Glenn Flickinger talks with Navy veteran, playwright, and director Harry Kantrovich the acclaimed drama Judgement at Nuremberg, the famous 1961 film starring Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster. Harry brings rare expertise to this discussion, having directed Judgement at Nuremberg on stage with the Prince William Little Theatre. His work brings this difficult history to life, challenging audiences to wrestle with the same ethical dilemmas confronted by postwar jurists.
In the aftermath of World War II, the world confronted not only the devastation of battle but the profound challenge of justice. The third Nuremberg trial — officially The United States of America vs. Josef Altstoetter et al., known as The Justice Case — examined the role of judges and legal officials in Nazi Germany. The trail raised a fundamental question: Can legal professionals be held accountable for wielding the law as an instrument of atrocity?
Drawing on both his military background and his deep engagement with dramatic storytelling, Harry offers insight into how Judgement at Nuremberg translates complex legal history into sharp human drama, why the story still matters today, and what the play reveals about law and collective responsibility.
About the Nuremberg Trials: Nuremberg was made up of thirteen separate trials held in the same German courtroom between 1945 and 1949. The first, the famous International Military Tribunal, tried the top Nazi leaders like Göring and Speer and established the principle that individuals could be held responsible for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. After that came twelve additional trials that looked deeper into the machinery of the Third Reich, putting on trial doctors, jurists, industrialists, and SS commanders who contributed to the wartime horrors of Nazi Germany.
