Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Spencer Tracy: Chief Judge Dan Haywood

Photos 

Quotes 

• [last lines] 

  Ernst Janning : Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You *must* believe it, *You must* believe it!

  Judge Dan Haywood : Herr Janning, it "came to that" the *first time* you sentenced a man to death you *knew* to be innocent.

• 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!*

• Hans Rolfe : I'll make you a wager...

  Judge Dan Haywood : I don't make wagers.

  Hans Rolfe : [chuckles]  A gentleman's wager... in five years, the men you sentenced to life imprisonment will be free.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Herr Rolfe, I have admired your work in the court for many months. You are particularly brilliant in your use of logic...

  [Rolfe nods with an appreciative smile] 

  Judge Dan Haywood : -so, what you suggest may very well happen. It *is* logical, in view of the times in which we live. *But to be logical is not to be right*, and *nothing* on God's earth could ever *make it* right!

  [Rolfe wipes the smile from his face] 

• Capt. Harrison Byers : [during a tour of spacious judges' quarters]  I trust you'll be comfortable in this room, sir.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Captain, I have no doubt that the entire state of Maine would be comfortable in this room!

• Judge Dan Haywood : Herr Janning, you may proceed.

  Ernst Janning : I wish to testify about the Feldenstein case because it was the most significant trial of the period. It is important not only for the tribunal to understand it, but for the whole German people. But in order to understand it, one must understand the period in which it happened. 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 out 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! Re-militarize 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 begun 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 16 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. I had reached my verdict on the Feldenstein case before I ever came into the courtroom. I would have found him guilty, whatever the evidence. It was not a trial at all. It was a sacrificial ritual in which Feldenstein, the Jew, was the helpless victim.

  Hans Rolfe : Your Honor, I must interrupt. The defendant is not aware of what he's saying. He's not aware of the implications!

  Ernst Janning : I am aware. I am aware! My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of the concentration camps. Not aware. Where were we? Where were we when Hitler began shrieking his hate in Reichstag? Where were we when our neighbors were being dragged out in the middle of the night to Dachau? Where were we when every village in Germany has a railroad terminal where cattle cars were filled with children being carried out to their extermination! Where were we when they cried out in the night to us. Deaf, dumb, blind!

  Hans Rolfe : Your Honor, I must protest!

  Ernst Janning : My counsel says we were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the excuse: We were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn't know the details. But if we didn't know, it was because we didn't want to know.

  Emil Hahn : Traitor! Traitor!

  Judge Dan Haywood : Order! Order! Order! Put that man back in his seat and keep him there.

  Ernst Janning : I am going to tell them the truth. I am going to tell them the truth if the whole world conspires against it. I am going to tell them the truth about their Ministry of Justice. Werner Lammpe, an old man who cries into his Bible now, an old man who profited by the property expropriation of every man he sent to a concentration camp. Friedrich Hofstetter, the "good German" who knew how to take orders, who sent men before him to be sterilized like so many digits. Emil Hahn, the decayed, corrupt bigot, obsessed by the evil within himself. And Ernst Janning, worse than any of them because he knew what they were, and he went along with them. Ernst Janning: Who made his life excrement, because he walked with them.

• Mrs. Bertholt : I saw Mr. Perkins today. He told me they'd showed those pictures in the courtroom. Col. Lawson's favorite pictures. He drags them out at any pretext, doesn't he? Col. Lawson's private chamber of horrors. Is that what you think we are? Do you think we knew of those things? Do you think we wanted to murder women and children? Do you believe that? Do you?

  Judge Dan Haywood : Mrs. Bertholt, I don't know what to believe.

  Mrs. Bertholt : Good God. We're sitting here drinking. How could you think that we knew? We did not know. We did not know!

  Judge Dan Haywood : As far as I can make out, no one in this country knew.

• 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.

• Mrs. Bertholt : You see, I have a mission with the Americans, as Mr. Perkins can tell you.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Oh, what is that?

  Mrs. Bertholt : To convince you that we're not all monsters.

• 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?

• [first lines] 

  Judge Dan Haywood : I didn't know it was so bad.

• Judge Dan Haywood : Let's face it. Hitler is gone, Goebbels is gone. Goering is gone. Committed suicide before they could hang him. Now we're down to the business of judging the doctors, businessmen and judges. Some people think they shouldn't be judged at all.

  Sen. Burkette : So?

  Judge Dan Haywood : So it makes for a hell of a lack of candidates for the job. You had to beat the backwoods of Maine to come up with a hick like me.

• Judge Curtiss Ives : As a matter of fact, Dan, I've been wondering how you stand.

  Judge Dan Haywood : I'll clarify that for you, Curtiss. I'm a rock-ribbed Republican - who thought that Franklin Roosevelt was a great man.

  Judge Curtiss Ives : Oh, one of those.

• Mrs. Bertholt : You elect judges in the United States?

  Judge Dan Haywood : Yes, in some states.

  Mrs. Bertholt : I didn't know that.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Well, it's either one of the virtues or one of the defects of our judiciary system. I thought it was one of the virtues until last year, when I was defeated.

• 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 Curtiss Ives : That's one problem we have with the prosecution. It's filled with young radicals like Lawson.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Is that what Lawson is? A young radical?

  Judge Curtiss Ives : Well, he was a personal protégé of FDR.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Well, FDR had a few friends who weren't radicals, didn't he?

  Judge Curtiss Ives : Name one.

  Judge Dan Haywood : Wendell Wilkie.

  Judge Curtiss Ives : Wilkie? Is he your idea of a conservative?

• Judge Dan Haywood : Things haven't been very easy for you, have they?

  Mrs. Bertholt : I'm not used to them being easy. I'm not fragile, Judge Haywood.

• Judge Dan Haywood : Order! Does the defendant wish to make a statement?

  Ernst Janning : I wish to make a statement, yes.

• Capt. Harrison Byers : Will there be anything else?

  Judge Dan Haywood : No, I think I'll just take a walk around town on my own.

  Capt. Harrison Byers : Try the old section. Everyone stops for beer and sausage there.