Nuremberg, the Trial and Legacy | Based on a True Story

0:00 Hi, I'm Dr.

0:01 Joe Hall Patton or Cipher on this channel.

0:03 There's a new film about the Nuremberg trials and it's incredible.

0:07 I want to talk about it.

0:08 Any coverage of the topic requires considering

0:11 the conundrum at the center of these trials.

0:14 They essentially established the concept of crimes against humanity.

0:18 So, how could they make something retroactively illegal?

0:21 In answering that question,

0:23 the trials secured their legacy for international law.

0:26 But the outcome is far different from the popular conception.

0:30 So let's discuss what the Nuremberg trials meant.

0:55 Prior to World War II, international law was the province of treatymaking.

1:00 While there had been many conventions and declarations on human rights,

1:03 nothing had truly made them enforceable.

1:06 A court of arbitration in the HEG had been functioning since 1899,

1:10 but that was purely for solving disputes between states.

1:14 The League of Nations formed after the First

1:17 World War along with a court of international justice,

1:20 but it was completely ineffective.

1:22 The United Nations formed during the sequel,

1:25 but in the aftermath of the war and revelations about the Holocaust,

1:30 that made prosecuting these atrocities all the more urgent,

1:34 faster than the UN could enact their declaration of human rights.

1:38 Some allies wanted vengeful executions,

1:41 while others thought this was a rare opportunity

1:44 to establish international law in a new way.

1:47 Stalin proposed that at least 50,000 and perhaps 100,000

1:52 of the German commanding staff must be physically liquidated.

1:57 Summary executions were part of the Morganthal plan,

2:00 but a leak made that extremely unpopular with the American public.

2:05 French, British, American, and Soviet leaders met in London to decide

2:09 what to do after victory in Europe was secure.

2:12 US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson

2:15 argued most convincingly that trial should

2:17 be given because it would be a lesson to the world in justice.

2:21 This rested on the fact that Germany signed the 1928 treaty

2:25 for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy.

2:29 Terrible name, the Tro that meant that prosecuting war crimes

2:35 and violations of human rights would be based on that.

2:38 Jackson later explained, "I think our proof amply demonstrated that the campaign

2:44 against the Jews was intended to remove what they,

2:47 as in the Nazis, regarded as an obstruction to instituting war

2:51 and that the extermination was a part of the objective of the war.

2:56 The London Charter created the Nuremberg trials,

2:59 where judges from each of the four nations would hear

3:03 the cases of 24 defendants for conspiracy and crimes against peace.

3:08 ultimately ruling from the bench by majority vote,

3:11 which this was officially titled the International Military Tribunal.

3:15 There would be full due process largely based on American

3:19 procedural norms with the real possibility of a quiddle.

3:22 Defendants had attorneys and were

3:24 officially assumed innocent until proven guilty.

3:28 Jackson would be one of the lead prosecutors.

3:30 They met at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg beginning in November of 1945

3:36 and held court for almost a year even while the city still lay in ruins.

3:40 There were four major arguments that the prosecution had

3:44 to basically ignore for they were immaterial to the charges.

3:48 First was the fact that there was no German judge,

3:51 making this a victor's justice.

3:53 But who else was to try these crimes?

3:55 They also pointed to the fact

3:57 that the allies had committed some war crimes themselves.

4:00 This is what's called a toki defense as in uh you too.

4:05 For instance, the Soviets had also invaded Poland, Finland,

4:08 and the Baltic states just after agreeing

4:11 with Germany to split their spheres of influence.

4:14 Even if such crimes were at all commenurate,

4:17 that would not excuse Nazis for beginning a war of aggression.

4:21 Then they could argue that this was expostfacto legislation,

4:25 as in making something illegal after the fact.

4:28 The defense could argue that the Holocaust

4:30 wasn't illegal according to German laws,

4:33 and that they had abregated the 1928 treaty,

4:36 but they actually hadn't abregated it, at least in any official capacity.

4:41 Furthermore, murder and deprivation of property without

4:44 trial was in fact illegal in Germany.

4:47 Their own laws contradicted that argument.

