The Nuremberg Trial

[NormanStewart]

Man to Man…
Verdict on Schacht and Von Papen declared miscarriage of justice

By Harold L. Ickes

Quite aside from questions of policy and procedure, I am at a loss to understand the result of the Nuernberg trials except on the theory, which I would deplore, that the court wanted to give an impression of judiciousness and so varied the sentences for the same or equivalent crimes.

To me the most shocking result of Nuernberg was not the sentence of “hanging” against Hermann Goering and others but the acquittal of Hjalmar Schacht. To my mind this is precisely as if Al Capone had been placed on trial with other members of his gang charged with participation in the same crimes and his accomplices were found guilty while he was acquitted.

Schacht was the evil genius who contrived the finances by which Hitler and his gang were able to operate. To my way of thinking, his was the greater measure of guilt and yet he was allowed to go scot-free while others were sentenced to be hanged or to prison for crimes which they could not have committed if it had not been for him. I will be greatly mistaken if the tender consideration shown to Schacht will not be more greatly misunderstood and, therefore, resented, as time goes by.

Greatest criminal of lot

With the greatest criminal of the lot dismissed with the kind smiles of the court, what deterrent will restrain some future Schacht, when he undertakes to breathe the breath of life into the diabolical schemes of another Hitler?

And after Schacht, it seems to me that Franz von Papen stood next in the order of his blood-guiltiness. It was von Papen who persuaded von Hindenburg to make Hitler Chancellor of the Reich. It was von Papen, who, during the First World War, plotted right here in America for the undoing of America. Hitler knew his von Papen. He appreciated his lack of honor, his total unscrupulousness and his willingness to put himself into the hands of his bloodletting leader as a ruthless instrument to throw the chancelleries of Europe into confusion. As in the case of Schacht, it gets down to the question whether greater moral guilt is to be condoned while a lesser degree of physical guilt is to meet with death upon the gallows.

I raise no question with respect to Rudolf Hess. It is fair to suppose that he was given life because he was thought to be Insane. Julius Streicher was found guilty on only one count. He was sentenced to hang. On the other hand, Karl Doenitz got off with 10 years’ imprisonment although he was found guilty on two counts. This should also be contrasted with Baldur von Schirach, who was sentenced to a term of 20 years on a finding of guilty on one count. And as against Doenitz with his 10 years for being guilty on two counts, it is to be noted that Ernst Kaltenbrunner, also guilty on two counts, was sentenced to hang.

In same category

Hans Frank is in the same category. Fritz Sauckel was decreed to be hanged because he was guilty on two counts. Martin Bormann, who was tried in absentia, was held to merit death by hanging because of his guilt on two counts, while Konstantin von Neurath. although found guilty on all four counts, got off with a mere 15 years. Another contrast: Arthur Seyss-Inquart, while determined to be guilty on three counts, was sentenced to be hanged while von Neurath, guilty on all four counts, was given the comparatively light sentence of 15 years.

To the degree that there were wide and apparently inexplicable variations are people likely to suspect that considerations entered into the judgment of the court that should not have been there. This apparent discrimination will not only make for a questioning of the court’s judgment, it will constitute a basis for the belief that, in some instances at least, martyrs were being created instead of criminals being punished. Certainly to let Hjalmar Schacht go free while at the same time hanging Von Ribbentrop will satisfy no one’s sense of justice, while to write “Franz von Papen the Innocent” under the life size portrait of that gentleman will evoke nothing but a cynical smile.

In view of what I regard as a miscarriage of justice with respect to Schacht and Von Papen, I join with Mr. Justice Jackson in demanding that other blood-guilty Germans, particularly financiers and industrialists, without whom these shocking crimes could not have been committed, be speedily brought to justice. And, in such an event, I should hope that the stage trappings that robbed Nuernberg of its proper dread effect will be dispensed with.

[NormanStewart]

Henderson Daily Dispatch (October 25, 1946)

Awaiting cremation, the bodies of three high-ranking Nazis lie in state in coffins in the Nuernberg jail following their execution for war crimes. In the top photograph is Hermann Goering, who cheated the gallows by taking poison. The next picture shows Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, who once commanded the Nazi legions which once ran rampant over Europe. The bottom picture is that of Joachim von Ribbentrop, a former wine salesman who became foreign minister of the hated Nazi regime.

[NormanStewart]

Wiener Kurier (October 26, 1946)

Nürnberger US-Richter zu neuen Kriegsverbrecherprozessen berufen

SS-Ärzte und führende Industrielle angeklagt

Washington (AND.) - Wie aus einer Mitteilung des amerikanischen Kriegsministeriums hervorgeht, ist anführende Richter und Anwälte der Vereinigten Staaten die Einladung zur Teilnahme an einer Reihe neuer Kriegsverbrecherprozesse in der amerikanischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands ergangen.

Insgesamt werden 24 Juristen und Anwälte den Vorsitz bei sechs amerikanischen Militär-Sondergerichten in Nürnberg übernehmen, wo gegen die noch in amerikanischen Gefängnissen befindlichen Kriegsverbrecher Anklage erhoben wird.

