DJP Update 9-30-2010 (2nd of today) Special alert “Nuremberg”: Fwd: Jackson List: Belatedly, in U.S. Theaters, “Nuremberg”
DJP Comment: The letter below speaks for itself. I had the privilege to meet Professor John Q. Barrett in August of 2009 at a meeting of the Robert H. Jackson Center in New York when I gave a presentation on informed consent evolution following the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trial. More info and some of my comments about the earlier speech I gave can be found at this link:
But the important message of this update is from Professor Barrett. Read below and check out video links.
Begin forwarded message:
From: barrettj@stjohns.edu
Subject: Jackson List: Belatedly, in U.S. Theaters, “Nuremberg”
Date: September 30, 2010 4:29:05 PM CDT
To: barrettj@stjohns.edu
For the Jackson List:
I am pleased to announce that the Schulberg/Waletzky restoration of “Nuremberg” has premiered, somewhat belatedly, in United States theaters.
“Nuremberg” is a powerful documentary account of the Allied nations’ prosecutions before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) of the principal Nazi war criminals and their organizations. The U.S. chief prosecutor before the IMT was, of course, Justice Robert H. Jackson. Sixty-four years ago today and tomorrow, the IMT returned its judgments in the cases. “Nuremberg” shows how Jackson and his fellow prosecutors built the cases using captured Nazi films and records.
* * *
Somewhat belatedly? The United States War Department, acting at the request of the Allied Military Council that supervised the occupation of the former Germany, agreed to make this film at the time of the IMT trial. The producer, Pare Lorentz, director and scriptwriter Stuart Schulberg and their team largely completed their work, with input from Jackson and others, in 1947. The film then was shown widely in the Allied occupation zones (Germany) as part of the Allies’ education and denazification program.
But to the frustration of Lorentz, Schulberg, Jackson and others, U.S. officials in the late 1940s deemed the film too provocative for Americans. Some decision maker seems to have concluded that the film was too, well, allied with the Soviet Union, as the U.S. of course had been both in World War II and then at the Nuremberg trial, and also too anti-German, to be shown in U.S. theaters at a time when U.S. foreign policy had turned in Cold War directions. In subsequent years, the picture negative and sound elements of “Nuremberg” were lost or destroyed.
“Nuremberg” exists today in restored form because Sandra Schulberg (Stuart’s daughter) and Josh Waletzky used original trial recordings of defendants’ and prosecutors’ voices. The final voice in the film is Justice Jackson’s: “Let Nuremberg stand as a warning to all who plan and wage aggressive war.” “Nuremberg” is powerful, accurate, historical, contemporary and, as it always was meant to be, universally educational.
* * *
The film “Nuremberg” has traveled a long path. In early 1947, Pare Lorentz sent Stuart Schulberg’s 51-page draft script to Justice Jackson. He read it closely and wrote back promptly: “I have examined the scenario for the Nuremberg trials motion picture and must confess to you that it overcomes the doubts which I earlier entertained as to whether such a film would be advisable.” Jackson then offered some “minor criticisms”—factual corrections that in his view did not “go to the heart of the [film] plan.” And he closed his letter with a commitment: “I shall want to be of any help possible in this effort which I think is a very worthwhile one.”
To their great credit, Schulberg and Waletsky are successors, and they have succeeded, in that effort.
* * *
For much more information on the film, its history and its restoration, and to view the trailer, click here:
http://www.nurembergfilm.org/.
For information about seeing the film this week in New York City, click here:
For information about seeing the film at the National Archives in Washington on October 6th, click here:
http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/events/october.html.
For A.O. Scott’s review of “Nuremberg” in yesterday’s New York Times, click here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/movies/29nuremberg.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Nuremberg&st=cse.
* * *
Thanks for your interest, and please forward this note to others who might be interested too.
Sincerely,
John
Professor John Q. Barrett
St. John’s University School of Law
Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow
Robert H. Jackson Center, Inc., Jamestown, NY
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Stay well,
Donald
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