The Nuremberg Trial

1052

Dewey and Taft clash on fairness of Nazi trials at Nuernberg

By the Associated Press

Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York and Sen. Taft (R-Ohio), potential rivals for the 1948 Republican presidential nomination, split sharply today over the Nazi war crimes trials.

As Democrats kept up their attacks on Sen. Taft’s criticism of the Nuernberg verdicts, Gov. Dewey touched off the GOP leadership clash in New York last night when he came out bluntly in opposition to the Ohio senator’s views.

Without mentioning Sen. Taft by name, Gov. Dewey defended the fairness of the trials and declared that “no one can have any sympathy for these Nazi leaders who brought such agony upon the world.”

In Washington, Democrats who have experienced their own intraparty troubles of late, gleefully hailed the Taft-Dewey cleavage as likely to lessen the emphasis on the recent foreign policy schism between former Secretary of Commerce Wallace and Secretary of State Byrnes.

Lucas assails Taft

Sen. Lucas (D-Illinois), describing Sen. Taft’s stand as a “classical example of his muddied and confused thinking,” predicted in a statement that Carroll Reece, chairman of the Republican National Committee, “will not permit the Senator to make any more speeches.” Sen. Lucas added:

“I charge that the Senator (Taft) made the statement about the Nuernberg trial solely for political vengeance or advantage. And I predict that this will be a boomerang upon his aspirations for the presidential nomination in ‘48.”

Sen. Taft said Saturday that the Nuernberg verdicts, condemning 12 top Nazis to death, were a miscarriage of justice and “violate that fundamental principle of American” law that a man cannot be tried under a law enacted after the alleged offense was committed.

Dewey supports trials

Gov. Dewey’s statement, in which he was joined by Irving M. Ives, GOP nominee for senator in New York, declared flatly that the German war criminals had “fair trial.” It continued:

“While the just penalties imposed can neither expiate their sins nor bring back the life of millions for whose deaths they are responsible, their sentences will serve as a warning against future acts of aggression and oppression for totalitarian rulers.”

Herbert H. Lehman, Democratic candidate for senator from New York, also said he was “deeply shocked” by Sen. Taft’s statement.

Mr. Lehman, who also is a senatorial candidate on the American Labor and Liberal Party tickets, said: “Sen. Taft is one of the most powerful leaders and spokesmen of the Republican Party, but I am certain that the views he has expressed will be repudiated by right-thinking and fair-minded Americans from one end of the country to the other.”

Taft remains silent

In Detroit, Sen. Taft said he did “not care to comment pending fuller study” of the Dewey and other statements.

A spokesman for Sen. Taft said: “The Senator’s position is that he does not want to make a further statement right now. He has stated his feeling on the matter and feels that if others want to criticize him, let them go ahead.”

Sen. Taft’s Democratic colleague from Ohio, Sen. Huffman, also took exception to Sen. Taft’s Nuernberg criticisms, declaring in a campaign speech last night at Marion, Ohio: “Even if justified, they should have been offered when the international tribunals were being set up.”

In Washington, Sen. Pepper (D-Florida) said he was “shocked” by Sen. Taft’s stand. He added in a statement that on his visit to the Nuernberg court he saw how scrupulously it “respected and protected the rights of these criminals who never gave anybody else any consideration before they murdered or robbed them.”

In New York, Jack Kroll, director of the CIO Political Action Committee, told newsmen Sen. Taft’s statement was “right in line with Bob Taft’s record. Bob Taft has never recanted his isolationism.”

1053

McLemore: Calls on Wall Street to welcome Schacht

By Henry McLemore

NEW YORK – My heart bleeds. My tear glands are working on three shifts. I sob. I cry. I bury my head in my pillow. I shake all over. I fret. I fume. To make it short, I am miserable all over.

Why? You don’t know? You must know. I am ashamed that you ask me. Every intelligent American must know why I am unhappy, and today every American must be unhappy himself.

I am so, so, so very sorry for Hjalmar Schacht. The firm he worked for is out of business. The head of the firm, Adolf Hitler, is dead.

The first vice president, Hermann Goering, soon is to be the guest of honor at a necktie party.

Mr. Schacht is all alone. The man who financed Hitler – which means he organized the money which made Poland a playground, Czechoslovakia a summer retreat, France a winter resort, and whose dollars paid for the blitz which killed untold numbers of men, has no job.

I want to be the first to offer Mr. Schacht a job. I do not want him to wander the face of this earth with nothing to do but associate with fellow bankers.

Wins his bet

From here on out I get indignant. From here on out I quit trying to turn a phrase. Mr. Schacht is the first man they should have hanged. Before Goering, Mr. Schacht should have taken a short walk to the gallows and had his filthy neck broken.

There are two reasons why he should have suffered death on the gallows. The first is this: He took a magnificent financial mind and juggled and cheated and framed to the point where he could finance the world’s most diabolical bunch of crooks.

The second reason: It was bad for the morale of all decent people for Mr. Schacht to be acquitted. Three months ago I bet $25 that Mr. Schacht would be acquitted. Why did I make this bet? Don’t you know? For the same reason that most Americans would make the bet. Mr. Schacht is a banker. Mr. Schacht knows Wall Street. He knows the City in London and the Bourse in Paris. There probably isn’t a banking house in the world into which Mr. Schacht couldn’t walk and be served tea or coffee.

With the acquittal of Schacht – and I love that Russian judge who, in so many words said, “String him up, boys” – all of us who contributed financially toward the finish of World War II are branded as worthless people. Schacht financed Hitler, and it didn’t count. What he did with money, according to the Nuernberg judges, meant nothing. Those of us who bought Defense Bonds, then War Bonds, then Savings Bonds, can only draw one conclusion from this: Our money meant nothing. It furthered nothing. Why should you, having bought $500 worth of bonds, think that you were serving your country when a man who put billions to the use of Hitler for war, is given a clean bill of health, and turned loose on the world?