Der neue amerikanische Gerichtshof wird seine 'Tätigkeit im nächsten Monat im Nürnberger Justizpalast aufnehmen, und zwar im selben Verhandlungssaal, wo das Schicksal der Hauptkriegsverbrecher entschieden wurde. Die erste Gruppe der Angeklagten wird sich aus 23 SS-Ärzten und Wissenschaftlern zusammensetzen, von denen die meisten mit den Experimenten an KZ-Häftlingen zu tun hatten. Ferner wird die Anklage gegen eine Anzahl führender Naziindustrieller, darunter die Direktoren der IG-Farbenindustrie, der Dresdener Bank, der Krupp-Werke und gegen mehrere hohen militärischen Führer und Regierungsbeamte vorbereitet.

Unter den amerikanischen Juristen, die bereits in Deutschland eingetroffen sind, befinden sich Walter B. Beals vom Obersten Gerichtshof des Staates Washington, Herald L. Sehring, Richter am Obersten Gerichtshof des Staates Florida, und Johnson Tal Crawford, Richter am Distrikt-Gerichtshof in Oklahoma.

Brauchitsch im Nürnberger Gefängnis

Nürnberg (INS.) - Nach Mitteilung zuständiger Stellen befindet sich der frühere Oberbefehlshaber des deutschen Heeres, Generalfeldmarschall von Brauchitsch, im Nürnberger Gefängnis und sieht seiner Aburteilung als Kriegsverbrecher entgegen.

Im Gefängnis befinden sich außerdem der frühere Generalstabschef der Wehrmacht, Generaloberst Haider, der frühere Staatssekretär Otto Meißner sowie der ehemalige Reichspressechef Otto Dietrich.

Wird Untersuchung über Görings Selbstmord morgen endlich veröffentlicht?

Von seiten der Alliierten Kontrollkommission in Nürnberg, die als oberste Untersuchungsbehörde zur Aufklärung des Selbstmordes Görings durch den Alliierten Kontrollrat für Deutschland eingesetzt ist, wurde gestern nacht mitgeteilt, daß der offizielle Schlußbericht über die Vorgänge von Görings Selbstmord morgen veröffentlicht wird.

[NormanStewart]

The Evening Star (October 26, 1946)

Goering had poison from time of capture, investigators report

Carried it on his person at one period, Allied commission declares

NUERNBERG (AP) – Hermann Goering had suicide poison from the time of his capture, the four-power commission investigating his death reported today.

The commission did not say definitely where the No. 2 Nazi hid the poison with which he cheated the gallows on the eve of his scheduled execution.

An official announcement declared, however, “there is reason to support the view that at one time Goering could have carried the poison secreted in a cavity in his umbilical (navel).”

But the commission report declared definitely that the poison “was not there throughout his imprisonment,” and said positively that “at some stage it was in his alimentary tract.”

“An obscure recess in the inside of a toilet under an overhanging rin could have concealed a container for a time without detection except by extraordinary search,” the report said.

The commission absolved the American sentry on duty at Goering’s cell and said that “no blame worthy action or negligence is ascribed to the other prison guards of the United States Army.”

“Nor was there any evidence tracing to involve German workers in the special prison,” the commission added.

“The security measures taken were proper in the peculiar conditions of the trial and were satisfactorily carried out,” the commission said.

[NormanStewart]

Letter: Disagrees with Justice Jackson on ‘new’ Nuernberg law

To the Editor: Many people with whom I have talked, while agreeing that something had to be done to punish the German leaders, deplored the Nuernberg trials because the defeated were tried by the conquerors and the punishment was based on ex post facto law, and ex post facto law has been considered unthinkable for generations in the United States.

For that reason, Senator Taft considered the trials a disgrace to this country. An editorial in the Army and Navy Journal (October 22) states that, as a result of the trials, there will be an armament race because the loser in a war certainly will have at least all its top men executed. The editorial points out that the British, Russians and French let the American Army take the full responsibility for the trials.

Personally, I cannot understand how Justice Jackson (who could bicker with Justice Black because the latter heard a case in which a former law partner was interested – Justice Black, incidentally, had precedents therefor – and who, at the time a new Supreme Court Justice was under consideration, could bring his quarrel to the papers over this relatively insignificant matter of legal ethics) so easily could find his “new” law, when this “new” law in effect merely reverses one of our cornerstones of liberty – that no one shall be punished by a law not in existence at the time the acts were committed.

Although it has not been done among civilized, law-abiding people for generations, there is nothing new about executing the leaders of a defeated nation. The barbarians always did it. At the end of the Civil War, it would appear that the North had a greater legal right to execute Jefferson Davis and Gen. Lee as traitors than we had to execute the Nazi gang under this “new” law.