4:50 Crimes against humanity were a new charge for 1946,

4:54 which is why they anchored that in already established war crimes.

4:58 The Nurmer trials were not expost facto.

5:01 And finally, every defendant claimed that they

5:04 were merely following the orders of Hitler,

5:07 who had taken his own life, and therefore no one should be tried.

5:10 The prosecution proved that these orders were not only illegal,

5:13 but most of the defendants knew that they were illegal when following them.

5:18 Most of the defendants pretended to be meek and feeble

5:21 in an attempt to appeal to the mercy of the tribunal,

5:24 but one twisted the proceedings to his will.

5:27 Herman Goring was the highest ranking remaining Nazi,

5:31 having been president of the rich dog and chief of the Lufafa for over a decade.

5:36 He used his time on the stand to narrate his career,

5:40 enraging Jackson in the process.

5:42 Nonetheless, all the witness testimony

5:44 and evidence presented was quite indisputable.

5:47 In doing so, they created a definitive

5:50 record of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.

5:53 From Nazis own documents,

5:55 we learned of the sheer scale and wickedness of their extermination campaign

6:00 and just how complicit nearly every

6:03 level of leadership was in countless atrocities.

6:06 When presented through the strictctures of proper

6:09 procedures and a completely recorded trial,

6:12 the facts of the Holocaust became undeniable.

6:15 This invaluable archive is fully digitized now and keyword searchable.

6:20 This was perhaps the most important legacy of the trials,

6:24 rendering anyone who denies or downplays Nazi crimes an open and obvious bigot.

6:29 And bigots get banned on this channel.

6:31 After much deliberation, the tribunal acquitted three of the accused,

6:35 much to the chagrin of the Soviet judge who wanted death sentences for everyone,

6:40 seemingly at the direction of Stalin himself.

6:43 Those three were a leading propagandist, a financier,

6:46 and the former chancellor and ambassador France von Poppin.

6:50 Von Poppin would serve two years of hard labor as part of denazification,

6:55 but successfully appealed those charges.

6:58 Two others were indicted, but never stood trial.

7:01 One industrialist was too sick,

7:03 and the Nazi labor dictator took his own life beforehand.

7:07 Roughly twothirds of the charges rendered guilty verdicts,

7:11 meaning there was incredible leniency to these criminals,

7:14 rendering doubts about the defendants's claims against

7:17 the legitimacy of the International Tribunal completely mute.

7:21 Of the 21 convicts, 11 were sentenced to death,

7:25 but only 10 were executed since Goring managed to take

7:28 a cyanide pill that someone snuck into his cell.

7:31 The rest faced prison sentences of 10 to 20 years with one exception.

7:36 Rudolph Hess who had been deputy furer from 1933 to 41

7:41 and would spend the rest of his life in Spandow prison.

7:44 When he finally died in 1987,

7:47 what remained of the four powers council utterly demolished

7:51 the prison and dropped the ashes into the sea.

7:53 Hitler's personal secretary and temporary replacement,

7:57 Martin Borman, was convicted in abstentia,

8:00 but he likely died during the siege of Berlin.

8:03 The tribunal had effectively established the idea of international crimes.

8:08 Simultaneous to this, another tribunal was held for Asia in Tokyo.

8:13 These were less prestigious because they were essentially

8:16 ordered into being by Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur,

8:20 who very much influenced the outcome.

8:22 They documented and prosecuted the war of aggression Japan had begun,

8:27 including many of the atrocities from genocide to torture and sexual slavery.

8:32 The scientists and engineers who committed crimes but actively surrendered,

8:37 both Nazis and Japanese,

8:39 were often allowed to escape justice

8:41 for the sake of their technological advancements,

8:44 many becoming significant parts of American and Soviet innovations that was

8:50 quite tarnishing for the entire concept of international criminal codes.

8:55 Yet, there were subsequent Nermberg

8:57 trials using the American separate jurisdiction.

9:00 Soviets would hold their own version of both the Tokyo and Nermberg trials,

9:06 fulfilling some of the mass executions that Stalin advocated for.

