The Nuremberg Trial

1042

d.thompson

On the Record…
Grandiose idea inspired Nuernberg trials

By Dorothy Thompson

Behind the Nuernberg trials was a grandiose idea – the creation of a new international law. The purpose of this trial was not to “hang the Kaiser,” or give vent to feelings of hatred or revenge. Summary courts-martial could more quickly have removed the leading Nazis from the world.

No. The avowed object of the trials was to establish in law, solemnly, and in conformity with the “conscience of mankind,” that war is a crime; that, in the words of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, no nation may “resort to war as an instrument of national policy,” and that those who take the responsibility of breaking this pledge can be held responsible, as individuals, for their actions.

The object of the trials was, further to defend certain fundamental rights of man against the state, whether a state offended those rights in its own domain, or in the course of conquest, or as conquerors or absorbers of another state. It was to be established that physical extermination of political dissidents or of racial minorities was an act of murder, for which the initiators and collaborators could be held personally responsible; that such measures as slave labor, and the deportation of persons and families from their houses, were not permissible under any excuse of state sovereignty or national policy, and that the responsible initiators of, and collaborators with, such cruel and unusual measures could be held personally responsible before mankind. Hence the category of charges: “Crimes against humanity” and “war crimes.”

In short, not only are Goering, Hess, Von Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, and all the others on trial. Certain practices of sovereign states, which had reached their most horrible expression in Nazism, were on trial. The conviction of these men was to usher in a new reign of international law and establish a new international bill of rights, valid for all human beings everywhere.

If now the people feel no great elation regarding the outcome, nothing more than a grim satisfaction that some, at least, of the wretches will get what they dished out to others, is it not because they doubt whether anything new has become established, beyond the precedent that whoever wins a war may put the leaders of the vanquished on trial for their lives? Will this be a deterrent to war? May it not, rather, make armies and states in any future war incapable of compromise or surrender, since every leader will know that his own neck is forfeited to defeat?

The first crime charged was conspiracy to break the peace and to wage “aggressive” war. All law, however, involves definitions. What is aggression? Very significantly the defendants were not charged for attacking France and Britain, who had declared war on Germany before they themselves were attacked, in defense of an ally. In the case of Britain and France (who were judges and prosecutors), versus Germany, who was the “aggressor?” On October 31, 1939, one of the prosecutors (and judges), the USSR, through Mr. Molotov, declared that Britain and France, in continuing the war after the fall of Poland, were the aggressors. Is this expunged?

The attack on Poland was specifically charged against the defendants as an act of aggression. But one of the prosecutors had participated in the attack. Is, then, aggression sometimes justified and sometimes not, and if so, under what circumstances? Law demands definitions.

Is the crime to start a war? If so, why these mighty armies, air forces, navies, chemical researches, atomic bombs, bacteriological and poison weapons on which the energies and fortunes of the victors continue to be expended? Their purpose is war. Why not total disarmament of all states and the creation of a true international police force to see that they remain disarmed? This would seem to be the logical conclusion of the Nuernberg trials, if they are to accomplish their purpose.

Was the dropping of atomic bombs on the open cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the results described for all posterity by John Hersey, a “war crime”? Is the spending of $50,000,000 by our government to perfect a poison, “one cubic inch of which will kill 180,000,000 people,” a war crime?

Have racial persecutions ceased? Are persons and families no longer uprooted and driven out like cattle? Are political dissidents everywhere, among the Allies, safe in their freedom and lives? Are all races of men regarded equally as parts of humanity?

Unless and until a law of nations defines and affirms as crimes of universal validity the things with which the defendants in this trial were charged, and establishes both an international court and police force on which states and persons can rely for justice and protection, Nuernberg will be merely a final incident in a war, not the opening act of a new epoch of law, humaneness and peace.

1043

lawrence

Lawrence: Nuernberg principles seen indicting Soviet

‘Iron curtain’ policy compared with Nazi totalitarianism
By David Lawrence

When is a question internal and when is it international, and what difference does it make in either case if the peace of the world is threatened?