J. F. C.

[NormanStewart]

Eastern Connecticut News (October 26, 1946)

Letter: A precedent has been established at Nuernberg trial

To the Editor: A few days ago the former Warlords of Nazidom were hung on the gallows at Nuernberg. They had all been integral parts of a diabolical machine which had murdered innocent victims in cold blood. Even if some of these men had carried out the orders of a superior, they were still guilty of breaking a natural law, so the court decreed, and thus sentenced to die for breaking it. It is questionable, however, as to whether many people realize the significance of the precedent that has been established insofar as justice is concerned. A very lofty precedent that the United Nations will have a tremendous task, in view of present conditions, in living up to. But if they fail, then this trial at Nuernberg can be considered a great travesty on justice by future historians.

The court at Nuernberg has presented a precedent which can be likened to the uncovering of a shining pearl in a muddy oyster bed. However, the pearl soon began to lose its lustre when some of the defendants were acquitted, having enough international influence, and others excused, at a timely moment, because of sudden sickness. Then it ceased to sparkle when the guilty were condemned to mass execution instead of exile. For if a world court opines that a natural law, a supreme law, has been broken, then certainly no mortal men have the right to pass judgment for the breaking of such law. In other words, to act according to the highest ideals embodied in the precedent, judgment should be reserved for a higher court; one that has instilled natural law in the universe, and is therefore in the position to mete out exact justice to offenders.

By proclaiming that these men had broken a natural law the Nuernberg court stripped them of their last hope – subterfuge! There was no power on earth that could aid their counsel in building a case that would stand up against such a charge. They were the first to realize that the last glimmer of hope faded with it. Few, in regard to the world’s population, are aware of the deeper implications of this precedent, or the immense responsibility placed upon the U.N. and, furthermore, on anyone who has any integrity whatsoever. For when men are punished, by mortal men, for the breaking of a natural law, it is assumed that everyone else is living according to these higher laws!

Archbishop Stepinac, in a Yugoslavian court only a few hundred miles away from Nuernberg, was outrageously convicted for supposed collaboration with the Nazis. His record proved him to be a man of outstanding character. There is little doubt that this Yugoslavian court had Russian pressure applied to it, being a puppet government, when convicting Stepinac without a fair trial.

Thus it seems that the U.N. may have overreached, insofar as the majority of mankind have not as yet reached the level of the ideal set forth in the precedent, while Russia is resorting to barbarism. Between these two extremes lies an elusive peace.

LEON CAREW HUGUENOT
Boston, Massachusetts

[NormanStewart]

Österreichische Volksstimme (October 27, 1946)

Der Selbstmord Görings

Nürnberg. In dem gestern bekanntgegebenen amtlichen Bericht über den Selbstmord Görings wird erklärt, nach den vorliegenden Beweisen hätte Göring die Giftphiole seit seiner Gefangennahme bei sich. Es sei anzunehmen, daß er das Gift am Leibe versteckt hatte, so daß es nicht gefunden werden konnte.

[NormanStewart]

The Sunday Star (October 27, 1946)

Goering kept poison during all captivity, investigators report

NUERNBERG, Oct. 26 (AP) – Hermann Goering had the vial of poison with which he committed suicide from the time he was captured, and may have hidden it in his navel, a report by the four-power commission investigating his death said today.

At some time, the vial was in his alimentary tract, and it could have been hidden for a time in the toilet of his cell, the report added.

Prison authorities have said the cartridge-like container for the glass poison capsule, which was found in Goering’s cell after he committed suicide less than two hours before he was to have faced the hangman October 16, was about two inches long and half an inch thick.

Many details still hazy

Still leaving hazy many details as to how Goering cheated the gallows to which he had been condemned by the International Military Tribunal, the report said:

“There is evidence to support the view that at one time Goering could have carried the poison secreted in the cavity of his umbilical. There is evidence to prove conclusively it was not there throughout his imprisonment, and at some stage it was in his alimentary tract.”

A similar vial containing poison was taken from Goering when he was captured.

The report added that “an obscure recess in the inside of the toilet under the overhanging rim could have concealed the container for a time without detection except by an extraordinary search.”

Soldier guards absolved

The commission completely absolved American soldier guards of any “dereliction of duty” in permitting Goering to escape the noose at the final hour, and declared its complete satisfaction with the handling of prison security by the American Army. It said there was no evidence to involve German workers in Nuernberg prison.

Still withheld were the three letters Goering left in his cell, and the commission said they would have to be released by the Allied Control Council in Berlin. One was addressed to Col. B. C. Andrus, the prison security officer, another to Mrs. Goering and the third to the German people.

Letters exonerate guard

Brig. Gen. Paton Walsh, British member of the commission, said at a news conference after the report was issued that the letters “bear some relation to the event but the commission drew its own conclusions.”

He said the letters “exonerated the security service and guard – if a statement from such a source is acceptable.”

Brig. Walsh said that shortly before Goering went to bed on the night of the executions of his convicted fellow Nazi leaders “he assumed an extremely reposeful position with his hands outside the covers,” as regulations required.

Shortly before his death, however, he placed his hands under the covers and it was presumed then that he obtained the poison which he had hidden somewhere on his body, either in the “umbilical cavity” or the “alimentary canal,” Brig. Walsh added.