Big, fat boy

As far as I’m concerned, I would have preferred that the judges hang Schacht and turn Goering loose. I’ll say one thing for Goering – you could always find him out in the open, medal-equipped.

But I want to give Mr. Schacht a job. I am big enough to overlook the fact that he was tried as a criminal. I would like him to come to New York and become a runner in Wall Street. I don’t think he would run more than one trip before he would see half a hundred men who, in their Wall Street way, were responsible for his being set free.

Every defendant at Nuernberg should have been hanged. Any man who answered a push button when Hitler pushed it either didn’t have enough guts to quit, or enough guts to tell the trial judges he was ready to pay the price. Let me say once again that the worst man with Hitler was Schacht. He should have been the first to go, with a loose noose, that wouldn’t break his neck, but would choke him.

In conclusion, money saved Schacht. Laugh at all the gags you want to, but the banker still lives in the big house on the hill, has the shortest hours, and in all the countries of the world, is still the big, fat boy.

1054

The Pittsburgh Press (October 8, 1946)

Condemned Nazis put in solitary

Goering breaks into fit of weeping

NUERNBERG (UP) – Hermann Goering and the 10 other Nazis sentenced to be hanged October 16 have been placed in a “condemned row” in Nuernberg prison to sit out their remaining eight days in isolation, a jail official said today.

The 11 doomed men are cut off from all outside contact except visits from chaplains and psychiatrists.

Jail officials have placed the condemned men in a lower row of cells and the seven Nazis who received prison terms have been placed above them.

Nazis jittery

Goering burst into a fit of weeping when he decided to remove pictures of his wife and daughter from his cell, a U.S. Army officer revealed. But none of the condemned Nazis has shown any sign of collapse.

The Army lifted a corner of the curtain of secrecy over the Nuernberg prison. The glimpse inside “death row” showed some of them jittery and distraught, but all keeping themselves under control.

Goering believes he is withholding information that will enable Nazis to revive within 10 or 20 years, the Nuernberg prison psychologist reported.

Sees ‘secret revenge’

Dr. Gustave Gilbert said that Goering is spending his last days contemplating what he considers to be “secret revenge on the Allies.”

The psychologist reported that Goering has confided that he would “take some secret to the grave with me.”

The former commander of the German Air Force was described as feeling that his failure to tell all would permit Nazis to revive the Hitler legend and the accompanying intense nationalism within 10 or 20 years.

The fate of Hjalmar Schacht, one of the three acquitted leaders, continued in a muddle. Schacht spent the night in the Stuttgart city jail, under arrest for de-Nazification proceedings. Stuttgart and Nuernberg city officials argued about which city would try him.

Seized despite protests

Schacht went to Stuttgart yesterday to visit a friend, apparently thinking he was immune from arrest until summoned before a de-Nazification court. He was promptly arrested despite his protests.

In Berlin, the four-power Allied Control Council was summoned to meet tomorrow to consider the appeals of 11 Nazi leaders from their death sentences. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the Nazi Security Police, is the only one of the 12 doomed men who did not file an appeal. Martin Bormann’s death sentence was appealed by his attorney, although the Nazi is missing.

1055

Democrats hail Taft’s blast on Nuernberg

Think Ohioan pulled political ‘boner’
By Earl Richert, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – Harried Democratic leaders had a gleam in their eyes today for the first time in a long while – thanks to Sen. Robert A. Taft.

To a man, the Democrats believed the Ohio Republican had pulled a major political “boner” by assailing the Nuernberg trials, calling the convictions of the Nazi leaders “a blot on the American record.”

‘Break’ for Democrats

From Democratic National Headquarters here, telegrams and long-distance telephone calls went out to party leaders and speakers urging them to grab the senator’s statement and present it as the Republican viewpoint.

In New York today, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey indirectly acknowledged that Sen. Taft’s criticism of the Nuernberg hanging verdicts had become a major political issue. The governor said in a formal statement that the Nazi war criminals had been given “a fair and extensive trial.”

Both Illinois Sen. Scott Lucas, chairman of the Democratic senatorial campaign committee, and Alabama Rep. John Sparkman, head of the Democratic Speaker’s Bureau, described the Taft speech as “the best break that’s come our way in a long time.”

‘Worth a million’

Another Democratic leader said that Taft’s speech “is worth a million dollars to us in New York.”

Director Jack Kroll of the CIO Political Action Committee denounced Sen. Taft as “one of the worst reactionaries in the nation.”

“I wonder,” said Sam O’Neal, publicity director for the Democratic National Committee, “what our 11 million GIs think about Taft’s speech?”

In his speech at Gambler, Ohio, Sen. Taft charged that the German and Japanese war trials “violate that fundamental principle of American law that a man cannot be tried under an ex post facto statute.”

1056

The Waterbury Democrat (October 8, 1946)

Condemned Nazis keep controlled

Goering weeps when pictures of wife, daughter are removed

Nuernberg (UP) – Hermann Goering burst into a fit of weeping when he decided to remove pictures of his wife and daughter from his cell, a U.S. Army officer revealed today, but none of the condemned Nazis has shown any sign of collapse.

The Army lifted a corner of the curtain of secrecy over the Nuernberg prison where the Nazi war criminals were waiting out their last eight days. The glimpse inside the “death row” showed some of them jittery and distraught, but all keeping themselves under control.

On orders from Berlin prison officials began a series of two daily press conferences. The first dealt largely with dispelling loose rumors, and giving fragments of information on the prisoners.

Connecticut men in charge

Maj. Frederick Teich of Newington, Connecticut, officer of the Internal Security Detachment since the War Crimes Trial began, presided at the first conference. He was flanked by public relations officers.

