Judgment at Nuremberg
written by Abby Mann
Col.Lawson: The case is unusual in that the defendants are charged with crimes committed in the name of the law. These men together with their deceased or fugitive colleagues, are the embodiment of what passed for justice during the Third Reich. The defendants served as judges during the period of the Third Reich. Therefore you your honors serving as judges on the bench will be sitting in judgment of judges in the dock And this is as it should be. For only a judge knows how much more a court is than a courtroom it is a process and a spirit it is the house of law. The defendants knew this too, they knew courtrooms well. They sat in their black robes and they distorted, they perverted, they destroyed justice and law in Germany!
Judge Haywood (Spencer Tracy): Please watch the light, the interpreter cannot follow you.
Col.Lawson: I'm sorry, your Honor. They distorted, they perverted, they destroyed justice and law in Germany. Now this in it's self is a great crime. But the prosecution is not calling the defendants to account for violating constitutional guarantees of withholding due process of law. The prosecution is calling them to account for murder. Brutalities, torture, atrocities, they share with all the leaders of the Third Reich responsibility for the most malignant, the most calculated, the most devastating crimes in the history of all mankind. And the are more guilty than perhaps some of the others. For they had attained maturity long before Hitler's rise to power. Their minds weren't warped at an early age by Nazi teachings, they embraced the ideologies of the Third Reich as educated adults when they most of all should have valued justice. Well here they'll receive the justice they denied others. They'll be judged according to the evidence presented in this courtroom. The prosecution has nothing more.
Kudos and immense thanks go to NedAbbey for donating this monologue for
my page; much appreciation and my everlasting gratitude go to him.