The film Nuremberg is based on the book by Jack El-Hai, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, telling the true story of American Army psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Kelley, who evaluated the mental states of Hermann Göring and other high-ranking Nazis (exploring the psychology behind their atrocities) in the run up to the post WW2 Nuremberg trials. 

The film opens with the arrest of Göring, spends some time telling the story of how the Nuremberg trials came to be, and then drills down into more detail about some of the accused and their time on remand, the trial, and the executions.

The key encounters in the film are between Kelley (Rami Malek) and Göring (Russell Crowe). Both give fine performances, though Crowe’s comes out on top primarily due to the barely repressed venom that lurks beneath his verbal jousting with the doctor.

As a story – focusing on the interaction between Kelley and Göring – there’s really not much to tell and at times the script reflects this with a near absence of pace or tension. Compare and contrast with the actual concentration camp footage the film uses which delivers shock upon shock. When we get back to the cinema production, there are lots of fine pictures but nothing that endures. I can think of one or two scenes that, at the time, stood out. To avoid spoilers, I won’t mention them. However, on leaving the cinema, the scenes and the film were all quickly forgotten.

That having been said, the film covers material about which I am well read and decently educated. But for today’s youth, this stuff is ancient history and therefore rarely, if ever, encountered. Therefore, while it might well miss its target with me, it may be more effective with a younger audience. Maybe.

I cannot recommend the film as one you should go out of your way to watch. I suspect the book may be a better investment of time, but too late for me.

An Aside

The Allies put the Nazi leadership on trial. They charged them with, among other things, crimes against humanity. Significantly, they did not separate out their Holocaust against the Jews. Why? It depends who’s doing the explaining. Suffice it to say, there’s more than a whiff of antisemitism lingering behind the expressed rationale. But at least they put them on trial, right? Sort of. In one of the more extreme examples of realpolitik, those who could be put to good use by the Allies tended to escape the hangman’s noose. And, in the early decades after the war, many who were imprisoned were given early release because of all sorts of limp reasons. This mixed fate excluded, of course, those who had managed to escape (with the assistance of too many) to places like Argentina and live out their years free from any form of accountability. (Other than that dramatic kidnap, trial, and execution of Adolf Eichmann that Israel perpetrated. Naughty Israel. Imagine upsetting the apple-cart like that!)