Watching the accused watch the Nazi crimes: observers’ reports on the atrocity film screenings in the Belsen, Nuremberg and Eichmann trials Ulrike Weckel* In their presentations in the Belsen, Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, prosecu- tors showed atrocity films even though these depicted no defendants commit- ting crimes. I argue on the basis of trial-observers’ reports of defendants’ responses to the films and the portrayals of defendants in later feature films that the screenings satisfied a widespread desire to discover if the defendants could feel shame. In the matter of crimes against humanity, judicial sentences against those re- sponsible seem unable to satisfy a human need or desire for what is usually called ‘justice’. It is not only that such crimes often provoke a deep, atavistic desire that those who inflicted terrible suffering should suffer terribly them- selves. They also reveal that no punishment could be adequate for those re- sponsible for the murder, torture and dehumanisation of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. Hannah Arendt made just this point in a letter she wrote to Karl Jaspers in August 1946, after having read his lectures, ‘The Question of German Guilt’, six weeks before the verdicts of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg would be announced. To hang Go ¨ring, she wrote, was necessary but completely inadequate, for Nazi policies, unlike any ordinary crime, exceeded what juridical procedures could redress. Indeed, * Professor of History in the Media and in the Public, Department of History, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen. I am grateful to Immi Tallgren for inviting me to the workshop ‘International Criminal Justice on/and Film’ at the LSE in 2016, which brought me as a historian into conversation with scholars of international law and led me to develop this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the London Review of International Law for their sugges- tions on how to take my ideas further, and Greg Sax for his indispensable help with the content and formulation of my arguments. London Review of International Law, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2018, 45–73 doi:10.1093/lril/lry012 ß The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/lril/article-abstract/6/1/45/5078928 by guest on 24 August 2018