As one poster has said, the torture scenes are not for the faint of heard. One of the most effective tortures used by the Nazis in this film is water boarding. I don't think anyone doubted that this was torture in 1960 -- the United States has come a long way with George W. Bush.
shareWhile those scenes were meant to be horrifying (though we've gotten used to far worse over the years), I don't think it was exactly water boarding. From what I know, you don't actually put the subject's head under water in water boarding. From the wiki, they just pour water over the mouth while the prisoner is tied down to a board, which can give the subject the feeling that he is drowning but there is supposed to be less chance of actually drowning.
At any rate, I had the same thoughts as you-- that it was torture and that it reminded me of what the US was doing to prisoners while GWB was president. But I also had the thought that we probably did exactly the same kinds of things in WWII and that I could understand it when there is a military objective.
The Germans and Japanese did some terrible things to prisoners and in the camps which had no military objective. I'd like to believe that the United States has always strongly discouraged that kind of torture (not to say that it has never happened). The thing that was so upsetting about the Abu Graib incidents was that it seemed to be done just for the amusement of sadists.
What we will never probably really know is how often it actually works and delivers accurate intelligence. The possibility of disinformation (like in the movie) makes it that much more complicated.
What movies have done wrong is to give the impression that "real men" can stand up to torture while the reality is that almost all break under torture and that there is no shame in doing so. In this movie, the hero did exactly what was intended and he felt great shame. Why should the girl be proud that he tried to commit suicide?