Friday, 8 May 2026 marked the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. On this day of remembrance and reflection, the Academy’s Director, Professor Dr Christoph Safferling, took part in a screening of the film Nuremberg, alongside Nina Lutz, Director of the Memorium Nuremberg Trials, at the Casablanca Cinema in Nuremberg.
James Vanderbilt's film Nuremberg, based on the 2014 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, deals with the figure of the psychiatrist Douglas M. Kelley, who examined the defendants in the run-up to the Nuremberg Trials.
Following the screening, the discussion, moderated by Matthias Damm, Director of the Casablanca Cinema, gave the audience the opportunity to separate fact from fiction, history from its dramatised retelling. The conversation also explored the legacy of these trials and the value of the film as a “gateway” for the public into questions of international justice, all the more so as we marked last year the 80th anniversary of the start of the trials and as questions of justice find themselves nowadays at the heart of public debate. Furthermore, the discussion provided an opportunity to revisit, drawing among others on the work of author and philosopher Hannah Arendt, the notion of the banality of evil and the role of high-ranking commanders as “desk murderers” (Schreibtischtäter). (ec)