One-page statement

The commission’s findings were announced in a one-page statement after an all-day session in which it considered the report by the board of inquiry of three American officers who made a preliminary investigation of the suicide.

Gen. Malkov, the Russian member of the commission, did not attend the meeting, but Brig. Walsh said he had expressed his willingness to leave the matter in the hands of the other three members when official duties detained him in Berlin.

[NormanStewart]

Affidavits describe bullying of Austria by Hitler and Goering

By the Associated Press

A blow-by-blow account of the way Hitler and Goering bullied Austria into submission with invasion threats was detailed by former Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg in two affidavits belatedly published last night by the American war crimes prosecution staff.

Schuschnigg said Goering gave him a one-hour ultimatum by telephone to call off a plebiscite in March 1938, and later two hours to resign as chancellor.

His affidavits were included in the latest of a series of documents supporting the charges of Nazi conspiracy and aggression at the Nuernberg trial. Members of the staff of Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief American prosecutor, said they were crowded out of the trial record.

Schuschnigg reported that Franz von Papen, Hitler’s Austrian envoy, who was acquitted at Nuernberg, prevailed on him to confer with the Fuehrer February 12, 1938, with a promise that Austria’s critical position would not be worsened there by.

Instead, in a historic meeting at the Berghof Mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden, Hitler menacingly lectured him, Schuschnigg asserted, and delivered a set of demands to be fulfilled within three days.

On March 11, with a secret order out for a plebiscite which Schuschnigg said he felt sure would settle the problem of the Austrian Nazis, the Nazis closed the border and started to move troops. Before midnight, Schuschnigg related, these events took place in rapid fire order:

Goering sent a message the plebiscite must be called off in one hour.

Another message followed that Schuschnigg must get out in two hours. His successor was to be Seyss-Inquart, the Austrian Nazi leader who was convicted at Nuernberg and hanged.

Goering then phoned from Berlin that Seyss-Inquart must send a telegram asking Germany for military assistance to put down “great riots” in Austria.

Schuschnigg and President Miklas followed orders. The next day the Nazis marched and the chancellor was made a prisoner. He was held until freed by the Allied victory in 1945.

Also published was an affidavit by George S. Messersmith, now U.S. ambassador to Argentina, stating that Von Papen told him in 1934 that “Southeastern Europe to Turkey is Germany’s hinterland and I have been designated to carry through the task of bringing it within the fold. Austria is the first on the program.”

Mr. Messersmith then was minister to Austria. His detailed affidavit on Nazi plotting figured in the Nuernberg trial.

[NormanStewart]

Editorial: The Nazi doctors

The long arm of retributive justice now reaches out for those German doctors who in the war years, with typical Nazi sadism, perverted their learning in ways almost too vile to be comprehended by decent, civilized minds. Twenty-three individuals so accused are to go on trial soon before a special tribunal set up in the American zone by the United States Military Government. The charges against them are conspiracy to commit atrocities and participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. More specifically, they are under indictment for murdering “hundreds of thousands of human beings” in unspeakably evil and cruel medical experiments and in a euthanasia program to annihilate the crippled, the incurably ill, the insane and other “useless eaters.”

From the standpoint of international law, the trial is a significant outgrowth of the precedent-setting four-power proceedings at Nuernberg. Its purpose, together with that of similar prosecutions scheduled for hundreds of additional Germans in other fields, is to mete out justice to those whose positions under Hitler were not so conspicuous but whose deeds were quite as wicked as those of the late Hermann Goering and the rest of the Nazi high command. The accused doctors, however, along with those to be tried after them, will not appear before judges of several nationalities, but before Americans alone. As Justice Jackson recently pointed out to President Truman, new multi-power tribunals are not necessary to deal with criminals at this level, since each occupying government can handle those within its own zone separately, in keeping with the pattern and principles established at Nuernberg.

All this may involve some new legal technicalities. Thus, as far as the doctors are concerned, the school of thought that believes euthanasia to be merciful may raise objections regarding the broadness of the indictment, and other points may be brought into question by those who tend to agree with Sen. Taft’s condemnation of Nuernberg. Even so, in terms of punishing those who have committed heinous murders masquerading as science, there can be no doubt that the United States is doing the right thing in taking the initiative in this matter among the four occupying powers. Not all of the accused may be guilty, but those who are, those who are proved to have done the atrocious things charged against them, should certainly be made to pay. The conscience of mankind, we can be sure, will not be offended by a fair trial with full American justice in this instance.

[NormanStewart]

LIFE Magazine (October 28, 1946)

DURING THE HANGINGS these two German policemen quietly patrolled lighted courthouse near Nürnberg death chamber. This photograph was made at 1:15 a.m., a moment after the trap had been sprung on von Ribbentrop. This was the courthouse in which the Nazi leaders were tried and sentenced by International Military Tribunal.

Nazis are hanged

Göring succeeds at suicide attempt as Hitler’s other top henchmen go to gallows at Nürnberg

On Oct. 16, in the black early morning, 10 of the top Nazi war criminals were hanged on Nürnberg gallows. There were to have been 11 hangings but Göring cheated the noose by swallowing potassium cyanide 2½ hours before he was to be executed.

