JACKSON URGES SWIFT NAZI TRIALS
Warns delay will create many cynics – tells Truman U.S. has its own part in prosecution
Will punish guilty – trial of main criminals, however, must await accord of Allies
WASHINGTON (AP) – The chief American prosecutor of Axis war criminals today urged sure punishment for the guilty, and declared against any dilatory tactics in trial procedure.
The trials, said Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, must not be regarded in the same light as trials under the American system, where defense is a matter of constitutional right.
He said:
Fair hearings for the accused are, of course, required to make sure we punish only the right men and for the right reasons. But the procedure of these hearings may properly bar obstructive and dilatory tactics resorted to by defendants in our ordinary criminal trials.
Failure will mock dead
Failure to try those accused, he stated, “would mock the dead and make cynics of the living.”
Justice Jackson told President Truman in a 5,000-word report that he had assurances from the War Department that those likely to be accused as war criminals “will be kept in close confinement and stern control.”
Jackson said the preparations for the prosecution of major war criminals will not impede or delay trials of other offenders guilty of lesser crimes.
He said negotiations for an international military tribunal, representing the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and France, to try guilty Nazis have not yet been completed, but that he did not consider it wise to await this final step before preparing the American case.
Stresses responsibility
He said the American case was being prepared on the assumption that an “inescapable responsibility rests upon this country to conduct an inquiry, preferably in association with others, but alone if necessary, into the culpability of those whom there is probable cause to accuse of atrocities and other crimes.
He added there are many such men “in our possession.”
While it has cost “unmeasured thousands of American lives to beat and bind these men,” Jackson declared their trials should be “as dispassionate as the times and horrors we deal with will permit.”
Jackson pointed out that his own responsibilities extend only to major criminals whose offenses have no particular geographical localization and who will be punished by joint decision of the Allied governments as provided in the Moscow declaration of November 1, 1943.
Established standards
In his visit to the European theater, he said, he attempted to establish standards and the cases fall into three general categories:
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Offenses against military personnel of the United States, such as the killing of American airmen who crash-landed and other Americans who became prisoners of war.
He said field forces from time immemorial have dealt with such offenses on the spot. Authorization of such action was withdrawn for a time through fear of stimulating retaliation, he said, but “the surrender of Germany and liberation of our prisoners has ended that danger.” Accordingly, Jackson suggested, the morale and safety of American troops and effective control of enemy areas requires prompt resumption “of summary dealing with this type of case.”
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Offenders who are to be sent back to the scene of their crimes for trial by local authorities. The United States’ part in these cases, Jackson said, is concerned largely with identification of the culprits and their release to those who are in control.
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The “Quislings, Lavals and ‘Lord Haw-Haws.’” Jackson said each country “is free to prosecute treason charges in its own tribunals and under its own laws against its own traitorous nationals.”
British take similar steps
Such classification of these groups, he said, will permit their prosecution without delay while preparations for the trial of major criminals are completed. Jackson said the British are taking steps parallel with American procedure “to effect a complete interchange of evidence and a coordination of planning and preparation,” and that minor differences between the governments have been “adjusted easily.”
“The provisional government of the French republic,” he added, “has advised that it accepts in principle the American proposals for trials [of major criminals] before an international military tribunal. It is expected to designate its representatives shortly.”
While Russia is not yet committed, he went on, it has been kept informed of all steps, “and there is no reason to doubt that it will unite in the prosecution.”
Can’t name dates
As to when the trials of major criminals can start, he said it would be “foolhardy” to name dates which depend upon other governments and many agencies.
Jackson reiterated that this government will accuse “a large number of individuals and officials who are in authority in the government, in the military establishments, including the general staff, and in the financial, industrial, and economic life of Germany who by all civilized standards are provable to be common criminals.”
“We also propose to establish the criminal character of several voluntary organizations which have played a cruel and controlling part in subjugating the German people and then their neighbors,” such as the Gestapo and the SS whose recruits were taken from volunteers because of “aptitude for, and fanatical devotion to, their violent purposes.”
The case against the major defendants, Jackson emphasized, is “concerned with the Nazi master plan” and not with individual barbarities and perversions.
He said the prosecutors face the task of establishing “incredible events by credible evidence.”
Cites test of crime
The test of a crime, he said, should be whether it “fundamentally outraged the conscience of the American people and brought them finally to the conviction that their own liberty and civilization could not persist in the same world with the Nazi power.”
Such acts, he argued, were criminal by standards generally accepted in all civilized countries and should establish that “retribution by laws awaits those who in the future similarly attack civilization.”
“We propose to punish acts which have been regarded as criminal since the tie of Cain and have been so written in every civilized code,” he declared.
He said legal charges against top Nazi leaders and organizations such as the SS and Gestapo include (a) atrocities against persons or property, (b) offences, including persecutions on racial or religious grounds committed since 1933 and (c) “invasions of other countries and initiations of wars of aggressions in violation of international laws or treaties.”
The legal position of the United States is that “it is high time that we act on the juridical principle that aggressive war-making is illegal and criminal.”