Judgment at Nuremberg Quotes

Ernst Janning: There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: 'Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.' It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded... sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password. And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world! We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said 'go ahead, take it, take it! Take Sudetenland, take the Rhineland - remilitarize it - take all of Austria, take it! And then one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual began in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life. Your honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial. I was content to tend my roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized that in order to save it, he would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him do it - he has done it here in this courtroom. He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the sixteen year old girl, after all. Once more it is being done for love of country. It is not easy to tell the truth; but if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit it... whatever the pain and humiliation.

Judge Dan Haywood: 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 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 the other defendants were all depraved perverts - if the leaders of the Third Reich were sadistic monsters and maniacs - these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake or other natural catastrophes. But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget. The sterilization of men because of their political beliefs... The murder of children... How *easily* that can happen! There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the "protection" of the country. Of "survival". The answer to that is: *survival as what*? A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. *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 in our decision here that this is what *we* stand for: *justice, truth... and the value of a single human being!*

Col. Tad Lawson: One thing about Americans, we're not cut out to be occupiers. We're new at it and not very good at it.

Ernst Janning: We have fallen on happy times, Herr Hahn. In old times it would have made your day if I'd deigned to say good morning to you. Now that we are here in this place together... you feel obliged to tell me what to do with my life... Listen to me, Herr Hahn, there have been terrible things that have happened to me in my life. But the worst thing that has ever happened... is to find myself in the company of men like you.

Mrs. Bertholt: We must forget if we want to go on living.

Hans Rolfe: The statement: "My country, right or wrong" was expressed by a great American patriot. It is no less true for a German patriot.

Emil Hahn: Today, you sentence me! Tomorrow, the Bolsheviks sentence you!

Hans Rolfe: Your Honor, it is my duty to defend Ernst Janning, and yet Ernst Janning has said he is guilty. There's no doubt, he feels his guilt. He made a great error in going along with the Nazi movement, hoping it would be good for his country. But, if he is to be found guilty, there are others who also went along, who also must be found guilty. Ernst Janning said, "We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams." Why did we succeed, Your Honor? What about the rest of the world? Did it not know the intentions of the Third Reich? Did it not hear the words of Hitler's broadcast all over the world? Did it not read his intentions in Mein Kampf, published in every corner of the world? Where's the responsibility of the Soviet Union, who signed in 1939 the pact with Hitler, enabled him to make war? Are we not to find Russia guilty? Where's the responsibility of the Vatican, who signed in 1933 the Concordat with Hitler, giving him his first tremendous prestige? Are we not to find the Vatican guilty? Where's the responsibility of the world leader, Winston Churchill, who said in an open letter to the London Times in 1938 - 1938! Your Honor - "were England to suffer national disaster should pray to God to send a man of the strength of mind and will of an Adolf Hitler!" Are we not to find Winston Churchill guilty? Where is the responsibility of those American industrialists, who helped Hitler to rebuild his armaments and profited by that rebuilding? Are we not to find the American industrialists guilty? No, Your Honor. No! Germany alone is not guilty: The whole world is as responsible for Hitler's Germany. It is an easy thing to condemn one man in the dock. It is easy to condemn the German people to speak of the basic flaw in the German character that allowed Hitler to rise to power and at the same time positively ignore the basic flaw of character that made the Russians sign pacts with him, Winston Churchill praise him, American industrialists profit by him! Ernst Janning said he is guilty. If he is, Ernst Janning's guilt is the world's guilt - no more and no less.

Capt. Harrison Byers: The tribunal is now in session. God bless the United States and this honorable tribunal.

Hans Rolfe: Should Ernst Janning have carried out the laws of his country? Or should he have refused to carry them out and become a traitor? This is the crux of the issue at the bottom of this trial. The defense is as dedicated to finding responsibility as is the prosecution. For it is not only Ernst Janning who is on trial here, it is the German people.

Col. Tad 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, 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.

Col. Tad Lawson: They distorted, they perverted, they destroyed justice and law in Germany. Now, this in itself is undoubtedly a great crime. But the prosecution is not calling the defendants to account for violating constitutional guarantees or 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 they are perhaps more guilty than 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. Here they'll receive the justice they denied others.

Capt. Harrison Byers: I thought if anybody was going to indoctrinate her, it might as well be me.

Judge Kenneth Norris: There are a lot of things that happened here that nobody understands.

Col. Tad Lawson: Mrs. Bertholt doesn't hold a burning passion for me. I prosecuted her husband.

Col. Tad Lawson: [drunkenly] We're fair Americans and true-blue. We mustn't do anything that's out of order. No, sir. We can't do anything that's out of order. There are no Nazis in Germany. Didn't you know that, Judge? The Eskimos invaded Germany and took over. That's how all those terrible things happened. It wasn't the fault of the Germans. It was the fault of those damn Eskimos!

Mrs. Bertholt: I was taught discipline. A very special kind of discipline.

Mrs. Bertholt: When I was a child, we used to go for long rides into the country in summertime. But I was never allowed to run to the lemonade stand with the others. I was told, "Control your thirst. Control hunger. Control emotion." It has served me well.

Mrs. Bertholt: Men like Janning, my husband and I, we hated Hitler. I want you to know that. And he hated us. He hated my husband because he was a real war hero - and the little corporal couldn't tolerate that. And he hated him because he married into nobility, which was my family. Hitler was in awe of the nobility, but he hated it. That's why it's so ironic, what happened.

Mrs. Bertholt: What did he know of the crimes they cited him for? He was placed on trial with the other military leaders. It was part of their revenge. The victors always take on the vanquished. It was political murder.

Hugo Wallner: It is easy for you to say go. After the trial you will go back to America, but we must stay and live with these people.

Irene Hoffman: He told me that it was no use to repeat my story, because, no one would believe me. There had been a race defilement and the only pardon for this was to kill the violator.

Mrs. Bertholt: One can't live with hate, I know that. Dan, we have to forget, if we are to go on living.

Hans Rolfe: I want to call a halt to these proceedings. If we allow them to discredit every German like you, we lose the right to rule ourselves forever. We have to look at the future. We can't look back now.

Hans Rolfe: Do you want the Americans to stay here forever? Do you want that? I could show you a picture of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thousands and thousands of burned bodies. Women and children. Is that their superior morality?

Brig. Gen. Matt Merrin: I don't know what's going to happen. But I do know this: If Berlin goes, Germany goes. If Germany goes, Europe goes.

Brig. Gen. Matt Merrin: The thing to do is survive, isn't it? Survive as best we can, but survive.

Col. Tad Lawson: Just for laughs, Matt, what was the war all about? What was it about?

Emil Hahn: Germany was fighting for its life. Certain measures were needed to protect it from its enemies. I cannot say that I am sorry we applied those measures. We were a bulwark against Bolshevism. We were a pillar of Western culture. A bulwark and a pillar the West may yet wish to retain.

Judge Dan 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 Dan Haywood: 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 Dan Haywood: 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.