Synopsis

In the aftermath of the Second World War, American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley is assigned to evaluate the mental competency of the captured Nazi leadership awaiting trial at Nuremberg, tasked specifically with assessing Hermann Göring, Hitler’s former second-in-command, in the months leading up to the tribunal that will judge the surviving Nazi leadership for crimes against humanity and the unprecedented atrocities of the Holocaust.

As Kelley conducts extensive interviews and psychological evaluation of Göring, he finds himself drawn into an uneasy, intellectually fraught relationship with a man who proves neither simply monstrous nor readily explicable through any convenient psychiatric category, forcing Kelley to grapple with deeply unsettling questions about whether Göring’s capacity for such atrocity reflects some specific, identifiable psychological pathology or whether it instead reveals a far more disturbing possibility: that ordinary human psychology itself is fully capable of producing and rationalizing genocidal evil under the right conditions.

As the tribunal proceeds toward its historic verdicts, presenting the world with unprecedented documentary evidence of the Holocaust’s full scope and horror, Kelley’s own sustained proximity to Göring’s calculating intelligence and persistent self-justification takes a genuine psychological toll on him, complicating any simple narrative in which the pursuit of understanding evil leaves the pursuer entirely unaffected by such sustained, intimate engagement with it.

Analysis

The Discomfort of Evil Without Easy Explanation

Kelley’s sustained evaluation of Göring resists any comfortable, clarifying diagnosis that would neatly separate the Nazi leader’s capacity for atrocity from ordinary human psychology, forcing an unsettling confrontation with the possibility that genocidal evil does not require unique psychiatric pathology to occur, but can instead emerge from recognizably human capacities for rationalization, ambition, and moral evasion.

This refusal to offer easy diagnostic explanation resists the comforting assumption that history’s worst atrocities require monstrous, categorically different perpetrators, insisting instead on the far more unsettling possibility that ordinary human psychology remains genuinely capable of producing such evil under sufficiently corrupting conditions.

Justice Requiring Documentation as Much as Verdict

The Nuremberg tribunal’s historic significance lies not merely in the verdicts it eventually reaches but in its unprecedented, deliberate effort to comprehensively document and publicly establish the full scope of Nazi atrocity through direct evidence and testimony, creating a permanent historical record specifically designed to resist later denial or minimization.

This emphasis on documentation alongside verdict suggests that genuine justice for atrocities of this unprecedented scale requires not merely punishing individual perpetrators but establishing an undeniable, permanent public record of what actually occurred, recognizing that the historical record itself constitutes an essential component of justice owed to victims and to future generations.

Sustained Engagement With Evil Exacting a Genuine Toll

Kelley’s extended, intimate psychological engagement with Göring’s calculating self-justification exacts a genuine, disturbing psychological cost on him, complicating any assumption that professional detachment can fully protect a person from being affected by sustained, close engagement with someone capable of genocidal rationalization.

This portrayal of sustained engagement with evil exacting a genuine toll offers an honest account of the real psychological risk involved in the necessary work of understanding and confronting perpetrators of atrocity, suggesting that such essential work, however important for justice and historical understanding, is not without genuine cost to those who undertake it.

Self-Justification Persisting Even Amid Undeniable Evidence

Göring’s persistent self-justification and refusal to genuinely reckon with the moral weight of his actions, maintained even as the tribunal presents overwhelming, undeniable documentary evidence of the atrocities committed under his authority, illustrates how thoroughly a person can insulate themselves from genuine moral reckoning even when confronted with comprehensive, incontrovertible evidence of their own culpability.

This portrayal of persistent self-justification amid undeniable evidence offers a sobering account of how thoroughly human beings can resist genuine moral accountability even under the most extreme circumstances, suggesting that external evidence and legal verdict alone, however necessary, cannot guarantee genuine internal reckoning or remorse from those being held accountable.

Questions for Discussion

1. Kelley’s evaluation of Göring resists any comfortable diagnosis that would separate his capacity for atrocity from ordinary human psychology. What does this resistance suggest about the disturbing possibility that genocidal evil can emerge from recognizably human capacities rather than unique pathology?

2. The Nuremberg tribunal emphasizes comprehensive documentation of atrocities alongside its verdicts. What does this suggest about what genuine justice for unprecedented atrocity actually requires, beyond punishing individual perpetrators?

3. Kelley’s sustained engagement with Göring takes a genuine psychological toll on him. What does this suggest about the real cost involved in the necessary work of understanding and confronting perpetrators of atrocity?

4. Göring persists in self-justification even amid overwhelming documentary evidence of Nazi atrocities. What does this persistence suggest about the limits of external evidence and legal verdict alone in producing genuine moral accountability?

5. What responsibility do psychiatrists and other professionals bear when their work requires sustained, intimate engagement with perpetrators of severe atrocity, given the genuine toll such engagement can exact?

6. Is understanding a perpetrator’s psychology, as Kelley attempts with Göring, a necessary component of justice, a risk of inappropriately humanizing atrocity, or both simultaneously? Explain your reasoning.

7. How does the film’s focus on Kelley’s psychological evaluation, rather than solely on the tribunal’s legal proceedings, shape your understanding of what the Nuremberg trials were ultimately trying to accomplish?

8. What do you think the film ultimately suggests about the relationship between legal justice, historical documentation, and genuine moral reckoning, given Göring’s persistent self-justification despite the tribunal’s verdict?