This, in effect, is what Robert H. Jackson, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and the chief American prosecutor in the Nuernberg trials, said in his speech in Buffalo which in some respects was the most pointed warning against totalitarian tyranny that has been uttered since V-J Day.

Justice Jackson did not mention the totalitarianism or oppression behind the “iron curtain” in Russia and the Balkans and was properly discussing the problem in the most general terms. But the implication that can be taken from his remarks is plain, whether or not he intended it so to be construed. Mr. Jackson said:

“The victory has not ended or given promise of ending oppression and injustice which breed international discords. We conquered a country whose predominant faction was practicing terrorism in most barbaric forms and on a vast scale.

“But the defeat of one group of oppressors does not end oppression. In many of its aspects persecution of minorities is an internal matter between the government and its citizens. But its disruptive effect on the international order is so direct that tyranny on a sizable scale anywhere is a matter of international concern.”

Reiteration of a doctrine

This is a significant reiteration of a doctrine which has lately been proclaimed by Uruguay with reference to Latin America and by such groups as the Catholic Bishops of America in their pronouncement of a year ago. It is a principle which is logically derived from the approach made by the Allied governments to the problem of internal acts wholly within a nation’s sovereignty which nevertheless affect external relations and which in this instance produced the most flagrant aggression of modern history.

What Justice Jackson is really saying is that it was a mistake for the world to shut its eyes to what Hitler and the Nazis were doing between 1933 and 1939, refraining from taking preventive action because this had hitherto been regarded as strictly, an “internal matter between the government and its citizens.”

Had the world realized fully the consequences on an international scale of what Hitler was doing inside Germany, the theory of Allied cooperation and punishment which the Nuernberg trials exemplified might have been invoked before, and not after, many millions of persons had been killed and many more wounded.

“It will take time – more time than any of us will ever see–” adds Justice Jackson, “to learn the ultimate effect of the Nuernberg trial on international law, and to what extent it may deter attacks on the peace of the world and persecutions of minorities.”

Individuals also are guilty

The principle behind the trials was novel. It is that individuals, as well as nations, can offend against international ethics and law and that punishment must be inflicted upon individuals as well as nations guilty of aggression.

The world is witnessing another series of acts of barbarism and tyranny. Concentration camps exist behind the “iron curtain.” Freedom of speech and of the press is denied and anyone who dares to question the policies of the totalitarian governments is persecuted. It is estimated that many hundreds of thousands of persons are incarcerated in the Russian orbit of nations for expressing political opinions.

The iron hand of the dictators is felt in Yugoslavia as well as in other Balkan countries. American correspondents are forbidden to penetrate these countries lest the truth of what is happening behind the “iron curtain” be revealed to the world. The Russian government is apparently afraid of the truth – afraid of world opinion which will inevitably be mobilized against it when all the truth is known about present-day Communism and its excesses.

The Communist totalitarians, like their predecessors, the Nazi Fascists, insist that all this is internal and that sovereignty gives a government the right to do as it pleases within its borders. Unhappily, that is the road to internal friction which becomes international discord.

1044

Reader asks Allies to change sentence from life to death

NUERNBERG (AP) – Grand Adm. Erich Raeder, builder of the German fleet and one of three men sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal, has appealed to the Allied Control Council to change, his sentence to death by shooting.

Raeder said his petition did not mean that he was pleading guilty as indicted but was prompted by his advanced age of 70 and the state of his health.

The Council has the power to reduce sentences but not to increase those imposed by the international tribunal.

Raeder told the Control Council: “The resistance of my body is very low and the imprisonment would not last very long.”

Raeder, who was convicted on three counts of the indictment common plan or conspiracy, crimes against peace and war crimes – said the verdict was the result of “a mistake in the way the prosecution handled the Norwegian case.”

Blames political interest

This mistake, he said, was due to political interests.

He emphasized he would welcome the change of sentence as more honorable and said: “I testify that I make this petition in fullest possession of my mental powers and in complete command of my soul.”