For the others there was no cheating. Within 103 minutes, commencing at 1:14 a.m., M/Sgt. John C. Wood of San Antonio, Texas, the chief executioner, placed the noose with its unlucky 13 knots around the necks of Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Saukel, Jodl and Seyss-Inquart in that order. All were defiant to the last. None showed physical cowardice. Afterward their bodies were rushed by an armed Army convoy into the night. Next day the Army announced that the bodies had been cremated and the ashes secretly dispersed to forestall any possible move by Germans to make national shrines out of the war criminals’ graves.

CONDEMNED MEN spent last hours in wing of prison (above), shown here ablaze with lights a short time before march to gallows began. Below: Nürnberg children hang Göring in effigy, on the evening before the hangings, beside roaring bonfire with medieval Burg tower in background.

Colonel Burton C. Andrus tells press Göring committed suicide

EXECUTION DETAILS are decided behind guarded door at end of long jail corridor. Meeting of Big Four commission took place day before hangings.

[NormanStewart]

The gallows chamber

Drawings from an eyewitness account show how the war criminals went to a dishonorable death

Except for one official U.S. Army photographer, whose pictures were impounded by the Allied Control Council, no photographers were allowed to attend the Nürnberg hangings. But on these pages LIFE presents drawings of what went on within the dusty gymnasium of death. The details on which these drawings are based were obtained by Time & LIFE’s Nürnberg correspondent, John Stanton, from an eyewitness.

The first man hanged was former Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop. “He was wearing,” Stanton cabled, “the same brown suit, blue shirt and maroon tie he had often worn in court. His thinning gray hair had been ruffled by the wind as he crossed the yard from his cell. He had the same strange, frozen expression – head thrown far back, eyes half closed – that he had had in court. Directly behind him walked a Protestant chaplain. At the doorway to the execution chamber a slim, very military American lieutenant colonel met Ribbentrop, his two guards and the chaplain and led the little procession down the room to the north gallows. The guards then led Ribbentrop up the 13 gray-black steps to a point on the trap where they wheeled him sharply around to face the audience.

“There Ribbentrop came out of his frozen attitude to shout, ‘God save Germany!’ Next he asked whether he could make a statement. The interpreter hesitated a second until the executioner had draped the noose with its unlucky 13 knots over Ribbentrop’s neck, for orders were that all prisoners must have the noose on their necks while making final statements. Then Ribbentrop made a statement in which he asked for an alliance between East and West because ‘I wish peace to the world.’ As he spoke, the last-second preparations for his execution continued.

“When Ribbentrop finished, the lieutenant colonel made a cutting motion with his right hand. The executioner pulled the black hood over Ribbentrop’s head and pulled the rope tight with a hard, swishing sound. The assistant eased the lever forward. The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight.”

In succession each of the other nine men followed Ribbentrop to the gallows. Only Streicher shouted a Heil Hitler! at the gallows (left, center). At the end, Göring’s body, covered with a blanket, was brought in on a stretcher and placed midway between the center and the north gallows. The eight Allied correspondents present, together with the only two German witnesses, Dr. Wilhem Hoegner, minister-president of Bavaria, and Jakob Leistner, onetime chief prosecutor-general of the Nürnberg high court, gathered at the foot of the body (left, top). Then soldiers whisked away the blanket. The most noticeable thing about Göring was the light-green color of his skin from the potassium cyanide he had taken. GIs covered Göring and carried him behind the curtain where the leaders of Nazism lay in dishonored death.

DEATH CHAMBER, 88 feet by 33 feet, with peeling gray plaster walls and dusty wooden floor, was prison gymnasium in which U.S. guards had played basketball three nights earlier. Only the two gallows at left were used. The third gallows was in reserve.

GÖRING was brought in on stretcher after executions and correspondents and two German witnesses (extreme left and right) were first to view body. Göring’s pajamas were rumpled, exposing midriff and left leg. Toes were stiff and curled but his face was in repose. The theory that he had hidden poison vial in his navel is unsubstantiated.

STREICHER (above) screamed “Heil Hitler!” as he reached the foot of gallows between two helmeted U.S. guards. He could not give the Nazi salute as his hands were tied behind his back. Below: three GIs push back the black curtain that covered bottom of each gallows to remove body of Gestapo Leader Kaltenbrunner, dangling on noose.

RIBBENTROP was first to hang. As he stood on trap, making his final statement, he looked toward the door he had entered. Two guards and an officer stood near him; a Protestant chaplain prayed; an interpreter (left) took down his statement; a pfc (hand on rail) waited to spring lever, and chief executioner tied a web belt around his legs before adjusting the black hood. A Soviet doctor with a stethoscope and an American doctor with a flashlight, waiting at foot of gallows, pronounced him dead 19 minutes later.