Taking up a sheaf of questions, he disposed of the bulk of them with negatives. No details of the executions were available. He did not know who the hangman would be. Master Sgt. John C. Woods, a likely candidate, is not listed at present on the prison staff. No apparatus for the executions is in the prison. Physical preparations have not yet begun.

Disclosing for the first time that there had been no breakdowns or collapses among the condemned men, Teich said Goering after a spell of brooding came to a decision to get the pictures of his wife and daughter out of his cell. He put them in an envelope and sent them to his lawyer. Then he blubbered like a small boy from whose hand a treasure has been snatched.

Of all the convicted men, Goering generally retained the most dignity, the officer reported. He was followed closely by Konstantin von Neurath and Wilhelm Keitel, the latter never losing his precise military poise.

Raeder despondent

Grand Adm. Erich Raeder, who asked that his life imprisonment sentence be changed to death before a firing squad, was reported to be the most despondent of the prisoners, and Rudolf Hess the most indifferent.

Keitel, Hans Frank, Julius Streicher and Joachim von Ribbentrop were writing or had finished their “memoirs.” They were censored and passed on to defense lawyers without deletion, Teich said, nothing objectionable having been found.

Questioned about precautions against any suicide attempts, Teich said the precautions remained the same, being so good that they could not be improved upon.

The prisoners have complained little, he said. But once they lamented that their guards were stealing souvenir items from them. They get American cigarettes. Ribbentrop and Goering get sedatives at night, but their health remains the same.

Nine attend services

All but Hess and Alfred Rosenberg have religious services in their cells once a day.

The Allied Control Council has ordered lawyers to cease visiting the cells of the condemned men after Sunday.

Teich said the status of Franz von Papen, one of the three acquitted defendants, was that of protective custody at his own request. The U.S. Third Army has been told to give him refuge as long as he asks for it. He said Von Papen still was trying to get into the British zone.

Jail officials have placed the condemned men in a lower row of cells and the seven Nazis who received prison terms have been placed above them.

Schacht in middle

The fate of Hjalmar Schacht, one of the three acquitted leaders, continued in a muddle. Schacht spent the night in the Stuttgart city jail, under arrest for de-Nazification proceedings, while Stuttgart and Nuernberg city officials argued about which city would try him.

Schacht went to Stuttgart yesterday to visit a friend, apparently thinking he was immune from arrest until summoned before a de-Nazification court. He was promptly arrested despite his protests.

Dr. Frederick Bergold, Schacht’s attorney, said in Nuernberg that Stuttgart police have blocked his efforts to reach Schacht. Bergold said American Military Government officials gave Schacht assurance he would not be arrested in the American zone.

American security officers said last night they had warned Schacht the “free passage” order issued in Bavaria, where Nuernberg is located, might not be good in Wurttemberg, where Stuttgart lies. Bergold denied this.

1057

Wiener Kurier (October 9, 1946)

Ministerrat fordert Auslieferung Papens und Schirachs

Bundeskanzler Figl hofft auf Besserung der Ernährungslage

Wien (APA.) - Zu Beginn des gestrigen Ministerrates begrüßte Bundeskanzler Ing. Figl mit herzlichen Worten den nach seiner Genesung zum erstenmal wieder erschienenen Innenminister Helmer.

Der Bundeskanzler gab einen Überblick über die zur Erleichterung der gegenwärtigen Ernährungslage getroffenen Maßnahmen und teilte mit, daß außer dem Telegramm an den Generaldirektor der UNRRA, La Guardia, Schreiben an General Parminter, den Chef der österreichischen UNRRA-Mission, und an den Vorsitzenden des Alliierten Rates für Österreich mit der Bitte um Hilfe gerichtet wurden. Die bis jetzt eingelangten Zusagen lassen die Hoffnung berechtigt erscheinen, daß schon in Kürze mit einer Besserung der Ernährungslage zu rechnen ist.

Bundeskanzler Ing. Figl teilte mit, daß der Alliierte Rat den zwischen der Schweiz und Österreich abgeschlossenen Handelsvertrag genehmigt und auch der Wiederaufnahme der diplomatischen Beziehungen zwischen diesen beiden Staaten zugestimmt habe. Ferner gab der Bundeskanzler bekannt, daß die Abschaffung der Inlandspostzensur mit 8. Oktober wirksam geworden sei.

Im Zuge einer längeren Aussprache über Gehalts- und Lohnfragen, an der sich außer dem Bundeskanzler die Bundesminister Dr. Zimmermann, Helmer, Dr. Hurdes, Übeleis, Dr. Krauland und Dr. Altmann beteiligten, wurde unter anderem beschlossen, die Versorgungsgenüsse der im Dienste ums Leben gekommenen, noch nicht pragmatisierten Beamten der Exekutive so festzusetzen, daß keine Schlechterstellung gegenüber den Hinterbliebenen pragmatisierter Beamter entstehen könne.

Umfangreiches Anklagematerial gegen Papen

Bundesminister für Justiz, Dr. Gerö, legte den Standpunkt der österreichischen Regierung in der Frage der Auslieferung der Kriegsverbrecher Papen und Schirach dar und stellte fest, daß der Urteilsspruch gegen diese beiden Kriegsverbrecher in Österreich allgemein Erstaunen erweckt habe. Bundesminister Dr. Gerö betonte, daß der Anklagebehörde in Nürnberg besonders im Falle Papen seitens der österreichischen Regierung ein reichhaltiges Anklagematerial zur Verfügung gestellt worden sei.

Der Ministerrat ermächtigte den Bundesminister für Justiz, dem Rechtsdirektorium der Alliierten Kommission für Österreich das Begehren der österreichischen Bundesregierung um Auslieferung von Franz von Papen und Baldur von Schirach, allenfalls auch des Seyß-Inquart und des Ernst Kaltenbrunner, mit dem Ersuchen mitzuteilen, es an die zuständige Stelle weiterzuleiten.

