Today’s movie is a courtroom drama with a scene that happens on August
30. Watch it tonight and enjoy.
JUDGMENT IN BERLIN
Hans Schuster is a West German who is in love with an East German
woman, Sigrid Radke. She, her daughter Marina
and a friend Helmut Thiele are to travel to Gdansk in Poland where Hans
will join them and give them the false papers they need to board a ship and
sail to the West. However, on the way to meet them Hans is arrested. On
August 30, 1978 [6:40 to 14:23], Helmut hijacks the Polish airliner on which
they are flying back to East Berlin and forces it to land in West Berlin
instead. The United States, in its role as an occupying power in Berlin,
decides it must prosecute Helmut in order to preserve a recent international
anti-hijacking treaty, as West Germany will not prosecute him. Judge Herbert
Stern agrees to be the judge, He was asked as he has a pro-prosecution history.
However, he soon clashes with the prosecutors and rules that the defendants are
entitled to a jury trial. Stern also rules that Sigrid’s confession was coerced
and cannot be used against her. Without the confession, the government
dismisses the case against Sigrid. The defense tries to show the government’s
witness, who live behind the iron curtain are being intimidated. Sigrid
testifies that after Hans did not turn up, Helmut bought a toy gun and Marina
smuggled it on the plane on August 30, 1978. [1:13:09 to 1:13:30 and
1:16:08-09]. Guenther, one of the passengers who defected off the plane
testifies that he heard Helmut tell the crew it was just a toy gun and that
they seemed sympathetic. Helmut is only
convicted of taking a hostage and sentenced by Judge Stern to time served
(which was several months). The East Germans free Hans.
An interesting film. Touches on
several important legal issues such as due process and duress as justification
for committing a crime. There is an error in the film as at one point while
Sigrid is teatifying, Hellring gives
the hijacking date as the 31st.
Judgment in Berlin by
Herbert J. Stern (Universe Books, New York, 1984) at pages 3-4 gives the date
of the hijacking as August 30, 1978.
Producer – Joshua Sinclair and Ingrid Windisch
Director - Leo Penn
Screenplay – Joshua Sinclair and Leo Penn
Runtime – 1 hour 36
minutes
Released – May 6, 1988
Starring –
Martin Sheen as Judge Herbert J. Stern
Sam Wanamaker as Bernard Hellring
Sean Penn as Guenther
Max Martens as Hans Schuster
Jutta Speidel as Sigrid Radke
Copyright by Ivan Walters in
2014.
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