9:10 The American sector continued a series of trials in Nuremberg,

9:13 beginning almost immediately after the originals.

9:16 They prosecuted doctors who had euthanized their patients,

9:20 a lufafa marshall for slavery,

9:22 judges who upheld eugenics, more officers involved in the concentration camps,

9:28 a bunch of industrialists who aided the Holocaust,

9:32 generals who massacred civilians and prisoners,

9:35 administrators of Nazi racial policies,

9:38 commanders of the Ians groupin, and a few others.

9:42 Over 1,400 were convicted with almost 200 getting executed.

9:47 Most of those imprisoned had their sentences commuted in the 1950s by American

9:52 High Commissioner John Mcclo as a sign of goodwill to West Germany.

9:57 Though most Germans eventually regretted calling

10:00 for this because it made a mockery of justice.

10:03 There'd been a series of further trials for war crimes related to World War II,

10:07 with thousands upon thousands of convictions elsewhere,

10:11 especially at the actual concentration camps.

10:14 Furthermore, there were even more killed

10:16 for reprisals and vengeance totaling hundreds of thousands.

10:21 One clear precedent these subsequent trials created is that the just

10:26 following orders excuse was better substantiated

10:29 as specifically being about illegal orders.

10:32 If personnel knew the order was illegal and they still followed it,

10:36 then they had committed a crime, which is a high evidentiary bar to clear.

10:41 On top of that, numerous war criminals received leniency over the decades.

10:46 So the actual legacy of Nuremberg is mixed.

10:49 Beyond that, the prosecution of international crimes laid dormant.

10:54 By the 1980s, many analysts thought it was a derelict concept.

10:59 David Luben said in 1987, "If one of the aims of the Nuremberg trial was

11:04 to burn the history of Nazism into the memory of mankind,

11:07 we must conclude that it failed." Atrocities hadn't ceased.

11:12 Yet, no one could bring together a court to try them.

11:15 For the most part, that simply remained for the country in power to prosecute,

11:19 which was obviously a problem when the country in power often

11:22 was the perpetrator and remained in control thanks to their misdeeds.

11:28 It was especially difficult when capitalist and communist powers

11:32 had a veto authority in the United Nations Security Council.

11:36 When a capitalist country committed atrocities on behalf of defeating communism,

11:41 Britain, France, and the United States would prevent any proposals to prosecute.

11:45 When a communist country did the opposite, Russia, and China would obstruct.

11:50 The Cold War prevented justice.

11:53 Circumstances changed afterward.

11:55 As Yugoslavia broke apart, Serbs raped, massacred, and expelled Bosnians.

12:01 Finally, the United Nations began criminal

12:04 proceedings based on the Nuremberg president.

12:06 They were founded with a declaration of human

12:09 rights and formulated a definition of genocide.

12:13 Finally, they could put that into practice.

12:16 Simultaneously, the Rwanda genocide began, prompting another set of trials.

12:21 Both resulted in 151 convictions after a decade of hearings,

12:26 but these were temporary courts meant solely to prosecute those specific crimes.

12:32 The International Criminal Court, ICC for short,

12:35 formed in 2002 with the purpose of being

12:38 a permanent body to prosecute all such further crimes.

12:42 They have rarely done so because it

12:45 requires another country to recognize the atrocity,

12:48 submit evidence on behalf of victims,

12:50 and have no ongoing effort from the originating

12:53 nation for the ICC to become involved.

12:56 Allied nations of perpetrators remain almost

13:00 insurmountable obstructions once that process begins.

13:04 Since the beginning of this decade,

13:06 there's been the Taliban's repression in Afghanistan,

13:09 Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Israel's genocide of Gazins,

13:13 and the misal genocide in Sudan, just to name a few.

13:16 The current Trump administration is certainly

13:18 committing a few war crimes themselves.

13:20 The world is a bleak place when you look for atrocities,

13:23 and there's so many more.

13:25 Of those named, only Afghanistan, Russia,

13:27 and Israel are currently being prosecuted, which will take many years to do so.

13:33 Even if the United States ceases to oppose justice like we have since

13:38 the ICC's beginning because we committed so

13:40 many atrocities ourselves during the war on terror.

