The Nazi high command was put on trial 80 years ago in 1945. In the new film Nuremberg, starring Russell Crowe as the charismatic and manipulative Hermann Göring, director James Vanderbilt draws on a little-known chapter of the trial's proceedings to ask enduring questions about the wellspring of fascism and the true nature of evil.

A criminal trial is inherently dramatic, often full of revelatory testimony, sparring lawyers, and stern pronouncements from the bench. Little wonder that so many powerful films and TV series are set in the courtroom: Inherit the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Few Good Men, and Presumed Innocent, to name just a handful. And every trial provides a denouement – the verdict – which determines guilt or innocence, and naturally engages the audience's own sense of right and wrong.

Warning: This article contains mentions of suicide and details that some readers may find upsetting.

But the trial that began in Nuremberg, Germany, late in 1945, just a few months after the end of World War Two, stands apart. In an unprecedented attempt to hold individuals responsible for war crimes, the Nazi high command was brought to that bomb-shattered, rubble-strewn city to appear before a military tribunal.

Although some on the Allied side – the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union – believed summarily shooting the Nazi leaders was the simpler option, a decision was taken to grant these men their day(s) in court. The tribunal's prosecutors and judges bore a huge responsibility to act fairly, as many Germans perceived the trials as nothing more than vengeful "victor's justice".

This potent history has inspired film-makers before – most notably Stanley Kramer, who produced and directed the Oscar-winning classic Judgment at Nuremberg starring Spencer Tracy in 1961. A well-received two-part docudrama called Nuremberg, starring Alec Baldwin, was broadcast in 2000 on TNT in the US and the CTV television network in Canada.

A quarter of a century on, writer-director James Vanderbilt, best known for scripting Zodiac and The Amazing Spider-Man, has revisited the famous trials. As he explained on 5 October from the stage at the Hamptons International Film Festival, where his film Nuremberg was screened for the first time in the US, "this history mustn't be forgotten". Growing up, Vanderbilt, now 50, had been aware of Nazi crimes – the events were relatively recent. But for his own daughter and her peers, the stories are "distant, and almost unreal".

Vanderbilt found his angle upon reading The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, a book by journalist Jack El-Hai about Hermann Göring and the young army psychiatrist tasked with determining the mental competence of the accused Germans slated to stand trial at Nuremberg.

The flamboyant Göring, Hitler's second in command, was a flying ace in World War One who became a big man, nearly 300lbs. He'd been photographed in innumerable different uniforms, often carrying an ivory baton, studded with diamonds, presented to him by Hitler to designate his unique rank as Reichsmarschall. Göring was the most senior of the 22 prominent Nazis captured by the Allies – many others had killed themselves or vanished.

On 9 May 1945, soldiers of the US Seventh Army near Salzburg,........

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