1058

Alliierter Rat entscheidet heute über Nürnberger Gnadengesuche

Berlin (INS.) - Generalleutnant Pierre Koenig der Kommandant der französischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands, hat für heute vormittag eine Sondersitzung des Alliierten Kontrollrates einberufen, auf der die Gnadenanträge der Nürnberger Hauptkriegsverbrecher behandelt werden.

Das Sekretariat des Alliierten Kontrollrates in Berlin teilte mit, daß insgesamt 15 Gnadengesuche für die verurteilten Hauptkriegsverbrecher und die drei schuldig gesprochenen Verbrecherorganisationen vorgelegt werden.

Görings Orden werden verteilt

Der Alliierte Kontrollrat wird sich in Kürze mit der Verteilung und weiteren Verwendung der Wertgegenstände und Orden Görings beschäftigen.

Im Safe des Gefängnisses befinden sich vier große Ringe und eine Tabatiere aus massivem Gold, die Göring angeblich von Prinzregent Paul von Jugoslawien anläßlich dessen Besuchs im Juni 1939 erhalten haben soll.

Außerdem sollen dem Alliierten Kontrollrat nach der Hinrichtung die zwei mit Diamanten besetzten goldenen Abzeichen des Reichsmarschalls, ein Eisernes Kreuz vom Jahre 1914 aus Platin, die dazugehörige Spange und eine Reisetasche mit Creme und Toilettenwässern übergeben werden.

Keine amerikanische Intervention für Schacht

Frankfurt (UP.) - General McNarney erklärte auf einer Pressekonferenz, die amerikanische Militärregierung würde im Falle Schacht, der sich derzeit im Stuttgarter Gefängnis in Haft befindet, nicht intervenieren. Schacht hat Nürnberg freiwillig verlassen, so daß sein Schicksal nun in den Händen der Deutschen liegt. In Übereinstimmung mit der Politik, der zufolge es den Deutschen gestattet ist, ihre eigenen Probleme zu behandeln, wird die amerikanische Militärregierung nicht eingreifen.

Bei der gestrigen Tagung des deutschen Länderrates in Stuttgart erklärte der Ministerpräsident von Württemberg-Baden, Reinhold Mayer, daß das deutsche Entnazifizierungsgesetz die drei vom Internationalen Gericht in Nürnberg Freigesprochenen mit aller Schärfe treffen werde. Die Justizminister der drei Länder in der amerikanischen Zone werden heute in Stuttgart Zusammentreffen, um zu entscheiden, welche andere Handhabe außer dem Entnazifizierungsgesetz man gegen Schacht, Fritzsche und v. Papen anwenden könne. Papen könnte wegen Hochverrates angeklagt werden. Die Schuld Papens ist dadurch gegeben, daß er im Jahre 1932 durch Einsetzung von Reichskommissaren in den süddeutschen Staaten ohne legale Handhabe diesen ihre Hoheitsrechte entzog.

Die letzten Tage der zum Tode verurteilten Kriegsverbrecher

Nürnberg (WK.) - Die zum Tode verurteilten 11 Hauptkriegsverbrecher werden in den Zellen des Nürnberger Gefängnisses besonders scharf bewacht, um auch nur die geringste Möglichkeit für einen Selbstmordversuch auszuschließen. Gestern durften die Verurteilten zum letztenmal den Besuch ihrer Familienangehörigen empfangen.

Göring sucht mit allen Mitteln den Eindruck eines „gebrochenen Mannes" zu vermeiden. Die Nervenanspannung ist jedoch bereits größer als sein Wille, Die Augenblicke völliger Verzweiflung kehren immer häufiger wieder.

Zahlreiche der verurteilten Hauptkriegsverbrecher nehmen regelmäßig Schlafmittel, darunter auch Göring und Ribbentrop. Mit Ausnahme von Heß und Rosenberg nehmen die Verurteilten in ihren Zellen täglich an einem Gottesdienst teil.

1059

The Wilmington Morning Star (October 9, 1946)

Editorial: Landmark of justice

In the days when German military power was at its height, the enemies of fascism used to dream what seemed a hopeless dream. It was of a day when the defeated Nazi leaders would be brought to the bar of justice for trial by an international tribunal representing outraged humanity.

That, it seemed, would be the great moment of vindication in world history. Actually, the Nuernberg war crimes trial was somewhat less impressive. The arch criminal Hitler was not there. And what promised to be the most spectacular “courtroom drama” of all time assumed a ponderous pace as the court ground and sifted a great grist of evidence for more than 10 months.

There were flashes of drama, to be sure. But gradually the trial slipped back in the paper from Page One, and many of its reporters slipped away to fresher assignments. Even the thousands of crimes of Nazidom, when cataloged and recounted in the Palace of Justice, benumbed the mind by their sheer massive weight.

Perhaps, too, we thought of the defendants too much as the rag-tag mob that they were as they sat in the dock. The contrast between this pallid, haggard rabble and their former strutting, overdressed arrogance could not be overlooked or discounted. Yet there was the temptation, as we read of the sniveling and buck-passing in which those 21 men indulged, to allow past crimes to shrink to the present stature of the criminals.

But the high drama and immense significance returned to the trial at its close. That is fortunate, for it may help the world’s millions who suffered from Nazism and fought it and hated it to realize the full truth – that the trial of the Nazi criminals was indeed a landmark in the history of law and justice.

The physical existence of a criminal, even of such criminals as these, is of little ultimate importance. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler died violently in the midst of such violence that their passing was of only momentary concern. The passing of the Nuernberg criminals will be of similarly small importance. It cannot expiate a thousandth of their crimes. The slaughtered Nazi victims will be just as dead. The devastation of the Nazi war will be just as ruinous.