13:44 That is understandably frustrating for everyone who seeks justice.

13:48 But the legacy of Nerburgg proves that being prudent and working

13:52 with the constraints of the international

13:54 community is better than expediting persecution.

13:58 Those trials in 1945 and 46 remain the basis of international criminal justice.

14:04 It took many decades for that to finally be

14:06 implemented and we have a long way to go.

14:09 But now that it exists, Nermberg's legacy is enshrined in international law.

14:15 Beyond that, it is the basis of our documentation

14:18 of the Holocaust along with other Nazi atrocities.

14:21 They had to overcome significant legal, ethical,

14:24 and compassionate obstacles, some to greater effect than others.

14:29 The evidence itself, freely available to anyone,

14:32 remains an extremely compelling artifact of not only these trials,

14:37 but all subsequent trials following its precedents.

14:41 While the ICC's record since 2002 is lackluster,

14:45 hampered by stringent requirements and belligerent nations,

14:49 it continues to improve its procedures and legitimate human rights.

14:54 Ultimately, the Nuremberg trials still serve as a beacon

14:58 of juristp prudence for those seeking justice.

15:06 The Nuremberg trial itself is incredibly wellstied.

15:10 I lacked for no secondary sources.

15:12 Plus, the primary sources are readily accessible.

15:14 Anyone may read them.

15:16 Yet, you may be able to tell that I

15:18 wrote the reality section before the movie ever came out,

15:22 expecting to create an episode to release alongside the film's release.

15:26 I didn't get that done in time,

15:27 so I withheld creating this until after having watched this at home.

15:32 Upon finishing it, I realized that there was

15:34 a fundamental aspect that I had not researched.

15:37 the story of the psychiatrist.

15:39 Douglas Kelly is the protagonist of this movie,

15:42 so I had to add the book it is based on to answer

15:44 some of the questions I had by the end of the movie,

15:47 which gave me a greater appreciation of what the movie did.

15:51 It is excellent and has a really important message,

15:54 a problem deep at the core of prosecuting war

15:57 crimes is what the nature of these criminals are.

16:01 Kelly had his own conclusion that he saw as a dire

16:05 warning for Americans in what he understood of Nazi leadership,

16:09 and that was that the hatred,

16:10 narcissism, and ruthlessness that drove them may be found anywhere,

16:15 and that the villain that they perpetrated

16:17 was not from some unique wickedness or nefariousness.

16:21 Everyone is capable of evil.

16:24 That realization drove Kelly mad with bouts

16:27 of drunken rage that often tipped into domestic violence,

16:31 eventually taking his own life.

16:33 So, this is a delicate topic and I

16:35 think the filmmakers handled it incredibly well.

16:38 But the movie is not without its inaccuracies, some of which are confounding.

16:42 So, let's get through those before talking

16:45 about what's good and interesting about this movie.

16:53 Most inaccuracies are somewhat necessary to keep the plot going.

16:58 For instance, Kelly is shown identifying Goring's

17:01 drugs when it was really a laboratory.

17:03 Nor was it Kelly who saved Goring from his near-death withdrawal.

17:08 So, in a way, there is some character amalgamation here.

17:12 They age up Goring's daughter, who was only seven at this point.

17:17 I suppose that's to make Kelly's growing

17:19 affinity for goring a little more compassionate.

17:23 The other psychologist, Gustav Gilbert, is very incorrectly depicted in this.

17:29 He shows up as a second opinion after inmate Robert Lei committed suicide.

17:39 I'm bringing in another doctor.

17:41 It's been determined a second opinion is required for some of your patients.

17:45 In reality, he came as the court's psychologist,

17:49 whereas Kelly was the prison shrink.

17:51 In this, Gilbert is antagonistic to Kelly when it was quite the opposite.

17:57 Well, that is what a second opinion is for.

18:00 I'll share research.

18:01 We'll co-author.

18:07 That was me being honest with my patient.

18:10 Something you ought to try sometime.

18:11 You destroyed him in there.

18:13 So, it was Kelly who reneged on jointly publishing.

