Judgement in Berlin (4 Stars)

I'm glad I discovered this film. I only found out it existed after I watched "Westflug" earlier this week. The film is enjoyable in itself, but more than anything else it's fascinating how two films can be made based on the same true story and turn out so different.

The differences are caused by the different goals of the two films. "Westflug" is about the three people involved in the hijacking. "Judgement in Berlin" is about the judge who presided over the trial. The first 10 minutes of "Judgement in Berlin" cover everything that happened in the first 90 minutes of "Westflug". It's just presented as a brief background so that we know what the trial is about.

I won't go into details about the events of August 30th 1978 again, you can find them in my review of "Westflug". If you haven't read it already, check it now before continuing.

Strangely, in this film the names of the main characters are changed once more. The West German lover is Hans Schuster, the waitress is Sigrid Radke, and her friend who carries out the hijacking is Helmut Thiele. Their real names were Horst Fischer, Ingrid Ruske and Detlef Tiede. In "Westflug" they are called Michael Franjek, Anja Rautenberg and Jürgen Treske.

The legal and political problems surrounding the trial are expounded in much greater detail in this film. Judge Herbert Stern was flown in from America with the guarantee that it was a simple case that would be over in a few hours. After all, Helmut had hijacked a plane in front of 70 witnesses, and he had confessed to the hijacking. But as soon as he arrives the case is bogged down by legal and constitutional arguments. In America criminals are tried by a jury, in Germany there is no jury. Helmut was being tried in Germany by an American court. The defence lawyers requested a jury, the prosecution didn't want a jury. When the judge said he would allow a jury the prosecution lawyers -- who worked for the US state department -- claimed that the decision whether a jury should be allowed was a political, not a legal decision, so the judge had no authority to decide. Effectively, as representatives of the American government they were telling the judge that they outranked him. The prosecution lawyers only backed down when the judge threatened to dismiss the case.

Even after the appointment of the jury things didn't run smoothly. The streets were full of anti-American protesters. Russian soldiers stood in front of the courthouse intimidating the jurors. The Polish cabin crew lied in court because they were scared of high ranking Polish ministers sitting in the audience. Overall, this was a very unique trial in American history. And a very good film. It's a shame "Westflug" has never been released in English, or at least subtitled, because I would recommend watching the two films together.