Yet because these men shall die, the world is a different and better place. It has taken thousands of years for humanity to admit and act upon the insistent truth that the man who plans and orders the death of innocent and unoffending thousands is as guilty as the man who kills his innocent and unoffending neighbor. The precedent is now established.

The element of vengeance in the verdict is secondary; the principle of justice is all-important. From this day forth the perpetrator of unprovoked, aggressive war is individually and personally guilty of a crime against humanity.

If there should be a future war, its instigators will know that international law and world opinion are immutable upon that point. And since an instinctive love of life must reside in even the cruelest and most fanatic minds, the decision of the Nuernberg court may be one more deterrent of continuing war, and one further hope for lasting peace.

1060

The Evening Star (October 9, 1946)

lawrence

Lawrence: Nazis’ trials spelled history for posterity

Reasoning behind Nuernberg little known to U.S. people
By David Lawrence

Senator Taft’s criticism of the Nuernberg trials, as being arts of “vengeance” administered under a new concept of law which was not in existence when the violations occurred, is the forerunner of a lengthy debate among jurists of various nations.

It is surprising how many diplomats here say there is something to the Ohio senator’s viewpoint, but it is surprising also how little the reasoning which lies behind the Nuernberg trials has been publicized.

On its face, any conquering nation has the right to punish the conquered for inhumane acts or violations of the laws of wars. Customarily this has been done by military tribunals. Because the victors in this instance have chosen to set up a trial by the novel method of using civilian judges with civilian procedures does not mean that the right to punish those guilty of violations of international law is in itself novel.

Theory long upheld

Germany as a nation renounced aggressive war as “an instrument of national policy.” This was written in the Kellogg-Briand treaties. Obviously when a government or a nation violates a treaty, it is violating international law. To say that there is no means of punishing a nation because its individual leaders are immune, is to say that international law itself has no force behind it. Actually throughout history the theory of exacting punishment for violations of international law has long been upheld. These are sometimes referred to as “sanctions” or “reprisals” and take the form of seizure of property or of persons held guilty of the offense.

The United States government notified Pancho Villa in 1918 that Mexicans would be held personally accountable for misdeeds. Villa led a group of bandits across the American boundary into New Mexico and massacred some American citizens. President Wilson sent an American expedition into Mexico to capture the bandit leader.

There are other instances in which wars or near-wars have been accompanied by notice to a leader or his group that he would be held accountable for their acts.

It will be recalled that Winston Churchill, as prime minister, served such a warning on the Nazis during the war. It will be argued that some of the men tried at Nuernberg were not directly connected with what are ordinarily termed as violations of the laws of war. It will be urged also that some of these men did not participate in the political events leading up to the war of aggression. The question turns, however, on acts of inhumanity and cruelty. Men who acquiesce in such crimes by the government of which they are a part are themselves guilty of the crimes.

Signed by German nation

Where individuals exercised no independent judgment and had no power to dissent, there has been in the Nuernberg cases a tendency to spare them severe punishment, but the evidence shows that the men recently convicted did play a powerful role in the government and in the making of its policies. Hence they must be punished for having violated the Kellogg-Briand treaties which the German nation signed, along with the other nations of the world.

The murder of innocent men, women and children was a crime in international law long before Hitler was born. To say that the Hitlerites who were convicted at Nuernberg were tried on an ex post facto basis is to raise a technical quibble. International law and statutory law are not the same thing. International law is based on custom and on the development over the years of rights asserted first by an individual nation or a group of nations. The Hitlerites were guilty of the crimes for which they have been tried.

The importance of the civilian trials lies in the fact that the evidence has been spelled out for posterity. The record has been made crystal clear. It wasn’t legally necessary to do this, but it was important to implement the Kellogg-Briand treaties, which condemn aggressive war, with a procedure which will be a warning for all times that individuals who compose a government are responsible for its acts.

1061

The Pittsburgh Press (October 9, 1946)

Taft stands by his blast at war trials

Says remarks are own personal views
By Ned Brooks, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – Sen. Taft’s blast against the Nuernberg convictions adds another episode to the Ohioan’s record for putting himself and his fellow Republicans in the grease.

Gov. Thomas E. Dewey’s swift defense of the Nazi death sentences, the obvious discomfort of other Republican leaders and the glee with which Democrats seized the issue reflected the belief that the Taft outburst would produce campaign reactions.

Yet observers familiar with Sen. Taft’s methods recorded the incident merely as another example of his disposition for candor even though his views might be unpopular or politically unastute.

Stands by assertion

Sen. Taft today stood by his assertion that the Nuernberg trials were a “blot on the American record” but said he had “no intention of making any political issue of the matter or expressing any opinions except my own.”

He added that his views were given at a “non-political, academic forum” at Kenyon College and that he had taken the same position in three or four previous speeches.

He said his criticism was not directed at the international court “but rather at the whole novel and hypocritical procedure of the victors trying the vanquished for the crime of making war under the form of judicial procedure.”

Chairman of committee

Sen. Taft issued his statement after Democratic leaders had interpreted the remarks as Republican policy. Democratic spokesmen emphasized that the Ohioan is chairman of the Republican Steering Committee in the Senate and a presidential prospect for 1948.

Sen. Taft has been a conformist on party policy only when he agreed with it. He wrote major portions of the domestic platform of 1944, but spoke out sharply last year against a proposed policy declaration prepared by his congressional colleagues. He said it was wordy and evasive.

Although rated by many as an arch-conservative, Sen. Taft confounded his critics this year by becoming the co-author of a Public Housing Bill which real estate interests promptly labeled “Socialistic.” And in his fight against President Truman’s labor draft bill, he was aligned with Congress’ extreme left-wingers.