18:18 He duplicitously took research materials on his own.

18:22 In order to increase the drama,

18:23 Kelly is shown to drunkenly explain to a reporter

18:27 that Jackson will be beaten by Goring.

18:30 Jackson's going to get killed.

18:33 Look at that.

18:34 And this gets him fired.

18:37 Sir, you're finished.

18:38 I signed your transfer order this morning.

18:40 In reality, Kelly simply quit,

18:42 wishing to finally return to his wife after so many years away.

18:46 This dramatic distraction is meant to be a turning point.

18:50 Interpreter Howard Trieste, whose real story of escaping Germany because he was

18:55 a Jew and only arriving in New York by 1940,

18:59 though his parents did not escape the Showa

19:01 camp was liberated January 27th, 1945.

19:05 No sign of him.

19:06 Four years earlier, I left this country scared

19:11 and alone in the middle of the night, but I came back with a goddamn army.

19:16 To all of Germany, Guring has to fall.

19:20 That's all extremely compelling and convinces the movie

19:23 version of Kelly to stay and help the prosecution,

19:26 which turns the tides against Goring.

19:29 Obviously, that did not happen.

19:30 Kelly had hardly any interaction with Jackson.

19:33 He was simply a small part of the prison's medical team.

19:37 So these may seem egregious departures from history,

19:41 but the accuracies are far more impressive.

19:49 The movie covers some of the difficulties of instituting the International

19:53 Military Tribunal in a way that is somehow not distracting.

19:57 But what you're talking about is trying them in some sort of legal

20:00 limbo that doesn't exist using case law that hasn't been written yet.

20:04 That easily could have been a bunch of expository dialogue, but it is engaging.

20:09 What do you charge them with?

20:11 Conspiracy to wage aggressive war on the world.

20:14 And you want the United States to argue that as the prosecution?

20:18 I do.

20:19 You're talking about a tribunal.

20:22 Exactly.

20:22 We can't prosecute the Nazis for planning aggressive

20:26 wars if you guys were planning aggressive wars.

20:29 While they do that, they also explain

20:31 why Nuremberg was so important and necessary.

20:35 The world needs to know what these men did.

20:38 If we don't win that trial, there won't be any more trials to come,

20:41 and our respective governments will be the laughing stock of the world,

20:45 defeated by the very men we've imprisoned.

20:48 If 15 years from now they come back even stronger,

20:53 I don't know if we can beat him a third time.

20:55 The stakes are clear without having to go into all the details.

20:59 Once the trial begins, the dialogue is taken directly from the transcript.

21:04 Obviously, they pick and choose which quotes

21:06 to use and how to put it all together.

21:08 For instance, they have the British prosecutor

21:11 follow Jackson immediately when these were days apart.

21:16 The United States is always happy to hear

21:18 from our distinguished colleague from Great Britain.

21:21 An estimated 6 million Jews in total as well as Soviet and Polish citizens.

21:27 People killed not in combat, not in enemy fire,

21:31 but exterminated by the state, the state which you were the rice marshal of.

21:37 And you contend that you had no knowledge knowing what happened.

21:44 Would you still follow the Fura?

21:47 Yeah.

21:50 Effort.

21:52 They show a few minutes of the hour-long documentary

21:56 that John Ford made showing the conditions at the camps,

22:00 which was incredibly effective during the actual proceedings.

22:04 Given that Team YouTube banned the last time I showed that footage,

22:07 I'll avoid doing so here.

22:09 But understand, it is very graphic.

22:12 So, the filmmakers are not pulling punches here.

22:15 If you do want to see my episode about the Holocaust and Schindler's List,

22:19 be sure to check that out.

22:21 But the drama of the court and the general feeling of what

22:24 Nermberg was like during those days is all very accurate in this.

22:29 Goring is especially charismatic throughout the movie as he was in reality.

22:34 Once sentenced, we see Goring's body getting discovered.

22:38 We even see the botched hanging of one convict.

22:42 All of that is well done.

22:43 They end the movie with Kelly trying to sell his book,

22:46 but being told that he shouldn't draw comparisons between Americans and Nazis.

