I saw “Nuremberg” this weekend too. It’s a shame it got no nominations at all. At Least Russell Crowe should have got Best Actor.
It was a good movie. I watched it alone on my laptop in my living room. I did find myself getting emotional through some of the scenes, especially the concentration camp film, despite having seen many of those clips previously.
I read the book "The Nazi and the Psychiatrist," which the movie is based on. It was many years ago, and I gave the book to my oldest son after I'd finished reading it. I'm interested in history, and read a lot of non-fiction history books. I've read biographies of Hitler, Reinhard Heydrich, along with other topics related to the Third Reich. I've got two books in my unread pile on Albert Speer, one written by himself, and another written by a German female journalist who conducted many in-person interviews with Speer after his release from prison. That book is titled: "Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth by Gitta Soreney. It was published in 1995. Soreney passed in 2012.
I've been slowly making my way through the Nuremberg trial transcripts on my Kindle, as well as William L. Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." After I watched the movie this past weekend, I dug out a book that I bought quite a while ago, but never got to. It's called "The Nuremberg Interviews: An American Psychiatrist's Conversations With the Defendants and Witnesses" by Dr. Leon Goldensohn who replaced Dr. Douglas Kelley about six weeks into the trials. Goldensohn had planned to write a book, but succumbed to TB and heart problems before he could get started. The book is edited by Robert Gellately, who received the doctors interview notes from family members after he died. Gellately went through all his interview notebooks, and put together, concise renderings of the interviews that Goldensohn had conducted. My paperback copy was published in 2004.
I've only gotten through one interview so far, and that was with Admiral Karl Dönitz. The biggest thrill Dönitz got was when the Chief of Staff of some American Admiral who was visiting the trials and had personally conveyed greetings from the American Admiral to Dönitz through his defense lawyer. Dönitz told the doctor: "Your American Admiral said he held me in the highest esteem, and thought that I had conducted my defense perfectly. He said through his Chief of Staff that my conduct was beyond reproach and that he had the greatest admiration for me." Dönitz didn't know the name of the American Admiral, but expressed the importance of the greeting from his lawyer. He continued to mention that during interviews. I believe he thought he was going to get acquitted because of it. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.