Meanwhile, Hjalmar Schacht, one of three defendants acquitted by the tribunal, was reported to have left Nuernberg for “the vicinity of Stuttgart” to visit relatives and friends. Military government authorities here said he had cleared with them and with the German police.

Of the other two acquitted defendants, Hans Fritzsche was staying at the home of friends in Nuernberg and his future plans were unknown. Franz von Papen, the other, still was waiting in the Palace of Justice jail for permission to enter the British zone in order to go to his old home at Stockhausen.

Preparing last messages

The eleven high Nazis sentenced to hang for war crimes nine days hence are preparing their last messages for posterity while secret arrangement are under way for their execution.

The men, convicted by a four-power international military tribunal last Tuesday, spent a rainy Sunday yesterday writing letters to families and friends and some saw chaplains in the Palace of Justice jail.

The executions in the jail are set officially for 15 days after pronouncement of sentence which would be October 16. U.S. Army officials, asked for details, say only that the plans are up to the Allied Control Council in Berlin.

Nothing has been said about whether all 11 men would be hanged the same day, who would hang them and how many scaffolds would be used. Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s crack hangman, is in the Nuernberg vicinity.

1045

Clay would restrict German trial plan

BERLIN (AP) – Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, deputy American military governor, told a news conference today that if the Nazis acquitted at Nuernberg remained in the American occupation zone the military government would prefer that they not be formally arrested by the Germans “until they can be tried under denazification laws and found guilty.”

Gen. Clay said that for the present, at least, the Americans opposed letting the Germans try the acquitted three on anything beyond denazification charges. In any case, he said, strong efforts will be made to protect them from double jeopardy on charges from which they won acquittal by the International Military Tribunal.

If tried under the denazification statute in the United States zone, the acquitted trio would be liable to maximum penalties of 10 years confinement, confiscation of all their property and permanent disbarment from public office.

Gen. Clay said he “doubted very much” that German courts, under present law, could try them for high treason, and he indicated American authorities were not now amenable to permitting establishment of special German courts to try them.

1046

The Pittsburgh Press (October 7, 1946)

U.S. sets up courts to try more Nazis

BERLIN (UP) – The American Military Government is setting up zonal courts to try hundreds of Germans as war criminals.

Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, American deputy military governor, said that the defendants will be taken from among the 77,000 internees now held in the U.S. Zone of Germany.

He doubted that any more war criminals will face international tribunals in Europe. The possibility of more international trials, he said, is being determined on a governmental level, but he indicated that the Soviet dissent on the Nuernberg verdicts ruled out any more four-power courts.

Gen. Clay said German authorities doubtless will prosecute the three men acquitted at Nuernberg under the Allied-approved de-Nazification laws.

1047

The Waterbury Democrat (October 7, 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 only of 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.

1048

Wiener Kurier (October 8, 1946)

Schacht von deutscher Polizei in Stuttgart verhaftet

Nürnberg (WK.) - Hjalmar Schacht verließ gestern vormittag Nürnberg, um sich nach Stuttgart zu begeben. Dort wollte er den Direktor der Haniel-Werke, Keusch, besuchen und heute wieder nach Nürnberg zurückkehren. Vor seiner Abreise hatte er sich laut Vereinbarung bei dem leitenden Offizier der Militärregierung in Nürnberg und dem Nürnberger Polizeipräsidenten abgemeldet.

Nach seiner Ankunft in der Gegend von Stuttgart wurde er aber trotzdem von deutschen Polizeiorganen verhaftet und in das Stuttgarter Gefängnis eingeliefert. Es soll gegen ihn auf Grund der Denazifizierungsgesetze die Anklage erhoben werden. Schacht hat gegen seine Verhaftung Protest eingelegt und heute wird sein Verteidiger Dr. Rudolf Dix den Alliierten Kontrollrat in Berlin direkt davon in Kenntnis setzen.

