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Nuremberg
Genre	Docudrama
Written by	David W. Rintels
Directed by	Yves Simoneau
Starring	Alec Baldwin Brian Cox Christopher Plummer Jill Hennessy Matt Craven Colm Feore Christopher Heyerdahl Michael Ironside Max von Sydow
Composer	Richard Grégoire
Country of origin	Canada United States
Original language	English
No. of episodes	2
Production
Executive producers	Gerald W. Abrams, Alec Baldwin, Bernard F. Conners, Joanathan Cornick, Suzanne Girard, Peter Allen Sussman
Producers	Mychèle Boudrias Ian McDougall
Cinematography	Alain Dostie
Editor	Yves Langlois
Running time	180 minutes
Production companies	Alliance Atlantis CTV British American Entertainment Cypress Films Les Productions La Fête Inc.
Original release
Network	TNT (United States) CTV (Canada)
Release	July 16 (2000-07-16) – July 17, 2000 (2000-07-17)

Nuremberg is a 2000Canadian-American two-part television docudrama, based on Joseph E. Persico's bookNuremberg: Infamy on Trial byJoseph E. Persico, that depicts theNuremberg trials. It starsAlec Baldwin asRobert H. Jackson,Brian Cox asHermann Göring, along withMax von Sydow,Christopher Plummer andJill Hennessy. The program received mixed to positive reviews, while the performances of Baldwin and Cox received widespread acclaim.

Shortly after the end ofWorld War II, ReichsmarschallHermann Göring surrenders to the United States and enjoys the hospitality of aU.S. Army Air Force base.Samuel Rosenman, acting on the orders ofU.S. PresidentHarry S. Truman, recruitsU.S. Supreme Court JusticeRobert H. Jackson to prepare a war crimes tribunal against Göring and the survivingNazi leadership. Göring,Albert Speer and others are arrested forwar crimes and imprisoned in aU.S. Army stockade atBad Mondorf inLuxembourg. Jackson, his assistant Elsie Douglas, and his prosecution team fly toGermany. PsychologistGustave Gilbert arrives at the stockade with prisonerHans Frank, who has attemptedsuicide.

Jackson negotiates withAllied representativesSir David Maxwell-Fyfe, GeneralIona Nikitchenko andHenri Donnedieu de Vabres to ensure a unified prosecution. Jackson selects theNuremberg Palace of Justice for the site of the trials and reconstruction work commences. Göring and the others are stripped of their rank and transferred to the prison inNuremberg, where they come into conflict with the guards under the command of the strict ColonelBurton C. Andrus. MajorAirey Neave serves Göring, Speer and the others with their indictments. U.S. judgeFrancis Biddle arrives to take control of the court but reluctantly passes the honour at Jackson's insistence. Following thesuicide of prisonerRobert Ley, round-the-clock watches are posted and Gilbert is appointed prisoner liaison.

Sir Geoffrey Lawrence as presiding judge opens the trial with all defendants pleading not guilty, and Jackson gives a stirring opening statement. At lunch, a jovial Göring holds court over the other defendants while Speer begins to show signs of remorse. Maxwell-Fyfe puts forward an emotive eyewitness account of the Nazis'genocidal policies towardJews and others, while Jackson reads out dry documentation. As the court begins to tire of Jackson's meticulous approach, Maxwell-Fyfe urges pushing on to the witness interviews, which reveal the horrors of theconcentration camps. The court is shaken by documentary footage of the camps; Göring initially appears unsettled but scoffs it as "Propaganda," as he is led from the courtroom back to his jail cell.

Speer explains Göring's dominance to Gilbert and insists that his control over the others must be broken. Göring takes the stand and begins using it to speak to theGerman people. Jackson, at Gilbert's suggestion, has Göring isolated. Undercross-examination, Göring outmaneuvers and humiliates Jackson, who later accuses Biddle of giving Göring free rein in court. Douglas talks Jackson out of tendering his resignation, and the two share a kiss. Under advice from Maxwell-Fyfe, Jackson returns to the courtroom to confront Göring with evidence of his crimes against the Jews and successfully dismisses the defendant's denials.

At aChristmas party, the German housekeeper refuses to serve theSoviets, but Douglas rescues the situation before slipping away with Jackson. Gilbert visits the defendants and, under Jackson's advice, attempts to convince them to take responsibility for their crimes. Andrus relaxes the prison rules for Christmas, and Göring shares a friendly drink with his guard, Lt. Tex Wheelis. The cross-examination of the defendants intensifies and the defence callsRudolf Höss, who casually reveals the horrors ofAuschwitz. Göring makes a commentary on American racism to Gilbert. Speer is implicated in theenslavement of foreign workers by fellow defendantFritz Sauckel and in response accepts collective responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi regime.

