Mistakes

Julius Streicher.

An accusation towards the Reich.

How could such man rise to power? Vulgar. Primitive. Constantly chewed a gum. Despised by all codefendants (btw he had the lowest IQ of them). Pornography collector. And yet powerful. Gauleiter of Francony. How degenerated the Reich must have been if such man rose to power?

Wilhelm Frick.

A bureaucrat. Lawyer, Dr.Jur. Limited. Arrogant. And terrible powerful. Fully responsible for the Euthanasia project, which eliminated all people handicapped by war, mentally deficient, suffering from epilepsy, as "useless eater", as well as many other orders resulting in many deaths. A man who followed Hitler unquestioningly, with his eyes closed.

Rudolf Hess.

One of Reich's most important people. Strongly suffering from mental diseases. Paranoid.

The term "A banality of EVIL" comes to mind. I mean, most of those people were banal, damnly banal. And powerful. Responsible for many, many deaths and tragedies. This is what frightens me most about the Reich: how banal, ordinary these people really were. Folke Bernadotte wrote once about Himmler: "There was nothing scary about him, he looked so ordinary. You could pass him by in the street and not recognise who he was."

How terrible was Reich if such ordinary people were given such power? In a normal situation, they could become police officers, teachers, doctors etc. The defendants in the Einsatzgruppen commanders' trial were: a professor of university, a singer, a sportsman, scientists, teachers, lawyers...

(BTW Why Otto Ohlendorf was not mentioned in the movie?)

It's something the movie shows a bit insufficiently: the fact most of those people were so ordinary, so banal, and yet so terrible. Maybe a bit more emphasizing on Frick alone might make the image more complete.

Regarding the remorse: Seyss Inquart also admitted his responsibility. In his book, Speer says that he met him in May 1945 in Hamburg, just before he departed for Netherlands. Inquart was given a chance to escape (to Prague or Greenland) but refused. "My place is in Holland", he stated. "They'll supposedly arrest me when I get there."

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-There was more than one psychiatrist working with the defendants during the trial. The focus was on Gilbert because he had written a book about his experiences, which was one basis of information for the movie.

-The slaughter of the Jews was a central feature of the prosecution in the movie, but in reality the prosecution was more focused and more interested in the "aggressive war" and "criminal organization" angles. The prosecution also refused to use the term "genocide" in the list of indictments, even though Raphael Lempkin (who coined the term) pestered them continually to do so. >>>>


Gilbert was a psychologist. In addition, there were 2 American psychiatrists, Douglas Kelly, who was there for the 1st month of the trial (who also wrote a book before Gilbert's came out) and Leon Goldensohn, who assumed Kelly's duties for the rest of the trial when he left after the 1st month (Goldensohn, before he died, never had a chance to write a book--but he took meticulous notes that were then compiled and edited later by Robert Gellately who then formed a book from them, "The Nuremberg Interviews".)

With regards to the rest of your post, you are right with regards to the counts, they didn't focus as much on crimes of genocide, for instance, of Jews, gypsies, handicapped, mentally retarded as much as they perhaps should have done at the trials, but this Count 4 "Crimes against Humanity" was covered much in the movie. It was the most serious of the charges in my opinion and the trial in my opinion, should have focused more on it from a moral perspective and also from a legal one. The reason I say legal one is because for some of the other counts it seems hypocritical because the Allies also committed them, but of course, that could not be used in the Nazi's defense. Like for Count 2- Crimes of Aggression or Crimes Against Peace invading Poland would have qualified and yet, before Germany invaded it sat down with Stalin and composed a pact to divide Poland between both Germany and Russia--so the Russians would also have been guilty. And in Count 3, crimes committed in the conduct of War, that would include the bombings of Hiroshama and Nagasaki, for instance, which were brutal toward civilian populations therein. There are too many examples of this to mention. I think, though, in my opinion, the allies would have had a stronger case and the evidence would have been more than sufficient to lock most of these people away for life or put them to death by Count 4 alone. I guess one could argue that Stalin was also a vicious bastard (killed more people than Hitler) but never before, prior to Nazi Germany Hitler, had there been such a systematic program to wipe out an entire population of what were considered inferior peoples based on religion, race, sexual orientation, physical and mental handicap, etc. In fact, documents from Nuremberg show that the Nazis planned to exterminate 30 million people (not just the 6 million or so Jews killed) in light that they fit into one of the above categories. In Light of that, Count 4 would have been more than sufficient and there would have been less legal problems and technicalities had the Allies just stuck to tbat particular count--the most grievous one--anyway.

Here's another pretty glaring mistake.

Michael Ironside's character -the commandant of the prison- is shown with an inconsistent uniform. He's first shown with the shoulder patch of the First Infantry Division, but is wearing pilot's wings. Later, he's wearing this other shoulder patch but still has the wings (indicating Army Air Force) but is running an army jail.

In that same prison scene, Major Airey Neave visits Goering. His medal ribbons were all wrong. He didn't the campaign ribbons a British officer would have. As well, his Military Cross ribbon (which he received for escaping from Colditz Castle) was down at the bottom, when it should have been at the top.

He was titled Professor Doctor Ingenieur (Prof. Dr. Ing.)
I'll check this in his autobio, but I think thoise titles had nothing to do with his scientific achievements in Architecture, they were supposedly given to him by Hitler to honour Speer.

Btw you posted this on 19 March 2005.......

While Jackson was a great legal mind he was lacking as a prosecutor (according to the book by Persico and according to history texts I read while at University). His examination of Goring on the stands is generally considered to be a fiasco.