NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY [The Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration]

NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY [The Schulberg/Waletzky Restoration] The first Nuremberg trial (formally known as the International Military Tribunal) was convened in 1945 in Nuremberg, Germany to try the top Nazi leaders. It had a dual purpose: to show the German public that the Nazi leadership had been given a fair trial and to create a film that would offer an enduring lesson for all mankind. NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY was originally made in 1948 by writer-director Stuart Schulberg, chief of the documentary film unit of the U.S. Military Government. Shown to Germans in 1948-49, it has now been restored and is being shown in U.S. theaters for the first time. Since the trial, the “Nuremberg principles” have been applied around the world when it has been necessary to prosecute war crimes or crimes against humanity. The film follows the structure of the trial, using the four counts of the indictment as its organizing principle. While much of it is set in the courtroom, NUREMBERG reconstructs the prosecution's case, and rebuts the defendants' assertions, by relying on the Nazis' own films. It derives power from its stark black and white cinematography and extremely graphic images of human suffering. –B.B.