A Case for the History Books

Within months of the end of World War II, 22 leaders of Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich--most claiming they were just following the Fuehrer’s orders--were put on trial in Nuremberg, Germany. There were four counts leveled against each of them: conspiracy, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Conducted by a joint U.S.-British-French-Soviet tribunal, the trial lasted 218 days. Testimony from more than 360 witnesses was introduced and 200 affidavits were put into evidence. Verdicts were announced on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 of 1946: three acquittals, 12 sentences of death by hanging and seven life sentences or less.

Director Stanley Kramer dramatized the infamous trial in his 1961 film, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” which starred Spencer Tracy and Maximilian Schell in the latter’s Oscar-winning role.

Now TNT is revisiting this extraordinary historical event in the new four-hour drama, “‘Nuremberg,” based on the book, “Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial,” by Joseph E. Persico.

Alec Baldwin stars as lead prosecutor Chief Justice Robert Jackson, Jill Henessey as his secretary, Brian Cox as Nazi Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering and Christopher Plummer as Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the British prosecutor.

“Nuremberg,” which airs Sunday and Monday on the cable network, is not a remake of the film. In fact, says Baldwin, “Kramer’s film deals with fiction--a kind of fictional amalgam of historical figures. We are doing the court transcripts of the trial.”

Just as the trial was beginning in late 1945, the Cold War was beginning to freeze relationships between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and that provided its own framework for the trial.

“There were people in the State Department telling the military tribunal to get this thing over with as quickly as possible because the Germans were now needed as allies,” Baldwin explains. “[Justice] Jackson was like the Rodgers and Hammerstein of war crimes tribunals. He was going to invent the form.”

The actor, who also served as an executive producer on the film, discovered in his research that Jackson was not an experienced trial lawyer--he didn’t even have a law degree--so initially he didn’t put witnesses on the stand.

“He went in the direction of pursuing a paper trail of violated treaties and agreements the Germans had abused,” Baldwin explains. “His people around him and other Allies were basically very disappointed in Jackson. They thought he was going to blow the whole trial.”

“Jackson was ill-prepared,” offers Cox, who, as the terrifyingly manipulative Goering, galvanizes the small screen.

Goering, who was found guilty and committed suicide just hours before he was scheduled to be hung, had established the German secret police that became known as the Gestapo. He created the first concentration camps before relinquishing them to Heinrich Himmler in 1934. He also had commanded the Luftwaffe in the attack on Poland. By the war’s end, Goering was no longer a member of Hitler’s inner circle and had been targeted by the Nazi leader for assassination.

He proved to be a brilliant and troublesome defendant, constantly getting the upper hand with Jackson. “For the film, we have to see Goering lose it a little, but, in reality, Goering ran rings around Jackson,” Cox says. “The people who were really prepared were the British.”

From watching the kinescopes, Cox decided that Goering was vain and enjoyed himself during the trial. Still, Cox says, “he knew he was a dead man. He was never in any doubt he was going to die.”

*

Part I of “Nuremberg” airs Sunday at 8 and 10 p.m. and midnight; Part II airs Monday at 8 and 10 p.m. and midnight on TNT. The network has rated it TV-14-V (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14 with special advisories for violence).