S4E25.5: Judgement at Nuremberg

This movie does a really good job at showing how fascism as an ideology of cruelty and oppression uses the institution of the Court to perform this cruelty and oppression. The Court functions as a forum to determine or create the institutionally accepted norms by which a State judges people, which can be used by a Nazi who wants to categorize groups of people as deserving of oppression, and through rhetorical bullying can get off to making a person seem inferior, weak, and guilty. Fascists who fancy themselves intellectuals love to be prosecutors, and even if they're serving the role of defense they still find the opportunity to prosecute the Witness. Never NEVER give Fascists a platform.

I just realized that a lot of the movies that praise and champion Liberalism as an ideology and system tend to be Court Trial movies. Judgement at Nuremberg, 12 Angry Men, A Few Good Men, A Time To Kill, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. Liberalism really likes seeing truth and justice be brought about through institutions. However, it's also then very ironic and appropriate that stories that criticize Liberalism and it's institutions can also use Court Trial settings to do so, demonstrating institutional flaws and corruption that result from it, as well as its impotence in the face of fascism.

didn't know captain Kirk was at Nuremberg and I'm also surprised at the amount of crash zooms involved

Oh hey, the judge guy is the lawyer guy from Inherit the Wind ! Y'all would love Inherit the Wind, too ! (it'd be part of the secret 4th pannel of Religion Season : militant Abi-style atheism !)

I paused the podcast when first told to go watch the movie, then procrastinated, then finally watched it yesterday. Having done this, I wholeheartedly agree with the instruction! Also, UK-based listeners: it's currently available on BBC iPlayer for the next 24ish days www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001qp0w

i've relistened to this episode a few times now b/c this movie & your discussion of it makes me feel less insane (though no less angry) about witnessing the collapse (& capitulation) of liberalism, the resurrection of fascism, & the multiple genocides (& denial of genocides) going on around the world. honestly i think you should consider putting this episode out on the free feed b/c this kind of art & criticism feels fucking vital right now & y'all're firing on all cylinders here.

PLEASE do Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (1986) before you conclude Religion Season. There is A LOT going on there. A great companion piece to Andrei Rublev

& in 1961 there were still JIM CROW LAWS & in 2025 indigenous people in the USA remain subordinate to greater state violence

Spencer Tracy comes to town after WWII and forces the locals to confront their horrific actions during the war? You mean Bad Day at Black Rock?

My Grandfather was stationed in North Germany in the 1950’s in the last batch of ‘occupying soldiers’ before the British Army presence became the BAOR. He held some occasional duties at Bergen-Belsen and even 7 years post liberation, he told me there was a dull smell and an eery stillness that permeated through to his very soul. The argument that German citizens living nearby or frankly anywhere in Germany, just “didn’t know” is simply vile. Everyone knew, they just didn’t want to engage with an objective truth that their humanity could be manipulated and broken by those with influence, even the ones who thought they were opposed to Nazi values.

I'm somewhat surprised that Devon hadn't seen the footage of the bulldozer pushing that pile of corpses into a mass grave, because I saw that during history in year 10 and is an image that will never fully leave me. I thought it was something that every school shows their 15-16 year olds. It gave me nightmares, but seeing how things are going however many years later, maybe it should be a mandatory part of the curriculum.

Fucn tie me tubes now because I have no idea how to form a sentence out o those three words. Thank God I'm hot

One of the things I love about Indian movies is this kind of Liberal issue movie is alive and well! (Kinda) They're flawed but they're so sincere, big fan

Hm

I had been wondering whether we were going to hear about The Third Man in this season, and then these three just nail what it's about in the first couple of sentences. Sigh. Well, at least I have another pick in the game - The Lady Killers (not the Cohen Bros one)

“If we want the rewards of fucking around we must submit ourselves to the terrifying ordeal of finding out? But I don’t want to submit myself to the terrifying ordeal. That sounds scary.”

Maine resident here. Im gonna watch this movie and judge it entirely on the maine accent or lack thereof.

See this film illustrates why I am a big fan of the Bomber Harris/General Sherman doctrine of punishing evil as much as you can during the war itself. Because once it's over they don't let you keep on burning people. You need to get the punishment in before the war ends, because afterwards justice will be deferred in favour of reconciliation. Which to a point there is a debate that it needs to be.

We watched an Allies documentary called ‚Die Todesmühlen’ in a film history class. It was sort of an look what you have done thing, they showed Germans right after the war. It’s about 20min of liberated concentration camp footage that was meant to break through the wall of denial. It’s harrowing stuff but worth a watch for an example of attempting to deal with all of it before the shift to Cold War politics and moving on without really denazifying Germany.

I'm so glad abi mentioned the glinner trial in this respect because someone who was there told me, that like for the 1st day of the trial lots of terfs were making a big deal out of it lots and lots of high influence people in the terf corner turned up, completely disrespecting the courts rules entirely by not turning off their phones and having it ring out several times during the trial, laughing at graham's obviously insane remarks about a 17 year old that he kept doing that obviously was entirely crazy for any reasonable person to think let alone incessantly tweet about a person this adult doesn't know. But one of the biggest things that actually stuck with them as directly evil was when she was being cross examined and asked to describe her sexuality from the defense lawyer, she just said matter of factly that she identified as bisexual. The numerous of terfs in the public gallery laughed as if it were a joke delivered from a middling comedian. This is also at the core of a trial where the legal question of damage to property shouldn't be in doubt its pretty clear that Graham did the thing he was accused of and the defence couldn't really dispute that so just spent the entire day entirely doing character assassination and trying to claim that this minor was actually a dangerous activist going after well to do feminists for simply being women. Its not that this whole thing was ever intended to be a show trial by the institution of the Crown Court but it has been made that way by the fascists who seek to co opt those institutes to enact their views.