[NormanStewart]

Wiener Kurier (October 28, 1946)

Als Kriegsverbrecher angeklagt:
23 Naziärzte kommen vor US-Gericht in Nürnberg

Nürnberg (AND.) - Insgesamt 23 Naziärzte, darunter eine Prau, sind vom ersten Militärgerichtshof in Nürnberg angeklagt, an einer Verschwörung zur Begehung von Kriegsverbrechen und Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit teilgenommen zu haben: „Diese Verbrechen umfaßten“, wie es in der Anklageschrift heißt, „Morde, Brutalitäten, Grausamkeiten, Folterungen, Greueltaten und andere unmenschliche Taten.“

Nachdem im Prozeß gegen die 22 Hauptkriegsverbrecher ein internationales Gericht die höchsten politischen und militärischen Führer des Naziregimes verurteilte, behandelt jetzt das erste amerikanische Militärgericht eine einzelne Berufsgruppe: Ärzte und Wissenschaftler, die ihr Können und ihr medizinisches Wissen in den Dienst von Naziverbrechen gestellt haben.

Die Namen der verbrecherischen Wissenschaftler

Unter diesen Ärzten, die in der Öffentlichkeit wenig bekannt geworden sind, befinden sich: Karl Brandt, der Leibarzt Adolf Hitlers und Reichskommissar für das Sanitäts- und Gesundheitswesen: Siegfried Handloser, Chef des Wehrmachtsanitätswesens; Paul Rostock, Amtschef der Dienststelle Medizinische Wissenschaft und Forschung; Oskar Schroeder, Chef des Sanitätswesens der Luftwaffe; Karl Genzken, Chef des Sanitätsamtes der Waffen-SS; Karl Gebhardt, Leibarzt Himmlers und Präsident des Deutschen Roten Kreuzes.

Kurt Blome, Stellvertreter des Reichsgesundheitsführers und Bevollmächtigter für Krebsforschung im Reichsforschungsamt; Rudolf Brandt, persönlicher Referent Himmlers, Ministerialrat und Leiter des Ministerbüros im Reichsinnenministerium; Herta Oberhäuser, Ärztin im Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück und Assistentin des Angeklagten Gebhardt am Krankenhaus in Hohenlychen.

Die Punkte der Anklage

Der amerikanische Hauptankläger, General Telford Taylor, gliederte seine Anklageschrift in vier Hauptpunkte. Der Anklagepunkt eins stellt fest, daß die Angeklagten gemeinsam an „Plänen und Unternehmungen, die Begehung von Kriegsverbrechen und Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit zum Ziele und im Gefolge hatten“, teilgenommen haben.

Anklagepunkt zwei beschreibt, daß die 23 Angeklagten zwischen September 1939 und April 1945 „auf ungesetzliche Weise vorsätzlich und wissentlich Kriegsverbrechen begangen haben, indem sie Haupttäter, Mittäter, Anstifter oder Vorschubleistende waren“.

Die Anklageschrift difiniert dann sogenannte ‚Höhenversuche‘, die etwa von Marz 1942 bis August 1942 im Konzentrationslager Dachau durchgeführt wurden, um die Grenzen menschlicher Widerstands- und Lebensfähigkeit in extremen Höhen zu ermitteln. Viele Opfer starben an den Folgen dieser Experimente, andere erlitten schwere Verletzungen und waren Folterungen und Mißhandlungen ausgesetzt.

Bei lebendigem Leibe zum Erfrieren gebracht

Weiter wird den Angeklagten die Durchführung von „Kälteexperimenten“ vorgeworfen, die von August 1942 bis Mai 1943 ebenfalls im Konzentrationslager Dachau durchgeführt wurden. Die Naziärzte versuchten hier „die wirksamste Methode zur Behandlung von Personen zu ermitteln, die sehr stark durchkältet oder erfroren waren“. Zahlreiche Opfer starben im Verlauf dieser Experimente. Außer diesen verbrecherischen Versuchen an lebenden Menschen beschreibt die Anklageschrift dann „Malariaexperimente“, die auch im KZ Dachau durchgeführt wurden. „Über tausend unfreiwillige Versuchspersonen wurden für diese Experimente verwendet. Viele Opfer starben und andere erlitten starke Schmerzen und wurden für immer Invalide.“

In den Konzentrationslagern Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler und anderen wurden außerdem unter Beteiligung der Angeklagten sogenannte „Lost- oder Senfgasexperimente“ im Interesse der deutschen Wehrmacht durchgeführt.

Den Versuchspersonen wurden absichtlich Wunden zugefügt, die mit Lost (Senfgas) infiziert wurden. Auch an den Folgen dieser Experimente starben viele Versuchspersonen. Außerdem befaßt sich die Anklageschrift mit der Ermordung von Zehntausenden polnischer Staatsangehöriger, die „erbarmungslos vernichtet wurden, während man andere in Todeslagern mit ungenügenden medizinischen Einrichtungen isolierte“, weil sie angeblich an unheilbarer Tuberkulose litten.

Einige der Angeklagten werden ferner beschuldigt, an dem sogenannten „Euthanasieprogramm“ des Deutschen Reiches beteiligt gewesen zu sein.

