After the Truth

This courtroom 'docu-drama' details the prosecution in Germany of Dr Josef Mengele (George), the experimenting 'Angel of Death' of Auschwitz, who, so the film has it, came home voluntarily to 'have the truth told'. The way Mengele tells it, his undenied atrocities were committed out of compassion, and his ethics were a product of the times. Taking its time to set up the credibility of Mengele's defence counsel Rohm, the film emphasises the influence of a rightwing, possibly pro-Nazi publisher and the role of various judges, who describe the trial as a test of the German judicial system. Rohm manages to encourage his own mother to testify about her work in 'euthanasia' during the early part of the war, which weights the film's (possibly unintended) thesis about moral relativity and personal versus state responsibility. In so doing, director Richter does a disservice to the facts, not to mention the meaning and significance of Mengele's actions.