Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Richard Widmark: Col. Tad Lawson

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Quotes 

• Col. Tad Lawson : One thing about Americans, we're not cut out to be occupiers. We're new at it and not very good at it.

• Col. Tad Lawson : [drunkenly]  We're fair Americans and true-blue. We mustn't do anything that's out of order. No, sir. We can't do anything that's out of order. There are no Nazis in Germany. Didn't you know that, Judge? The Eskimos invaded Germany and took over. That's how all those terrible things happened. It wasn't the fault of the Germans. It was the fault of those damn Eskimos!

• Col. Tad Lawson : Just for laughs, Matt, what was the war all about? What was it about?

• Col. Tad Lawson : They distorted, they perverted, they destroyed justice and law in Germany. Now, this in itself is undoubtedly a great crime. But the prosecution is not calling the defendants to account for violating constitutional guarantees or withholding due process of law. The prosecution is calling them to account for murder, brutalities, torture, atrocities. They share with all the leaders of the Third Reich responsibility for the most malignant, the most calculated, the most devastating crimes in the history of all mankind. And they are perhaps more guilty than some of the others. For they had attained maturity long before Hitler's rise to power. Their minds weren't warped at an early age by Nazi teachings. They embraced the ideologies of the Third Reich as educated adults, when they, most of all, should have valued justice. Here they'll receive the justice they denied others.

• Col. Tad Lawson : The case is unusual in that the defendants are charged with crimes committed in the name of the law. These men, together with their deceased or fugitive colleagues, are the embodiment of what passed for justice during the Third Reich. The defendants served as judges during the period of the Third Reich. Therefore, you, Your Honors, as judges on the bench will be sitting in judgment of judges in the dock. And this is as it should be. For only a judge knows how much more a court is than a courtroom. It is a process and a spirit. It is the house of law. The defendants knew this, too. They knew courtrooms well.

• Col. Tad Lawson : What was the Feldenstein case?

  Dr. Heinrich Geuter : The case of a man accused of racial pollution.

  Col. Tad Lawson : Will you explain what is meant by "racial pollution"?

  Dr. Heinrich Geuter : This is the charge that is referred to in the Nuremberg Laws. It says that any non-Aryan having sexual relations with an Aryan may be punished by death.

• Col. Tad Lawson : You know, there's one thing about Americans. We're not cut out to be occupiers. We're new at it. We're not very good at it. We - we - we come over here, and what do we see? We see this beautiful country. It is beautiful. It's very beautiful. We see the culture that goes back for hundreds of years. We see its 'gemutlich' charm and the charm of people like Mrs. Bertholt. We've got a built-in inferiority complex. We forgive and forget easy. We give the other guy the benefit of the doubt. That's the American way.

  [chuckles] 

  Col. Tad Lawson : We beat the greatest war machine since Alexander the Great. And now the boy scouts take over.

  Judge Curtiss Ives : The trouble with you, Colonel, is you'd like to indict the whole country. That might be emotionally satisfying to you, but it wouldn't be exactly practical, and hardly fair.

  Col. Tad Lawson : Hardly fair?

• Col. Tad Lawson : Mrs. Bertholt doesn't hold a burning passion for me. I prosecuted her husband.