Sonderspruchkammer für Schacht, Papen, Fritzsche geplant

Gestern äußerte sich Schacht einem Reuter-Korrespondenten gegenüber, daß ihm jede Absicht fernliege, zu fliehen, um dem Gericht zu entgehen. Wenn der Gerichtshof in der amerikanischen Zone Deutschlands das legale zuständige Gericht verstelle, so werde er sich ihm stellen.

Die bayrische Landesregierung beabsichtigt für Schacht, Papen und Fritzsche eine Sonderspruchkammer einzurichten, und wird versuchen, das umfangreiche Material des Nürnberger Prozesses zu erhalten, um das Ermittlungsverfahren abzukürzen. Ferner gab der Präsident der Nürnberger Entnazifizierungskammer gestern nachmittag bekannt, daß das Verfahren gegen Schacht, von Papen und Fritzsche aufgenommen wurde.

Papen noch im Nürnberger Gefängnis

Papen hält sich nach wie vor in der „Gastzelle“ des Nürnberger Gerichtsgebäudes auf und wartet auf die Erlaubnis zur Einreise in die britische Zone. Fritzsche befindet sich vorläufig in einem Privathaus in der Nähe des Justizpalastes. Gestern erhielt er eine Identitätskarte ausgestellt, welche die Berufsbezeichnung „Journalist“ trägt.

Kurioser Appell Seyß-Inquarts an die Königin von Holland

Arthur Seyß-Inquart, der vom Internationalen Militärgerichtshof zum Tode verurteilt wurde, richtete ein Gnadengesuch an Königin Wilhelmine von Holland, nachdem er schon am vergangenen Samstag ein Gnadengesuch an den Kontrollrat in Berlin gesandt hatte.

Alliierter Kontrollrat soll morgen über die Gnadengesuche entscheiden

Berlin (WK.) - Der stellvertretende amerikanische Militärgouverneur für Deutschland, Generalleutnant Lucius D. Clay. teilte gestern Pressevertretern mit, daß sich der Alliierte Kontrollrat in der morgen stattfindenden Sitzung mit den durch die in Nürnberg verurteilten Hauptkriegsverbrecher eingereichten Gnadengesuchen beschäftigen werde. Daneben besteht die Möglichkeit, daß der Alliierte Kontrollrat durch den Vorsitzenden zu einer Sondersitzung, die sich nur mit der Erledigung der Gesuche zu befassen hat, einberufen wird.

Auf die Forderung Österreichs über die Auslieferung Papens eingehend, sagte der General daß eine solche Bitte dem Alliierten Kontrollrat in Berlin übermittelt werden muß, der über die Auslieferung aller Kriegsverbrecher entscheidet.

General Clay erklärte, daß man die drei in Nürnberg Freigesprochenen erst verhaften solle, wenn sie sich vor der Spruchkammer verantwortet haben und für schuldig befunden wurden, da das auch bei allen anderen Personen, die unter das Spruchkammergesetz fallen, so gehandhabt werde und man hier keine Ausnahme machen solle. Es stehe den deutschen Gerichten frei, sie aller Verbrechen, mit Ausnahme derer, von denen sie in Nürnberg freigesprochen wurden, anzuklagen.

Der General wies darauf hin, daß die amerikanischen Militärbehörden im Begriffe sind, in ihrer Zone Gerichtshöfe zur Aburteilung von weiteren Hunderten von Kriegsverbrechern zu errichten. Der Freispruch der SA hat die Entlassung von mehreren tausend internierten Deutschen zur Folge. Von den ursprünglich 77.000 Internierten in der amerikanischen Zone werden etwa 12.000 bis 15.000 zur Aburteilung durch amerikanische Gerichte zurückbehalten. Der Rest wird den deutschen Behörden zur weiteren Behandlung nach dem Entnazifizierungsgesetz übergeben.

