The horrors of World War II have served as the basis of some of cinema's most gripping historical dramas, from The Bridge on the River Kwai to Schindler's Listto Oppenheimer. And that affecting list is expected to grow with the November 7 release of Nuremberg, a courtroom thriller from James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Truth) that stars Oscar winners Russell Crowe — as Nazi Party leader and Adolf Hitler's right-hand man Hermann Göring — and Rami Malek, as the American psychiatrist tasked with evaluating the former Reichsmarschall during the infamous Nuremberg Trials.
For a little global-history refresh, the Nuremberg Trials were a series of legal trials held from November 1945 to October 1946 by the Allied powers — the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France — against high commanders of defeated Nazi Germany, convicting representatives of the latter of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and other wartime atrocities.
Göring was just one of the Nazi Party's powerful politicians to face the international tribunal but inarguably its biggest target after Hitler died in April 1945. Per Screen Daily, Crowe discussed playing the magnetic but monstrous historical figure during the Zurich Film Festival last month: "You’re never going to be fully sympathetic to that man. But trying to put a little bit of truth on the table as well — because not everybody is all evil and not everybody is all good — that’s one of the things that Jamie Vanderbilt the director allowed me to follow through on. You can enjoy [Göring’s] company, but he will still remind you, because he can’t help it of who he truly is.”
Given the real-world inspiration behind the legal drama, Nuremburg audiences will surely be curious about which details the movie gets right and which are fictionalized for dramatic effect. Here's your fact vs. fiction breakdown on the upcoming WWII drama Nuremberg.
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Is the movie Nuremberg based on a true story?
Yes, Nuremberg is centered on the real-life Nuremberg Trials, which were held by the International Military Tribunal from 1945 to 1946 and tried 22 of the most prominent surviving leaders of Nazi Germany, including Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (played by Russell Crowe in the film). Along with seeking justice for the Nazi Party's crimes on a global scale, the groundbreaking case also marked the true beginnings of international criminal law.
Along with covering the IRL events of the trials, the movie is closely based on Jack El-Hai’s 2013 nonfiction book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII, which details the work of ambitious army psychiatrist Captain Douglas M. Kelley (portrayed by Rami Malek) as he interviews and evaluates Göring following his capture at the end of the Second World War at an America-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg.
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Russell Crowe and Rami Malek in NurembergSony Pictures Classics
How was Hermann Göring captured?
Soon before his death, Adolf Hitler had expelled Hermann Göring from the Nazi Party, formally rescinding his successorship plans and ordering his arrest for treason, leaving him especially vulnerable to the SS. On May 9, 1945, Göring was captured by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria; his aides had contacted American forces in the hopes of surrendering him to the Yanks instead of the Soviets, and a task force had been placed at a pre-arranged meeting point in German territory by Brigadier General Robert Stack to collect him.
That's largely how things go in Nuremberg the film; however, they Hollywood-ize the event by having Crowe's character dramatically rip the lace off his young daughter's dress to wave as a white flag out of his car window in surrender.
Related: 52 Best War Movies of All Time
Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring in NurembergSony Pictures Classics
Göring suffered from a morphine addiction, having become dependent after he was wounded during the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 and was prescribed the drug for pain relief.
Later, in the 1930s, he developed a dependency on paracodeine, a mild morphine derivative he took in pill form. When he was captured by the Allied powers in 1945, the politician reportedly had more than 20,000 paracodeine pills with him.
The Nuremberg movie shines a light on Göring's substance abuse, with the Nazi leader being forced to wean off said drugs while in American custody under the direction of Rami Malek's character Douglas Kelley.
Who does Michael Shannon play in Nuremberg?
In Nuremberg, Oscar nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Nocturnal Animals) portrays lawyer Robert H. Jackson, who was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954. Jackson had been appointed by President Truman to act as U.S. Chief of Counsel for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals and gave both opening and closing arguments before the Nuremberg court.
In the film, Shannon's character is aided in the courtroom by his British contemporary, prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe, played by Richard E. Grant; as in real life, it is Fyfe's cross-examination of Göring that helps clinch the Allies' legal triumph.
Rami Malek and Leo Woodall in NurembergSony Pictures Classics
Leo Woodall (The White Lotus, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy) plays Sgt. Howie Triest, a U.S. military translator tasked with interpreting the one-on-one conversations between Malek's Douglas Kelley and Crowe's Hermann Göring in Nuremberg.
Like most of the characters in the drama, Woodall's young soldier existed in real life; Triest's remarkable true story (which we won't spoil for you here!) was also chronicled in the acclaimed 2006 documentary Journey to Justice.
Related: 15 Moving Movies and TV Shows About The Holocaust
Why did Nuremberg defendants wear sunglasses?
Throughout several Nuremberg court scenes, Crowe's character can be seen donning large black sunglasses, which initially could be interpreted as Göring's lack of respect for the legal proceedings. However, in real life, several Nuremberg defendants wore eyewear during the trial for a more practical reason: to shield their eyes from the bright floodlights used for filming and photography inside the courtroom. They also utilized headphones so that they could listen along to the proceedings in their native languages.
Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring in NurembergSony Pictures Classic
Twelve Nazi leaders were sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials, among them Hermann Göring. Ten were executed by hanging on October 16, 1946: Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Julius Streicher. Several of those deaths are depicted onscreen in Nuremberg.
How did Hermann Göring die?
Unlike his Nazi comrades, Göring was not executed by hanging on October 16, 1946; rather, the evening before his execution was scheduled to take place, the onetime Reichsmarschall committed suicide using a potassium cyanide capsule hidden inside his cell.
In the film, Crowe's character teases his own death during an early meeting with Douglas Kelley, who has been entertaining the war criminal with a magic trick. “Very good,” Göring says of Kelley's vanishing-coin ruse. “But I am going to show you a real magic trick someday. I am going to escape the hangman’s noose.”
Tragically, in both the movie and in real life, Kelley — who suffered from alcoholism and despondence in the post-Nuremberg years — himself would go on to die by suicide on New Year's Day 1958, ingesting potassium cyanide just as Nazi leader Hermann Göring had.
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