It's Judgement Time Come and see who held the real power in the courtroom. Are Judges responsible for the laws of hate ? Compass Theatre, Ickenham 6th-9th October 7.45pm nightly Tickets are priced at £12 with £10 concessions click here to book

Please Note
Due to circumstances beyond our control, the start time for this show has had to be changed from the 7.30 that was advertised on flyers and posters to a new time of 7.45pm

Fore more details see synopsis below
or check out
www.answers.com/topic/judgment-at-nuremberg

Set in 1947, Judgement At Nuremberg centres around a military tribunal in which four German judges face the American war crimes court in Nuremberg, charged with crimes against humanity before a panel of three American judges . Three of the German judges are Nazi thugs but one of them, Ernst Janning, was quite different. Janning had been a famous and aristocratic legal scholar, a drafter of the Weimar constitution, and a man who detested Hitler and the Nazis. Yet he remained on the bench under the Third Reich.

Judge Dan Haywood, the chief justice in the case, attempts to understand how Janning could have passed sentences resulting in genocide, and by extension how the German people could have turned a blind eye to the Holocaust.

Prosecuting counsel, Colonel Tad Parker, is determined to achieve the maximum sentence, even screening concentration camp footage in the courtroom, alleging that the judges on trial allowed not only the destruction of justice in Germany but were also responsible for consequent acts of murder and atrocity.

Defence attorney, Oscar Rolfe, contends that the accused were merely upholding Hitler’s laws. The play examines the questions of individual complicity in crimes committed by the state. For example, Rolfe raises such issues as the support of U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., for the practise of eugenics, and Winston Churchill’s words praising Adolf Hitler.

As the witnesses are summoned, including Rudolph Petersen (a victim of sterilisation) and Maria Wallner (also a victim of the Nazi regime), Judge Haywood wanders through Nuremberg, wondering what could have happened to the great culture that was Germany, talks with a number of German people with different perspectives on the war and befriends an executed German officer’s widow, Mrs. Bertholt.

After the evidence is assembled, Ernst Janning ultimately stands up and makes a statement condemning himself and his fellow defendants for “going along” with the Third Reich and to outline what has become the basic issue - that everyone is guilty who either rationalised or ignored the sheer inhumanity that was Nazism.

The play ends with Haywood’s having to choose between patriotism and justice. He rejects the call to let the Nazi judges off lightly to gain Germany’s support in the Cold War against the Soviet Union

Directed By Steve Brown
Cast (in appearance order)

Colonel Tad Parker.…………………..…...….Angus Patrick
Judge Dan Haywood…………………..…….Glenn Brentnall
General Matthew Merrin……………....….…Steven Walsh
Captain Harrison “Harry” Byers………...……Jules Collins
Judge Curtis Ives…………………………...Keith French
Judge Ken Norris……..…………………...……Samir Sheriff
Emil Hahn…………………………………….....…..Sam Webb
Frederick Hoffstetter……………………....…..David Axtell
Werner Lammpe……………..……………....…..Tim Leman
Ernst Janning.……….……………………...……Steve Brown
Oscar Rolfe.…………………………....………….Andi Tucker
Dr Karl Wickert………...…………....…………Richard Mehr
Mrs Halbestadt………….………………..….Jane Beswarick
Frau Margarete Bertholt…………...……………Helen Main
Rudolph Peterson……….……………..……..Tom Hartwell
Waiter……………………………………....……...…Debi King
Dr. Geuter………...…………………..…………..Paul Friend
Maria Wallner…………………..……..…..Joni-Rae Carrack
Elsa Lindnow….……………………...………….Sylvia Taylor