Keine Stellungnahme des Papstes zum Nürnberger Urteil

London (Reuter) - Radio Vatikan gab gestern bekannt, daß niemand ermächtigt worden sei, die Meinung des Papstes über das Nürnberger Urteil mitzuteilen. „Wir wurden ermächtigt zu erklären, daß die kürzlich erfolgte Erklärung durch einen angeblichen Sprecher des Vatikans, der eine Zusammenfassung der Meinung des Heiligen Vaters über die Urteile gab, gänzlich frei erfunden war.“

Ehemalige „Stürmer“-Druckerei druckt Bericht des Nürnberger Prozesses

Nürnberg (INS.) - Die ehemalige Druckerei in Nürnberg, in der seinerzeit das Hetzblatt des zum Tode verurteilten Kriegsverbrechers Streicher, „Der Stürmer“, hergestellt wurde, dient derzeit einem anderen Zweck. Nach erfolgter Wiederherstellung werden in den Druckereiräumen die Gesamtberichte über den Nürnberger Prozeß, die allein 16 Millionen Worte umfassen, gedruckt und vervielfältigt. Ein Bericht umfaßt mehr als 100 Bände. Insgesamt werden 5000 Exemplare in englischer Sprache und je 2500 in französischer, russischer und deutscher Sprache gedruckt.

1049

„Göring ist ein billiger Possenreißer“

Die Hauptkriegsverbrecher im Urteil des Psychiaters
Von Dr. Gustav Gilbert, Chefpsychiater des Nürnbergers Hauptgefängnisses

Nürnberg (INS.) - Der einzige Selbstmordkandidat unter den noch im Nürnberger Gefängnis befindlichen 18 Hauptkriegsverbrechern ist derzeit Erich Raeder, der meine Vermutung durch sein plötzlich abgegebenes Gesuch, die Gefängnisstrafe in ein Todesurteil abzuändern, nur bestätigt hat.

Göring dagegen ist ein nazistischer Verbrecher, ein billiger „Possenreißer“, der bewußt mit dem Leben anderer Menschen verantwortungslos gespielt hat. Diese Auffassung wird übrigens durch die Mitangeklagten Görings geteilt, die oft genug über die Einschätzung Görings durch alliierte Pressevertreter, die sich durch dessen Auftreten bluffen ließen, lachten.

Von den Komplicen gehaßt

Speer, Schacht, Papen und die Generale hassen ihn durchwegs, da sie ihn als einen Schandfleck in der politischen und militärischen Tradition Deutschlands betrachten. Aus diesem Grunde fand auch der Appell Görings an die Mitangeklagten, eine gemeinsame Linie in der Verteidigung einzuhalten, keinen Widerhall. Es gelang ihm nur, bis zum Ende des Prozesses Ribbentrop zu terrorisieren, der als furchtsamer, völlig gebrochener Mann nichts aussagte, was das Mißfallen Görings hätte erregen können.

Einige der anderen Angeklagten zeigten gewisse Vorzüge im Benehmen. Unter den Militärs machte Jodl im allgemeinen den besten Eindruck. Er klagte nur darüber, daß sein Wunsch, erschossen zu werden, nicht erfüllt wurde.

Heß ist hysterisch

Funk ist über den Freispruch Schachts außer sich. Der schwierigste Fall ist Heß. Heß hatte sich während seiner Verteidigungsrede ins Endlose ergangen, sprach aber plötzlich ganz vernünftig, als er durch Lord-Richter Lawrence in seinem Redeschwall unterbrochen wurde. Dies war das dritte Mal seit seinem Fluge nach England, daß er zusammenhängend sprach. Heß weiß immer, was er tut, verliert jedoch zeitweise das Erinnerungsvermögen. Er muß in der Sprache des Psychiaters als eine hysterische Person bezeichnet werden, die einen aus Mystik und Verfolgungswahn gebildeten Denkkomplex enthält.

1050

The Wilmington Morning Star (October 8, 1946)

Hjalmar Schacht in hands of Germans; arrested at castle

FRANKFURT, Germany, Oct. 7 (UP) – Hjalmar Schacht, acquitted by the Nuernberg tribunal, was arrested by German police Monday while visiting a friend at Katherinehof castle, near Oppenweil, the German news agency Daiva reported.

