In the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremburg, accountability, responsibility, and guilt constitute the main issues that Judge Haywood must take into account when trying the cases of former judges under the Nazi regime. One of the biggest questions raised in this film, is whether or not judges have a responsibility to their moral conscience or just to those who are above them in a hierarchy. The prosecuting attorney Colonel Tad Lawson argues that they are, while the attorney for the defendants Hans Rolfe argues the position that if his clients are to be found guilty, then many other parties are to be as well. One of the film’s most iconic scenes starts at 2:21:25, where Ernst Janning (a defendant) beings to make a statement to the court on a case he tried in the past, but becomes a speech in which he outlines his position on whether he and his fellow judges are guilty or not. This poignant scene, in a sense, could be used to encapsulate the ideas laid out in this film. Janning opens by giving some background information on the time period the case was being tried in. He says that the Germans were very fearful, that they had “fear of…show more content… Towards the end of his speech, Janning does a great job summing up how he feels about his and the other judge’s guilt and responsibility in what they are being tried for. Janning states that “we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds (rather than million). Does that make us any less guilty? Maybe we didn’t know details…because we didn’t want to know.” He goes further and closes by describing himself: “And Ernst Janning, worse than any of them (the other judges on trial) because he knew what they were, and e wen along with them. Ernst Janning: who made his life excrement, because he walked with
