SPENCER TRACY as CHIEF JUDGE DAN HAYWOOD in Judgment At Nuremberg (1961): "You were speaking of crimes against humanity... saying that the defendants were not responsible for their acts.
I'd like you to explain that to me."
JUDGE CURTISS IVES: "I've just been explaining it."
JUDGE HAYWOOD: "Maybe.
But all I've heard is a lot of legalistic double-talk and rationalization.
You know, Curtiss, when I first became a judge... I knew there were certain people in town I wasn't supposed to touch. I knew that if I was to remain a judge, this was so. But how in God's name do you expect me to look the other way... at the murder of six million people?"
JUDGE KENNETH NORRIS: "I'm sure he didn't mean that."
JUGE IVES: "I'm not asking you to look the other way at them. I'm asking you, what good is it going to do
to pursue this policy?"
JUDGE HAYWOOD: "Curtiss, you were saying that the men are not responsible for their acts.
You're going to have to explain that to me.
You're going to have to explain it
very carefully."
...
JUDGE HAYWOOD: "The tribunal is now in session.
God bless the United States of America and this honorable tribunal.
The trial conducted before this tribunal began over eight months ago.
The record of evidence is more than 10,000 pages long... and final arguments of counsel have been concluded.
Simple murders and atrocities do not constitute... the gravamen of the charges in this indictment.
Rather, the charge is that of conscious participation
in a nationwide, government-organized system... of cruelty and injustice...
in violation of every moral and legal principle known to all civilized nations.
The tribunal has carefully studied the record and found therein abundant evidence to support... beyond a reasonable doubt...
the charges against these defendants.
Herr Rolfe... in his very skillful defense...
has asserted that there are others who must share the ultimate responsibility for what happened here in Germany.
There is truth in this.
The real complaining party at the bar in this courtroom...
is civilization.
But the tribunal does say that the men in the dock are responsible for their actions.
Men who sat in black robes in judgment on other men.
Men who took part in the enactment of laws and decrees the purpose of which was the extermination of human beings.
Men who, in executive positions actively participated in the enforcement of these laws illegal even under German law.
The principle of criminal law in every civilized society...
has this in common:
Any person
who sways another
to commit murder...
any person who furnishes...
the lethal weapon for the purpose of the crime...
any person who is an accessory to the crime...
is guilty.
Herr Rolfe further asserts that the defendant Janning was an extraordinary jurist and acted in what he thought
was the best interest of his country.
There is truth in this also.
Janning, to be sure is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did.
But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and the death of millions by the government of which he was a part.
Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial.
If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts...
If all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe.
But this trial has shown that under a national crisis ordinary, even able and extraordinary men, can delude themselves into the commission of crimes, so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination.
No one who has sat through the trial can ever forget them.
Men sterilized because of political belief.
A mockery made of friendship and faith.
The murder of children.
How easily it can happen.
There are those in our own country, too, who today speak of the protection of country, of survival.
A decision must be made in the life of every nation...
At the very moment
when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat.
Then it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy...
to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way.
Only, the answer to that is: Survival as what?
A country isn't a rock.
It's not an extension of one's self.
It's what it stands for.
It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult.
Before the people of the world,
let it now be noted,
that here in our decision,
this is what we stand for:
Justice.
Truth.
And the value of a single human being."
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