Judgment at Nuremberg: Guilt=Guilty
The film, Judgement at Nuremberg, gives a fictional recreation of the trials of Nazi generals, judges, and other professionals involved in the Holocaust.
While watching the movie I was a bit frustrated at why a whole trial was necessary for the persecution of known Holocaust facilitators. Almost all of the people put on trial expressed great guilt and attempted to prove to the judges that they were not aware of the crimes against humanity that Hitler and his regime were committing. They express that they were simply following the laws of the leader they, and most Germans, democratically elected.
Throughout the movie, I kept trying to answer the question of whether a known crime can be considered a crime if it is a law. If the answer is no, then hypothetically everyone on trial should be able to go free since they were simply following the rules established by their state. However, if the answer is yes (which I believe it to be) then each and every person on trial made a logical choice to follow a law that they knew to be a crime or at least explicitly wrong.
The legality of the Holocaust is complex, but the morality of it is plain and simple. Even though those on trial were following the law, the fact that they expressed such extreme guilt signifies that they knew they were aiding to genocide and chose to turn a blind eye to reality. Some claimed patriotism and others claimed they had no idea what was happening, both excuses made me wonder if there is room for a conscious within the law? How can we distinguish between what is right and what is wrong if the law promotes wrong? In such a case, who is right, the person who goes against the law to promote what is right or the person who follows the law and promotes what is wrong? As a citizen, it is difficult to feel liberated within laws. Citizens are essentially meant to be a slave to the laws established by the state. There are justifiable and immediate consequences from defying the law that, in many cases, are unfair.
In the case of the film and the Holocaust in general, I'd like to think that it was a devastation that was 100% avoidable if there was room for conscience within the law and the right people took the right steps to question and eventually intercept Hitler's reign of terror. However, that would be entrusting people to sacrifice whatever incentives and/or advantages they received and entrust in their moral sense instead.
While watching the movie I was a bit frustrated at why a whole trial was necessary for the persecution of known Holocaust facilitators. Almost all of the people put on trial expressed great guilt and attempted to prove to the judges that they were not aware of the crimes against humanity that Hitler and his regime were committing. They express that they were simply following the laws of the leader they, and most Germans, democratically elected.
Throughout the movie, I kept trying to answer the question of whether a known crime can be considered a crime if it is a law. If the answer is no, then hypothetically everyone on trial should be able to go free since they were simply following the rules established by their state. However, if the answer is yes (which I believe it to be) then each and every person on trial made a logical choice to follow a law that they knew to be a crime or at least explicitly wrong.
The legality of the Holocaust is complex, but the morality of it is plain and simple. Even though those on trial were following the law, the fact that they expressed such extreme guilt signifies that they knew they were aiding to genocide and chose to turn a blind eye to reality. Some claimed patriotism and others claimed they had no idea what was happening, both excuses made me wonder if there is room for a conscious within the law? How can we distinguish between what is right and what is wrong if the law promotes wrong? In such a case, who is right, the person who goes against the law to promote what is right or the person who follows the law and promotes what is wrong? As a citizen, it is difficult to feel liberated within laws. Citizens are essentially meant to be a slave to the laws established by the state. There are justifiable and immediate consequences from defying the law that, in many cases, are unfair.
In the case of the film and the Holocaust in general, I'd like to think that it was a devastation that was 100% avoidable if there was room for conscience within the law and the right people took the right steps to question and eventually intercept Hitler's reign of terror. However, that would be entrusting people to sacrifice whatever incentives and/or advantages they received and entrust in their moral sense instead.
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