ifs-Begegnung mit »Nürnberg 45 - Im Angesicht des Bösen«

In the organizer's words:

ON THE BIG SCREEN:
"Nuremberg 45 - In the face of evil"

Docudrama, D 2025, 89 min; Director: Carsten Gutschmidt, Screenplay: Dirk Eisfeld, Production: Zeitsprung Pictures, Co-production: Spiegel TV - commissioned by NDR, BR, SWR, WDR, RBB, MDR, HR, SR and RB for ARD

Followed by a film discussion with the responsible NDR editor Marc Brasse and author Dirk Eisfeld, moderated by filmmaker Heike Fink

On November 20, 1945, the first of the so-called Nuremberg Trials against the main war criminals of the Nazi regime begins. For the first time in history, war criminals are brought before an international court: a significant milestone in international criminal law. Hermann Göring and 23 other high-ranking Nazis sit in the dock.

80 years later, "Nuremberg 45" recounts the events from the perspective of two real characters: the Jewish journalist and concentration camp survivor Ernst Michel and the resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor Seweryna Szmaglewska.

Michel (22) is not only the youngest of the international reporters observing the trial - he is also the only Holocaust survivor among them. When Göring offers him a meeting through his lawyer, he finds himself in a moral conflict. Szmaglewska (29) is one of only two Polish witnesses to testify in court. After her liberation from Auschwitz-Birkenau, she immediately began writing down her memories under the title "The Women of Birkenau". The screenplay for "Nuremberg 45" is based on her later novel "The Innocents in Nuremberg".

"Nuremberg 45" reflects the hopes and fears, the inner turmoil of two people who were at the mercy of the Nazis' death machinery in a concentration camp just six months earlier - and who are confronted with the perpetrators and their own agonizing memories in Nuremberg's Palace of Justice. The docudrama interweaves feature film scenes (with Jonathan Berlin, Katharina Stark, Francis Fulton-Smith and Wotan Wilke Möhring, among others) with re-colored archive material and interviews.

"With "Nuremberg 45", ARD presents an impressive and historically significant production that combines documentary accuracy with emotional depth. The participants have succeeded in portraying the complex situation of the immediate post-war period in a differentiated way and with high artistic quality", Der Spiegel.

Marc Brasse moved from Spiegel TV to NDR (PB Culture and Documentation) in 2014. As an NDR editor, he has been responsible for numerous excellent productions there (including "Riefenstahl", "Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik").

Dirk Eisfeld is a freelance author and producer (including the series "Oktoberfest 1905", docu-fiction "Die Liebe des Hans Albers").