Gilbert interviews Göring's wifeEmmy, who reveals thatHitler had ordered them all executed, which led to the family's surrender. Jackson is moved by Gilbert'ssummation of his examinations – that the source of the evil behindNazi Germany was a complete lack ofempathy – to give an impassioned closing statement. Göring uses his final statement to condemn the trial, and is sentenced along with several others to death byhanging. Speer uses his final statement to commend the tribunal and is sentenced to 20 years in prison. Göring commitssuicide after his request to be executed byfiring squad is denied. Andrus presides over the executions of the others while Jackson and Douglas head home.

Baldwin was drawn to the role as Court Justice Robert Jackson.^[1] Actual footage of camps, taken from the documentaryNazi Concentration and Prison Camps (1945), was included in this miniseries.

In the United States, the miniseries aired on the networkTNT, where it received the highest-ever viewership ratings for a basic cable miniseries up to that point.^[2]

Reviewer Mark Lawson praised the performances of Baldwin and Cox but had mixed feelings on the production details, in particular the romantic subplot.^[3] Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide have similar thoughts but praised Cox for capturing "arrogance and supreme sense of self-importance".^[4]

Reviewer Guy Lodge ofVariety wrote of the series, "an engaging but mostly unprovocative pic, a decent, slickly packaged, but not especially thoughtful, primer about the true "trial of the century.""^[5]

Julie Salamon called the series a "tense, exciting and supremely awesome drama...[that] puts the story of the trial in simple human terms and yet brings it all into a drama of monumental unity and scope".^[6]

Another reviewer praised the series.^[7] Richard Corliss praised the performances.^[8] Others that were mixed or negative felt Baldwin to be miscast.^[9]

John Winters felt the series "has more emotional power than any melodrama and the inaccuracies elsewhere in the script should not be used as an excuse to deny the truth of what happened".^[10]

The scholar Steven N. Lipkin notes that docudrama presents Jackson and Göring as two different performers during the course of the trial.^[11]

The programme was presented as being partly fictionalised, with some characters and events created for dramatic purposes.Göring, hiswife, anddaughter are depicting driving to surrender to an American air corps base in Germany on May 12, 1945. In reality, Göring, after sending an aide to Brigadier General Robert I. Stack in which he offered to surrender toDwight D. Eisenhower personally, was discovered and arrested in a traffic jam nearRadstadt by a detachment of theSeventh United States Army, which was sent through the German lines to find him and bring him to a secure American position, on May 6, 1945.^[21]

Justice Jackson is portrayed as initially failing in his cross-examination of Gӧring and emerging triumphant on the second day. In reality, the cross-examination was a disaster and severely damaged Jackson's reputation. This situation was recovered by Maxwell Fyfe.^[22] The series implies Jackson engineered the tribunal and carried out the prosecution almost single-handedly. In reality, scores of lawyers, researchers, clerks, and others were involved. The love affair between Jackson and Douglas is fictional.^[23]

When the defendants are indicted by Major Neave, they all make oral statements. In reality, these statements were collected by CaptainGustave Gilbert. He asked the defendants to write their first reactions on a copy of the indictments.^[24]

Albert Speer is depicted being arrested while giving a lecture to American soldiers. In reality, Speer was arrested along withKarl Dönitz andAlfred Jodl inFlensburg where they had set up a provisional government.^[25]

Captain Gilbert is graciously given the right to talk to the prisoners by Col. Andrus in exchange for a library and an exercise field. In reality, Gilbert was specifically appointed to talk to the prisoners by the US military. The idea was that Andrus was to be informed by Gilbert about the state of mind of the prisoners.^[26]

In 2017, parts 1 & 2 were released online on Canada Media Fund's Encore+ YouTube channel.

• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
• Nuremberg (2025 film), starringRussell Crowe as Göring

• Lipkin, Steven N. (2011).Docudrama Performs the Past: Arenas of Argument in Films based on True Stories. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.ISBN 9781443827874.

• Nuremberg atIMDb
• Nuremberg atRotten Tomatoes

• 2000s Canadian drama television series
• 2000s Canadian television miniseries
• American biographical series
• American television docudramas
• Canadian television docudramas
• Cultural depictions of Albert Speer
• Cultural depictions of Hermann Göring
• English-language Canadian films
• Films about capital punishment
• Gemini and Canadian Screen Award for Best Television Film or Miniseries winners
• Nuremberg in fiction
• Nuremberg trials
• Primetime Emmy Award–winning television series
• Television series about the aftermath of the Holocaust
• Television shows directed by Yves Simoneau
• Television shows set in Germany
• Drama television series about World War II
• Cultural depictions of Franz von Papen
• Cultural depictions of Karl Dönitz

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from April 2014
• All articles needing additional references
• Use mdy dates from March 2025
• Rotten Tomatoes ID same as Wikidata