1062

Stalin guilty, senator says

By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – If Dictator Stalin were not a former ally, he might be tried under the Nuernberg rules as an “aggressor,” Sen. Willis (R-Indiana) said today.

He cited Russia’s seizure of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and pointed to the constantly expanding puppet states now recognized as Stalinist satellites.

“From a purely legal standpoint, I think that Sen. Taft is right when he says that the Nuernberg-Nazi trials are a perversion of Anglo-American traditions of law and justice,” Sen. Willis commented.

“We never have believed in ex-post-facto law, except in some of our frontier cases in the Wild West days. Sen. Taft certainly has one of the finest legalistic minds of our time and his statement was courageous if impolitic.

“For myself I feel that the conscience of mankind demanded trial and punishment for these Nazi criminals. Were we to follow through and try all aggressors, it is difficult to see how Stalin could escape, except for the fact that he was an ally.”

1063

Letter: ‘Far-sighted group,’ he calls them

Editor: Commenting on the acquittal of the German General Staff at Nuernberg, Col. D. F. Fritzsche, deputy American intelligence chief in Europe is quoted: “It is very encouraging to any staff officer that the court has not set a precedent under which he might some day be prosecuted just for doing his job.”

As the Associated Press dispatch from Frankfurt puts it: “United States Army officers hailed with satisfaction and relief the tribunal’s ruling that the German General Staff and high command were not criminal organizations.”

As, any intelligent civilian knows, the acts of aggression against which he may be called upon to sacrifice his life would be impossible without the co-operation and active participation of the general staff and high command, acting the role of paid thugs and murderers to a criminal government. That men must pay with their lives to stop such aggression seems of little concern to the American officers.

They are a far-sighted group. They can see the possibility that some time in the future the United States might be defeated by a resurgence of the German army or other aggressors, and in which the country may be ground under the heel of a brutal conquerer. “It is very encouraging to any staff officer” that his personal freedom and safety will be respected though the rubble of our cities be drenched in blood and lesser citizens be sold into slavery.

ROBERT G. CAFFREY
4514 Forbes St.

1064

Allied council considers Nazis’ appeals

Refusal expected for clemency pleas

BERLIN (UP) – The Allied Control Council took up the appeal of 16 Nazi war criminals today, with high American military government officials predicting that all the Nuernberg sentences would be upheld.

The Council adjourned for the day with no statement.

If the Council sustains the sentences, Hermann Goering and 10 of his colleagues will die on the gallows a week from today, and the other convicts will begin serving prison terms.

Secrecy unsurpassed

The four military governors of occupied Germany who comprise the Control Council sat down with their advisers around a big table to take up the sentences which they can ease but not increase.

The Council began its deliberations in an atmosphere

On the Council’s table lay requests from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl for execution by a firing squad instead of the prescribed hanging. There also was a request from Grand Adm. Erich Raeder to be shot instead of serving life imprisonment.

Ruling may be delayed

American Military Government officials said the Councils probably would need more than one day to reach a decision on all the appeals.

The Council met in the same room where Roland Freisler, former president of the German People’s Court, sentenced to death Mayor Karl Goerdeler of Leipzig and scores of other Germans for the July 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler.

1065

The Waterbury Democrat (October 9, 1946)

Goering, Sauckel collapse

Nazi slave labor boss mental case, Army tells press

Nuernberg (UP) – An Army spokesman said today that of the 11 condemned Nazi war criminals, Hermann Goering had become a shattered and broken man, and Fritz Sauckel had become a “mental case.”

Maj. Frederick Teich, Army security officer for the Nuernberg Prison, reported the failings of two of the Nazis awaiting the outcome of their appeals and probable execution a week from today.

Only yesterday Teich said that none of the condemned men had shown any sign of collapse or breakdown. It appeared probable that in describing Goering as a completely broken man he was speaking in a general manner without reference to any current change in his condition.

Writes to dissolved tribunal

He said Sauckel, Nazi slave labor boss, had been propounding scientific theories both unique and fantastic. He recommended, Teich said, harnessing the North Sea winds in order to drain the sea and use the land for farming. He also recommended that Germany abandon steam and diesel engines in favor of sailing vessels because of the country’s coal and metal shortage.

Sauckel believes his death sentence resulted from mistranslation of a single sentence in the evidence that he would “squeeze the most out of foreign workers at the least possible cost.” He has written long letters to the now-dissolved tribunal about that point.

Teich said Goering, although a broken man, gets no sympathy from his fellow prisoners.

Sympathize with Jodl

Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl has the sympathy of the other Nazis, Teich said, and they think his request for a soldier’s death by shooting instead of hanging should be granted.

The others are hostile toward Marshal Wilhelm Keitel on grounds that he forfeited the right to any consideration by overstepping the bounds of the Prussian military code.

He said Raeder was worried and depressed by the disappearance of his wife.

1066

Cummings: Nuernberg tribunal proof peace possible

By BETTY BLANCHARD

World peace and world order can be achieved if nations will realize that peace is indivisible, and that there is a marked difference between forfeiture of sovereignty and the forfeiture of nationalism, Philip Cummings, news analyst, geographer, and lecturer, told the Waterbury Women’s Club yesterday afternoon.

Asserting that both Russia and America, with its clashing ideologies, could overcome their national differences, and still retain their sovereignty, the right to govern the destiny of their peoples, the speaker pointed to the Nuernberg Military Tribunal as “living proof that nations can get along together under one government, and that such government, backed by an enforcement group, is workable.”

Opponents of world government who declare that participation in such organization would require the relinquishment of national sovereignty are ill-informed, the speaker said, since according to international law, sovereignty only authorizes the right of a nation to fulfill its own destiny.

