogant leaders who are confident they have understanding, spiritually speaking, God’s path to wisdom starts with humility. This begins with Tracy’s “I don’t know what I see” attitude. “Lean not upon your own understanding,” we are counseled. “Acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will direct your paths.” Surely, we could use that perspective today.
“Cease to do evil. Learn to do good,” is where wisdom starts. Depending on God for understanding is a life-long activity. I think it is planned that way. The moment we start to lose full dependance on Godly wisdom, is the beginning of a path leading to… well, “Judgement at Nuremberg.”
Epilogue
There is an exchange between defendant Ernst Janning (Lancaster) and Judge Haywood (Tracy), that recalls the biblical story of King Ahab taking a field he coveted from a man he falsely accused and had executed. Ahab and Jezebel live on in history as some the worst of all possible rulers.
“I want you to know,” Janning says to Haywood, “those people, those millions of people (who died), I never knew it would come to all this.’
“Herr Janning,” Haywood replies, “it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.”
Try watching Judgement at Nuremberg and see if, Spiritually Speaking, you agree.
*(No AI was used for any portion of this review process. Human beings must do their own thinking).