Holzspäne und Glas in Wunden gestreut

Besonders unmenschliche Versuche beschreibt die Anklageschrift unter dem Punkt „Sulfonamid-Experimente“. Bei diesen Versuchen wurden im Konzentrationslager Ravensbrück Häftlingen absichtlich Wunden zugefügt und mit Bakterien infiziert. Die Infektion wurde verstärkt, indem man Holzspäne und pulverisiertes Glas gewaltsam in die Wunden brachte. Die Infektionen wurden dann mit Sulfonamid und anderen Medikamenten behandelt.

Göring trug das Gift seit der Gefangennahme bei sich

Nürnberg (INS.) - Der Alliierte Untersuchungsausschuß über Görings Selbstmord gab gestern bekannt, daß der frühere Reichsmarschall die Giftphiole, mit der er sein Leben endete, seit seiner Gefangennahme bei sich führte. Das herausgegebene Kommuniqué teilt mit, es sei Grund zur Annahme vorhanden, daß das Gift zeitweise in Görings Nabel verborgen gewesen sei.

Die Kommission stellte eindeutig fest, daß kein Organ der amerikanischen Überwachungsmannschaften im geringsten für Görings Selbstmord verantwortlich gemacht werden könne.

Hinrichtungsbilder freigegeben

Wien (Eigenbericht) - Freitag vergangener Woche wurden die Aufnahmen von der Hinrichtung der Hauptkriegsverbrecher in Nürnberg zum Abdruck freigegeben. Samstag trafen die ersten Kopien in Wien ein.

Der „Wiener Kurier” sieht von einer Veröffentlichung dieser Bilder ab.

[NormanStewart]

Wiener Kurier (October 29, 1946)

Alle Gerüchte um den Selbstmord Görings dementiert

Erklärung der Kommission des Alliierten Kontrollrates

New York (INS.) - Zwei alliierte Generale, die dem Viermächteausschuß des Alliierten Kontrollrates zur Untersuchung des Selbstmordes Görings angehören, wiesen gestern Gerüchte zurück, daß ein Versuch unternommen worden sei, die Offiziere des amerikanischen Sicherheitsdienstes „reinzuwaschen“. Der britische Brigadegeneral Patton Walsh und der französische Generalmajor Leon Morel betonten, daß die Meldungen, nach denen die Kommission versuche, die Nachlässigkeit Oberst Burton. C. Andrus zu decken, „vollständig grundlos“ seien.

Walsh erklärte, wenn man überhaupt irgend etwas für den Selbstmord Görings verantwortlich machen könne, so sei dies der Abtransport amerikanischer Truppen aus Europa gewesen der einen ständigen Wechsel im Gefängnispersonal zur Folge hatte, wodurch Oberst Andrus in der durchgreifenden Ausbildung der Wachen stark behindert wurde.

Beide Generale wiesen darauf hin, daß die strengen Gefängnisordnungen, welche gewöhnlich in den Todeszellen angewendet werden, in Nürnberg wegen der internationalen Bedeutung des Prozesses nicht beachtet wurden. Walsh erklärte abschließend: „Ich möchte hiermit feststellen, daß durch unsere Untersuchungen alle Anklagen wegen Nachlässigkeit gegenstandslos geworden sind.“

[NormanStewart]

The Waterbury Democrat (October 30, 1946)

Goering’s notes to be secreted

Berlin (UP) – The Allied Control Council unanimously decided today to withhold permanently publication of three penciled suicide notes left by Hermann Goering in his Nuernberg cell.

The announcement said the original notes would be kept secret in the Allied Control Authority’s archives. All other copies were ordered destroyed.

The Council studied the notes at a regular meeting today after receiving a report of the suicide investigation from the Allied Execution Commission.

[NormanStewart]

Wiener Kurier (October 31, 1946)

Die Stimme AMERIKAS

Zum neuen Prozeß gegen 23 Naziärzte

„Washington Evening Star“: „Der lange Arm der gerechten Vergeltung erreicht nunmehr auch jene deutschen Ärzte, die während des Krieges mit typischem Nazisadismus ihre Aufgabe in einer Weise verrieten, die in ihrer Schändlichkeit für die anständige Menschheit unfaßbar ist.

Der Prozeß gegen diese Ärzte wird in Kürze vor einem Sondergerichtshof der amerikanischen Militärregierung in der amerikanischen Besatzungszone stattfinden. Die gegen die Ärzte erhobene Anklage lautet auf Verschwörung zur Begehung von Grausamkeiten und Teilnähme an Kriegsverbrechen und Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit. Sie werden insbesondere angeklagt, hunderttausende Menschen bei schändlichen und grausamen medizinischen Experimenten ermordet zu haben und ein Euthanasierungsprogramm durchgeführt zu haben, durch das unheilbare Kranke, Geisteskranke und andere „nutzlose Esser“ ausgerottet werden sollten.

