Comparing Nuremberg and ‘Nuremberg’: History & the Imagination at the IMT in Fact & Fiction

The International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg was always going to be a highly visible media trial. Perhaps tellingly, The Times’s correspondent Robert Cooper had cause to note ahead of the trial that “[b]y dint of much American ingenuity the small courtroom …[had been] completely transformed […]. There was far more of Hollywood about the [new] lay-out than of a British court.”

The IMT was certainly partly cinematic spectacle and yet it would not be until the US/Canadian miniseries in 2000, entitled simply Nuremberg, that the IMT was put on the screen. In this talk Dr Jordan considers the relationship between the IMT and its screen counterpart, examining some of the (many) inaccuracies in the recreation, and in particular how it re-interprets the trials’ evidence and purpose so as to position the attempted extermination of the Jews in Europe at the heart of the proceedings.

Dr James Jordan is based at the University of Southampton where he holds the position of Karten Lecturer at the Parkes Institute for Jewish/non-Jewish Relations.