The news agency said Germany’s wartime economic and financial wizard was taken into custody on orders from the Wuertemberg-Baden State ministry.

Previously, the Bavarian State Ministry announced, Schacht, along with Hans Fritzsche and Franz von Papen who also were freed at Nuernberg, would not be arrested but would face a German denazification court about mid-November.

Schacht, interviewed at the castle Monday, said he was “obliged to live on money borrowed from my friends.” He said he even had to borrow a clean shirt from his host, a man named Reuscher.

1051

The Evening Star (October 8, 1946)

Trial of Von Papen for treason sought by German council

NUERNBERG (AP) – The German Council of States announced today in Stuttgart that Franz von Papen would be tried for high treason if the Allied Control Council permitted restoration of Germany’s old treason laws.**

The possibility of the former ace diplomat, acquitted a week ago by the International Military Tribunal on war crimes counts, facing a treason trial also was conditioned on his remaining in the American occupation zone and on whether a “high German court has to be created with authority to deal with such cases,” said Dr. Reinhold Meier, minister president of Wuerttemberg-Baden, one of the three states under United States control.

Dr. Meier said German officials in the British zone concurred in the plan. He added, however, that the Allied Control Council had abolished the German treason laws under which Von Papen could be prosecuted.

Another of the three Germans acquitted on war crimes counts by the International Military Tribunal, Hjalmar Schacht, was under arrest in Stuttgart. Richard Schmid, state attorney of Wuerttemberg-Baden, protested the arrest and demanded that Schacht be released, because, he said, the German denazification law provided for incarceration only after conviction.

The Wuerttemberg-Baden Ministry of State ordered Schacht’s arrest last night less than an hour after the former banker reached Stuttgart from Nuernberg.

Von Papen and Hans Fritzsche, the other acquitted Germans, remained in relative security around the Nuernberg jail in which 11 of their fellows awaited an October 16 date with the hangman.

The Allied Control Council for Germany, last place of appeal, will meet tomorrow to hear clemency appeals by 16 of the 19 Germans convicted by the International Military Tribunal. Ernst Kaltenbrunner declined to appeal his death sentence and Albert Speer and Baldur von Schirach made no plea against their 20-year jail terms.

Dr. Meier, speaking on behalf of all three minister presidents of the American zone, said Von Papen, Schacht and Fritzsche definitely would be tried by German denazification courts on charges of Nazi Party activity.

He said the Legal Committee of the German Council of States would meet tomorrow to consider trying Schacht on charges “other than denazification.”

Maj. Frederick Teich of the Nuernberg prison detail said all condemned Germans had “very good appetites” and were maintaining dignity and discipline.

He said Hermann Goering and Joachim von Ribbentrop required sedatives for sleeping. Julius Streicher was reported grumbling constantly about being disturbed.

The prisoners were getting food averaging 2,500 calories a day with white bread, chocolates, sweets, flour and sugar added as recommended by the prison doctor. Menus today listed coffee and bread for breakfast; for luncheon, soup, canned roast beef, potatoes, beans and corn, and for dinner, cereal, plum pudding, bread and tea.

Prison officials said the captives were given “plenty” of American cigarettes.

An Army security officer said Von Papen would be kept in protective custody as long as the German desired. The former diplomat will stay at the Palace of Justice jail pending a British decision on his application to go to the British zone, where he has a home. A British decision is expected daily. Should they deny his petition, both Von Papen and Fritzsche are expected to remain in Nuernberg in view of Schacht’s arrest.

Schacht’s arrest was ordered by the Wuerttemberg-Baden Ministry of State despite a declaration earlier in the day by Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, deputy U.S. military governor, that the Military Government preferred that the three acquitted defendants not be arrested “until they can be tried under denazification laws and found guilty.”

Schacht protested his arrest, displaying a letter issued by the U.S. Military Government, granting him freedom of movement, but when the arresting officers remained adamant Schacht gathered up his pajamas and toilet kit and accompanied the policemen.

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.