22:52 There are people in America who would willingly climb over the corpses of half

22:56 the American public if they knew they could gain control of the other half.

23:00 Trashing our country is probably not the best way to sell your book.

23:04 That was indeed the reaction to his book,

23:07 but it wasn't his sales pitch being read on the radio in that scene.

23:11 That's just quotes of his actual book.

23:14 The movie is correct in stating that he was not

23:17 wellreceived for this, and ultimately that's what the film is about,

23:21 but those are contested waters.

23:24 They've waited into the enormity of the crimes

23:32 Nazis perpetrated have forever equated them with evil.

23:36 In the expanse of just a few years,

23:39 they slaughtered 11 million people purely out of prejudice.

23:43 An industrialized genocide we have never seen before or since.

23:47 The war they initiated purely for territorial expansion

23:51 killed another 60 to 70 million, the deadliest ever.

23:55 Ever since, scholars have attempted to understand

23:58 what made Nazis so uniquely murderous, an answer to that could yield a warning

24:03 for others to prevent such atrocities from recurring.

24:06 It is part of the mission to never forget.

24:09 Yet, no definitive conclusion can be found.

24:12 Some scholars argue that fascism inevitably leads to bloodshed

24:16 or that Nazis had some sort of mental disorder.

24:20 But perhaps the most popular interpretation was that these were

24:24 ultimately benile men corrupted by their search for total power.

24:28 Gilbert was among the psychoanalyzing folks postumously

24:32 diagnosing Hitler with any number of neurosis.

24:36 But Kelly was somewhat different.

24:38 The idea of a criminal type is simply folklore.

24:42 But the belief is widespread.

24:45 This is the lesson that I think we must learn.

24:48 This is the lesson that I think we must teach our children.

24:53 That there is no such thing as a criminal characteristic.

24:59 He did not see his subject as benal nor unique.

25:03 He argued that these kinds of men were everywhere.

25:06 It wasn't fascism itself that led to murderousness,

25:10 but the hatred it was built upon.

25:13 A hatred that could be found among anyone.

25:16 That interpretation is what this movie is trying to provide the audience with.

25:21 They practically speak directly to us on several occasions throughout the film.

25:26 And along comes a man who says,

25:29 "We can reclaim our former glory." Would you not follow a man like this?

25:36 You know what sets them apart from us?

25:41 Nothing.

25:42 Would you even acknowledge we were human?

25:44 One debt to society later.

25:47 Individuals who are humans are humans.

25:50 They stoke hatred.

25:54 It's what Hitler and Guring did and it is textbook.

25:58 You can tell that they do this as a warning

26:00 against the rise of neofascism throughout the world.

26:03 The radical right has gained power and continues to worsen.

26:08 Are you affirming that you think President Trump is a fascist?

26:11 I've spoken about That's okay.

26:13 You can just say yes.

26:14 Okay, that's easier.

26:17 Many look to the International Criminal Court in hopes

26:20 that those currently ruling may face the same justice that Nermberg issued.

26:25 The movie and its message seemed timely as ever,

26:28 even though this was years in the making.

26:31 Kelly himself obviously is not someone we should turn into a hero, though.

26:36 He did not need to be made into the savior of the trial,

26:40 especially given his domestic violence.

26:42 Whether you like his interpretation of the nature of evil is up to the viewer.

26:47 I am simply elated that they are at least making the argument,

26:51 and that's no small feat.

26:52 But of course, as a historian,

26:54 I prefer we move beyond the labels of good and evil in analyzing the past.

26:59 Such moralizing is an unnecessary hindrance to the pursuit of truth.

27:04 No matter what, people are still just people, even when they are war criminals.

27:09 But that is for historians, not regular folk.

27:12 We all have some sort of internal morality and yearn for a greater ethics.

27:16 So, if you too have been dreaming

27:19 of recent war criminals facing justice, this movie beckons.

27:26 Hello, king.

27:28 A labor dictator.

27:32 What do you want?

27:38 What are you saying?

27:41 Yeah, but you're purring.

27:46 But you're purring.

27:51 Yeah.

27:52 Yeah.