Rosie the Reviewer: a WW2 movies and shows podcast · Rosie the Reviewer

Ep 84 – Nuremberg – Fact, Film, and the Psychology Behind Evil

·1 hr·10 clips

Sam and Margie introduce themselves and set the show up as a place for World War II media talk. They are discussing Nuremberg, which came out in 2025. The film was written and directed by James Vanderbilt and is based on the non-fiction book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, Herman Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelly, and a fatal meeting of the minds at the end of World War II by Jack Hell Eye. It came out in 2013. The movie centers on Dr. Douglas Kelly, the American psychiatrist tasked with looking after the Nazis' well-being and deciding whether they are fit to stand trial at Nuremberg in 1945. The hosts also watched Netflix's Hitler and the Nazis' Evil on Trial. That documentary follows Hitler's rise to power and his demise, and it includes clips from the trials themselves. Sam says the movie was more enjoyable than expected for something built around a trial, even if the trial itself takes up only a small part of the story. They are pleasantly surprised by the acting. The discussion then turns to Kelly's contact with Herman Goering's family. He acts as a go-between and meets them in secret, partly to earn Goering's trust. The hosts connect that relationship to Kelly's larger idea that Nazis are ordinary people rather than a separate kind of monster. Seeing Goering with his wife and daughter gives that belief a human shape without excusing what he represents. The domestic scenes end up doing a lot of the work here. By the end, the conversation is as much about psychology and moral memory as it is about the trial. It is a solid pick for listeners who want WWII history, adaptation talk, and a serious question about how people arrive at Nazi belief.

As heard by us

A World War II trial drama that puts psychology ahead of procedure.

Nuremberg uses the 1945 trial setting to sit with a hard idea: evil can look plain. It follows Dr. Douglas Kelly, the American psychiatrist asked to assess the Nazis' well-being and fitness for trial, then widens out through Jack Hell Eye's 2013 nonfiction book and the Netflix…

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Why you'd press play

If you want Nuremberg with film talk, Nazi psychology, and real trial context.

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