ANOTHER film I have to watch first?! God, guess I'm getting another cinematic treat from the strange voices who live in my earbuds

I can't wait for the sequel in spring 2027!

Another great movie to follow this up would be conspiracy with Kenneth branaugh

I wonder what the future trial of the fascists in the US will be like. Who would be the probably Canadians who make the movie about it? How uncomfortable will people be when confronted by their actions or inactions in the face of evil which allow it to perpetuate? Also I saw a good movie about two women who fall in love in 1971 France. It's called La Belle Season I think. The fits, my god the fits. You'll never be a stylish feminist in France in 1971.

this may get brought up later in the episode but Emil Hahn's actor, Werner Klemperer, is a FASCINATING guy to play this role. his family were jewish germans who moved to the states in 1933 and he joined the military to fight in world war 2. after that he went fuckin Broadway

you guys might Really enjoy Sweet Smell of Success. its not as heavy as this film for sure, but its very well made and crazy dense

Will you do an episode on "never look away" at some point? Would be an interesting comparison piece as a modern German production on the subject.

I think one of the best, and cruelest (in a positive way) choices this movie makes is the casting of Dietrich. The face of Weimar Germany; bisexual icon and the embodiment of the decadence and freedom of the Weimar years - now the face of a nazi who can't accept her beliefs are fucking evil. Who isn't even aware of it. It's brutal and brilliant.

1) We liberals are still here and still fighting 2) Ordinary Men is a considerably better book than Hitler's Willing Executioners. 3) You touched on this in the episode itself, but the Interwar German Republic's criminal justice system was an intensely conservative, reactionary blight on said Republic.

The look I did toward my phone and slow reach to search Adolf Hitler on IMDb is something that will haunt me til the end of my days. Adolf Hitler has 1910 IMDb credits btw.

Forced sterilization of the "mentally deficient" continued in Alberta, Canada until 1972. In British Columbia, Canada, 1973. A disproportionate number of these were performed on First Nations women.

Amusing bit of synchronicity, during a break I took in listening to this, I saw a short video featuring the 1964 song "I Was Not A Nazi Polka".

Huge credit for November bringing up "Hitler's Willing Executioners". I read that when I was 13 or 14, and it challenged everything I learned about Germany and the Nazis. It made me so incredibly angry I could hardly finish it, but when I analysed why it made me feel that way, my life changed for the better. It taught me to consider perceptions which challenged my own. Later on in college when, when discussions on systemic injustice made me angry again, I remembered to ask myself "Why am I getting angry about this?" I wouldn't be who I am today without it.

Hitler's Willing Executioners is one hell of a book. Very worth reading, but kind of a tough read.

It is absolutely true that fascism and genocide is the result of both genuine zealous bigotry and banal evil. On one hand you have Heinrich Himmler, who genuinely believed all of the insane antisemitic shit he said, but on the other you have Reinhard Heydrich, who was just a career man interested in rising up the ladder of success in whatever institution he was in and was willing to what that institution wanted, and both men were responsible for the Holocaust. For atrocity to happen in an institutional scale, you need both the ideological people and the people who are making the institution function, and both are responsible.

https://youtu.be/Sh3uqAasdKU?si=8ilUGajEC-xcTVAo The actual footage used in the film of the concentration camps. Be warned, it is fucking harrowing. The skeletal corpses being pushed into mass graves by a bulldozer is genuinely the worst thing I have ever seen.

I am a huge Richard Widmark stan and I can't wait until you guys find a way to cover The Bedford Incident, a cold war Moby Dick adaptation that also includes Sidney Poitier, Danno from Hawaii Five-O, and the guy who voiced Underdog. Incredible claustrophobic character piece.

The guilt of Israel is the guilt of the world. Everyone who allies themselves with Israel, everyone who continues to trade with Israel, everyone who refuses to condemn Israel, everyone who refuses to fight against the genocide, everyone who just passively sits by and does nothing. We have the power to stop this, and we don't do it. We are all guilty. And future generations will remember us with scorn.

You know what? In light of everything that is going the fuck on in the world, I'm a-ok listening to this movie be discussed for two hours.

Next up; „the nasty girl“?

1:00:00 (approx). Not clear if Abi is quoting the film, but; the 6 million figure only covers those murdered Untermenschen who were so deemed by virtue of being Jewish. Statista have a chart putting the figure at 17 million, I have also seen 11 million quoted (5.7mn Soviet civilians may explain the discrepancy). How many millions is „just a statistic“, but I think it worth getting this one right.

My grandpa was drafted into the German army with 15, and 17 when the war ended and he spent a year in a PoW camp. He was mainly a firefighter in Vienna and then he did construction and medic duties, but he also hinted a few times that he took part in the forced marches at the very end of the war. He also maintained until his death that everybody knew about the holocaust and was lying that they didn't know (I'm pretty sure my asd is coming from him, he was pathologically unable to either lie or realize when a white lie might have been appropriate, which caused a lot of pain for my grandmother...)

Law degree-heads' eyes twitching at "judgement" but love you all

This will be a serious episode I assume but hand on heart I thought the thumbnail was joe biden and didn't even question it.