Overthrowing prejudices

International unity demands, for most part, Mr. Cummings pointed out, the putting away of prejudices and pettiness, and the ability of nations to mind their own businesses as to the national policy of other nations. He further asserted that progress toward “one world” is dependent upon processes “slow in the making but necessarily so.”

As an illustration, Mr. Cummings pointed to American history which reveals that many of the delegates to the Continental Congress were doubtful whether the people of the various states could put away their differences and prejudices sufficiently to live peacefully under one government, and that only fear of the coming revolution forced them to ratify the Constitution.

“If our efforts in world organization of world peace appear to be slow in the making, we must remember that a fast-healing wound is dangerous,” he emphasized. “What the world needs today is not fear nor force, but a steadying influence and vision. We have grown to accept the process of war. We are beginning to believe that war is a preface or a planting for a future war. But we hope for something better.”

Political feuding

Once again referring to the statement that peace is indivisible, Mr. Cummings asserted if we are to be leaders in the effort for world peace, it is essential that we first settle our internal difficulties. Charging that political office-seekers often use foreign policy as a springboard to vote-getting, Mr. Cummings said: “The present stress in American-Soviet relations is not half so dangerous as the differences which exist between our President and our past Secretary of State. We fight our internal politics on whatever lines we find, and it is just as convenient to fight them on American-Russian relations as anything else.”

The first problem that America faces today, he continued, is the development of backbone and understanding of the position of this nation in world affairs.

He pointed to the fact that most Americans quiver when Pravda, the official Russian newspaper, makes a declaration in regard to American relations. Indifference, he said, will appear to be much more effective than fear. “Then it will be found that Pravda will stop making such assertions. We should have sufficient character to appear inviolable. But we get into a state of hypersensitivity. We should have the courage to tell Russia to mind her business, and we will mind ours.”

World peace first

Mr. Cummings emphasized the way to make peace with Russia, is to make peace the world first, and then included the Soviet. Since Russia will not change her ideology it is necessary for Americans to realize, he said, not merely that peace is indivisible, but we must include the Soviets in our peace plans, and that she holds more than one-sixth the world’s territory and has the largest frontier to defend in the world. He further asserted that Russia must be recognized as an imperial colonizing nation, as has been evidenced in her activities in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and other satellite nations.

In conclusion, Mr. Cummings asserted that the recent verdict of the Nuernberg tribunal will prove a big factor in keeping world peace, because war-mongers and warmakers for the first time in world history were found not to be immune from judgment.

“It is the greatest step forward in the way of peace,” he said. “For no war criminal can today go free. And every leader, who violates human decencies, will suffer for his sins.”

1067

Wiener Kurier (October 10, 1946)

Alliierter Rat wird heute Entscheid über Gnadengesuche bekanntgeben

Beratungen über das Vermögen der Hauptkriegsverbrecher

Berlin (INS.) - Der Alliierte Kontrollrat für Deutschland hielt gestern eine vorläufige Beratung über die Gnadengesuche der durch den Nürnberger Gerichtshof verurteilten Hauptkriegsverbrecher ab. Die Sitzung wurde am Nachmittag geschlossen, ohne daß der Rat Erklärungen über den Inhalt der Konferenz abgab. Es wurde jedoch angedeutet, daß ein abschließendes Kommuniqué über das Schicksal der verurteilten Hauptkriegsverbrecher wahrscheinlich heute veröffentlicht wird.

Der Alliierte Kontrollrat für Deutschland wird sich in seiner derzeitigen Sitzung auch mit der Frage der Verwendung des Vermögens der in Nürnberg verurteilten deutschen Hauptkriegsverbrecher beschäftigen.

Nach Mitteilung des Sekretariats stehen für die weitere Verwendung der Vermögen der ehemaligen Führer des Dritten Reiches zwei Pläne zur Beratung: Ein Vorschlag sieht die Verwendung dieser Vermögenswerte im Rahmen des deutschen Reparationsprogrammes vor, während eine andere Gruppe für die Sammlung dieser Vermögen in einem „Wiedergutmachungsfonds“ eintritt, aus dem Opfer des Naziterrors laufende Zuwendungen und Beihilfen erhalten sollen.

Die drei Freigesprochenen kommen vor deutsche Gerichte

Nürnberg (WK.) - Schacht, der jetzt in Stuttgart auf das Verfahren des deutschen Entnazifizierungsgerichts wartet, wurde gestern von seiner Frau besucht. Später sprach Frau Schacht bei dem Leiter der amerikanischen Militärregierung von Württemberg-Baden, Oberst Dawson, vor, um, wie man annimmt, die Freilassung ihres Mannes bis zu dem Prozeß zu erwirken.

Nach einer Meldung des amerikanischen Nachrichtendienstes in Deutschland kündigte ein Sprecher des Koordinierungsamtes des Länderrates gestern an, daß gegen Schacht in Stuttgart verhandelt werden wird.

Wie die amerikanische Nachrichtenagentur in Deutschland weiter berichtet, wurden gemäß einer Mitteilung der Presseabteilung des bayerischen Staatsgerichtshofes von Papen und Fritzsche durch den Ministerpräsidenten von Bayern angewiesen, Nürnberg nicht zu verlassen. Der bayerische Ministerpräsident hat einen Erlaß herausgegeben, daß sowohl von Papen als auch Fritzsche von einem Denazifizierungsgericht abgeurteilt und beide - wie der Erlaß hinzufügt - verhaftet werden sollen, falls sie Nürnberg zu verlassen versuchen.

Deutsche Staaten und Provinzen fordern auch Überlassung der Nürnberger Verbrecher

Berlin (Reuter) - Nach einer Meldung des amerikanischen Nachrichtendienstes in Deutschland von gestern abend geht aus einem von der Alliierten Kontrollkommission herausgegebenen Kommuniqué hervor, daß von sieben deutschen Staaten, vier Provinzen und zwei freien Städten im März dieses Jahres das Ansuchen gestellt worden ist, die Nürnberger Kriegsverbrecher deutschen Gerichten zu überstellen.

