Nuremberg

Nuremberg (/ˈnjʊərəmbɜːrɡ/; German: Nürnberg German pronunciation: [ˈnʏɐ̯nbɛɐ̯k]) is a city on the river Pegnitz and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) north of Munich. It is the second-largest city in Bavaria (after Munich), and the largest in Franconia (Franken). The population as of February 2015, is 517,498, which makes it Germany's fourteenth-largest city. The urban area also includes Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach with a total population of 763,854. The "European Metropolitan Area Nuremberg" has ca. 3.5 million inhabitants.

History

Middle Ages

Nuremberg was, according to the first documentary mention of the city in 1050, the location of an Imperial castle between the East Franks and the Bavarian March of the Nordgau. From 1050 to 1571, the city expanded and rose dramatically in importance due to its location on key trade routes. King Conrad III established a burgraviate, with the first burgraves coming from the Austrian House of Raab but, with the extinction of their male line around 1190, the burgraviate was inherited by the last count's son-in-law, of the House of Hohenzollern. From the late 12th century to the Interregnum (1254–73), however, the power of the burgraves diminished as the Hohenstaufen emperors transferred most non-military powers to a castellan, with the city administration and the municipal courts handed over to an Imperial mayor (German: Reichsschultheiß) from 1173/74. The strained relations between the burgraves and the castellan, with gradual transferral of powers to the latter in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, finally broke out into open enmity, which greatly influenced the history of the city.

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film directed by Stanley Kramer, written by Abby Mann and starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner and Montgomery Clift. Set in Nuremberg in 1948, the film centers on a military tribunal led by Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood (Tracy), before which four German judges and prosecutors stand accused of crimes against humanity for their involvement in atrocities committed under the Nazi regime. The film deals with non-combatant war crimes against a civilian population (i.e., crimes committed in violation of the Law of Nations or the Laws of War), the Holocaust, and with post-World War II geopolitical complexity of the Nuremberg Trials. This was because crucially, in both the film, and in historical fact; the atrocities committed were in fact not performed only by Hitler; his political cronies, henchmen, and para-military Storm Troopers. They were done (at Hitler’s direction, of course) by well-respected institutional leaders of German society; and by leaders in the other societies in German occupied Europe, where those leaders, readily agreed, acquiesced and enthusiastically cooperated with, in this aspect of the Hitler regime in Germany, and in German occupied territory, during the war. An earlier version of the story was broadcast as a television episode of Playhouse 90. Schell and Klemperer played the same roles in both productions.

Nuremberg (2000 film)

Nuremberg is a 2000 Canadian/United States television docudrama, based on the book Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial by Joseph E. Persico, that tells the story of the Nuremberg trials.

Plot summary

Part one

At the close of World War II, Hermann Göring (Brian Cox) surrenders to the Americans and enjoys the hospitality of a U.S. Air Force base. Samuel Rosenman (Max von Sydow), acting on the orders of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, recruits U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Alec Baldwin) to prepare a war crimes tribunal against Göring and the surviving Nazi leadership. Göring, Albert Speer (Herbert Knaup) and others are arrested for war crimes and imprisoned in a U.S. Army stockade at Bad Mondorf in Luxembourg. Jackson, his assistant Elsie Douglas (Jill Hennessy), and his prosecution team fly to Germany. Psychologist Gustave Gilbert (Matt Craven) arrives at the stockade with prisoner Hans Frank (Frank Moore), who has attempted suicide.

Jackson negotiates with Allied representatives Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (Christopher Plummer), General Iona Nikitchenko (Len Doncheff) and Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (Paul Hébert) to ensure a unified prosecution. Jackson selects the Nuremberg Palace of Justice for the site of the trials and reconstruction work commences. Göring and the others are stripped of their rank and transferred to the prison in Nuremberg, where they come into conflict with the guards under the command of the strict Colonel Burton C. Andrus (Michael Ironside). Major Airey Neave (Geoffrey Pounsett) serves Göring, Speer and the others with their indictments. U.S. judge Francis Biddle (Len Cariou) arrives to take control of the court but reluctantly passes the honour at Jackson’s insistence. Following the suicide of prisoner Robert Ley (Julien Poulin), round-the-clock watches are posted and Gilbert is appointed prisoner liaison.