Österreichs Auslieferungsantrag überreicht

Wien (ACA.) - Der österreichische Justiz-minister überreichte gestern der Alliierten Kommission für Österreich einen offiziellen Antrag der Bundesregierung auf Auslieferung Papens und Schirachs zur Aburteilung in Wien.

Raeders Frau ist verschwunden

Die Frau des Angeklagten Erich Raeder wird seit dem 26. September vermißt, wie Beamte des Nürnberger Gefängnisses gestern bekanntgaben. Frau Raeder hatte an diesem Tag Berlin in Begleitung einer russischen Wachmannschaft verlassen, um ihren Gatten in Nürnberg zu besuchen.

Königin Wilhelmine wird Seyß-Inquarts Gnadengesuch nicht unterstützen

Den Haag (UP.) - Königin Wilhelmine von Holland hat beschlossen, das Gnadengesuch für den ehemaligen Reichskommissar für die Niederlande, Arthur Seyß-Inquart, das bereits dem Alliierten Kontrollrat in Berlin übermittelt wurde, nicht zu unterstützen.

Nazipressechef Dietrich schreibt ein Buch

Frankfurt (AP) - Wie das Hauptquartier der 3. amerikanischen Armee gestern bekanntgab, hat der ehemalige „Reichspressechef“ Otto Dietrich, der seinerzeit mit dem Buch „Mit Hitler an die Macht“ ein ansehnliches Vermögen verdiente, nunmehr einen Fortsetzungsband unter dem Titel „Mit Hitler in den Untergang“ veröffentlicht.

1068

„Ohne Papen wäre Hitler nie Reichskanzler geworden“

Schuschnigg in einer belgischen Zeitung

Brüssel (APA.) - „Die Rolle, die von Papen in Wien gespielt hat, war nichts anderes als die eines Vollzugsorgans“, erklärte Exkanzler Schuschnigg im Verlaufe eines der „Libre Belgique“ gewährten Interviews. Schuschnigg fügte hinzu, daß die schwerste Verantwortlichkeit Papens in der Hilfe liege, die er Hitler vor dessen Machtergreifung geleistet habe „Ohne von Papen“, sagte er, „wäre Hitler niemals Reichskanzler geworden.“

Die Vorträge Schuschniggs haben in Belgien erbitterten Widerspruch und lebhafte Zwischenfälle in Brüssel und Lüttich ausgelöst. Der Gemeinderat von Brüssel hat in Erwägung gezogen, die, Vorträge zu verbieten.

1069

The Evening Star (October 10, 1946)

Nazi doctors to face Allied trial on Nov. 15

NUERNBERG (AP) – American authorities said today that German doctors charged with using human beings as guinea pigs for inhuman experiments in SS (Elite Guard) laboratories would face trial about November 15 in renewed war crimes proceedings in Nuernberg.

Attorneys said SS officials and doctors involved in such experiments on concentration camp inmates and other persons would be grouped together in the first of a series of six trials. The second group, they said, would include Nazi People’s Court judges who issued summary death sentences, often without even hearing defense testimony.

At least a dozen doctors engaged in so-called medical experiments for the SS have been brought here for trial and an entire corridor of the Nuernberg courthouse has been roped off for weeks for the interrogation of witnesses.

Experimental laboratories were discovered by invading Allied armies in several areas of Germany.

1070

‘Consorting’ with Nazis’ wives by Americans at trial charged

SEATTLE (AP) – Sen. Mitchell (D-Washington) said last night he had transmitted reports to the Senate War Investigating Committee that unidentified members of the U.S. prosecutor’s staff “consorted” with wives of some of the Nazis they prosecuted at Nuernberg.

Sen. Mitchell said he was not making the charges which, he said, “were given to me by International News Service, which asked that I transmit them to the Kilgore Committee, which I did. A Kilgore Committee investigator is being sent.”

The senator said he could not now identify the accused men.

In Wheeling, West Virginia, Sen. Kilgore (D-West Virginia), chairman of the investigating committee, said, “I personally have never heard of such a charge, and it was not brought up in the committee.”

Chief Counsel George Meader, to whom Sen. Mitchell said he sent the report, told newsmen in Washington he had not received it and knew nothing about it. Mr. Meader was due to leave yesterday for Europe to make a survey of American occupation activities for the committee, but was delayed by weather conditions.

1071

Editorial: Relics from Nuernberg

It has been reported from London that the flags of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia which hung behind the judges at the Nazi war trials at Nuernberg are to come to the Library of Congress for permanent preservation. With these precious relics of the first international proceedings against the authors of global strife will be associated the originals of all documents introduced by the American prosecutors. The greatest bibliographic establishment in the world obviously is a proper depository for any and all such material. Already installed under its roof are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States in which the principles of democracy and justice first effectively were set forth in modern times. The universal public now is learning that those pronouncements of the eighteenth century had application everywhere, among all nations. It has been demonstrated that, just as tyranny in any place is a threat to liberty in every place, freedom and equity are forces for good wherever they may appear.

The trials at Nuernberg may seem mere acts of vengeance to some persons. But to a much larger number they are important because of the fact that they represent a legitimate attempt to make the elementary moral law of righteousness and fair dealing a truly dynamic power in human experience. The end is not yet, of course. Pure justice, like pure fellowship, is a value to be obtained only by generations of endeavor. One day the flags from the Nuernberg courtroom and the documents offered by the American delegation there may be displayed in the Library of Congress in company with flags flown and papers recorded in the ultimate tribunal, the definitive parliament in which the whole population of the earth will be joined.