Vom Standpunkt des internationalen Rechtes ist der Prozeß ein bedeutsames Ergebnis des vor kurzem abgeschlossenen Viermächteprozesses gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher in Nürnberg. Durch diesen Prozeß sollen - wie in allen anderen ähnlichen Verfahren, die für hunderte anderer Deutscher in den verschiedensten Stellungen vorgesehen sind - auch alle jene ihrer gerechten Strafe zugeführt werden, deren Stellung während des Hitlerregimes nicht so ins Auge fiel, deren Taten aber genauso verbrecherisch wären wie die Hermann Görings und der übrigen Mitglieder der Naziregierung.

Die Angeklagten Ärzte werden jedoch nicht vor Richtern verschiedener Nationalität, sondern nur vor amerikanischen Richtern stehen. Wie Oberrichter Jackson kürzlich Präsident Truman mitteilte, sind neue internationale Gerichtshöfe nicht erforderlich, da nunmehr jede Besatzungsmacht innerhalb ihrer eigenen Zone in einem gesonderten Verfahren nach dem Vorbild und den Grundsätzen des Nürnberger Hauptkriegsverbrecherprozesses vorgehen kann. Einige neue gesetzliche Verfahrensregeln werden vielleicht erforderlich sein. Hinsichtlich der Personen, die diese gemeinen Morde unter dem Mantel der Wissenschaft verübten, kann jedenfalls kein Zweifel bestehen, daß die Initiative der Vereinigten Staaten gegenüber den anderen Besatzungsmächten richtig war. Es mögen vielleicht nicht alle Angeklagten schuldig sein, aber diejenigen, deren Grausamkeit bewiesen wird, werden sicherlich hierfür bezahlen müssen. Das Gewissen der Menschheit wird an einem gerechten Prozeß auf der Grundlage amerikanischen Rechtes bestimmt keinen Anstoß nehmen.“

[NormanStewart]

The Evening Star (November 2, 1946)

German child hanged playing ‘Nazi trial’

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) – The News Guardian, a British Army newspaper, said today that a German child was hanged accidentally while a group of children was playing “Nuernberg trials” in Kiel.

The game ended in the pronouncement of the death sentence and hanging for the child, who was strung up to a lamppost by his playmates. The child’s mother arrived on the scene and cut him down, but his neck was broken, according to evidence produced at the inquest, the paper said.

[NormanStewart]

The Pittsburgh Press (November 3, 1946)

Disorder in cells tells story of catastrophe doomed Nazis faced

But those who still live complain bitterly because they are forced to disrobe
By Cmdr. M. A. Musmanno, USNR
Special to the Pittsburgh Press

Cmdr. Michael A. Musmanno, a judge in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, on leave, was in Nuernberg at the time of the execution of Germany’s war criminals. The following is an article written from the scene.

NUERNBERG, Germany (Delayed) – The cells in which the executed Nazis awaited their final summons to the gallows have been sealed. They remain in the precise condition in which the doomed men left them the fatal morning of October 16. Through a little window in the door one sees the consternation and panic which must have attended upon the awakening of each one of the defendants from his sleep to be marched to the final sleep of all.

The tangle of thrown-back blankets, the disarray of papers, pictures and toilet articles on the little rickety table, the scattered items of castoff clothing, all tell of the catastrophe for which the men prepared as they nervously and unsteadily dressed in their best apparel, brought to them for their final public appearance.

Two cells, however, show no confusion and are as neat and tidy as a general’s quarters. And they are precisely that. Field Marshal Keitel and Colonel-General Jodl, evidently having foreknowledge (as apparently Goering must also have had) of the immediacy of the rope, were up beforetimes and tidied their rooms to leave as a legacy of their devotion to the code of neatness of a soldier.

Cells in disorder

But the cells of the living are in the greatest disorder of all. That is, they were when I visited them the day after the executions. Because of Goering’s suicide, every object in the cells of the survivors, was being examined, studied, tested and analyzed as a possible depository of poison or other self-destroying agent. Every stitch of clothing was being scrutinized with a microscopic eye. Not knowing that the search was in progress I arrived at the time when the men were without wearing apparel, and a sorrier group of would-be rulers of the world one could never imagine.

Erich Raeder complained the loudest and most bitterly. “Is this the way to treat a civilized person?” he asked me. He was sitting on the edge of his cot, whose mattress had been removed, his bare knees shivering under a blanket wrapped around them. Around his naked shoulders he pressed tightly an unadorned navy jacket. “They would not kill me with a bullet as I asked them,” he went on with acerbity, “but they will kill me with pneumonia. What sort of treatment is this? Who is responsible for this barbarity?”

Doenitz irritated

The lieutenant who was with me assured the raging septuagenarian that the deprivation of his clothing was quite temporary, that he would get it back quickly and that it had been removed for this short period only because of precautions made necessary by events of which he certainly was aware.

Karl Doenitz was no less irritated than his neighbor. The Nazi Grand Admiral of the U-boats and Hitler’s successor was pacing the floor in wrathful indignation, his bare legs showing below a blanket wrapped around his hips. His upper body was enclosed in a navy dress jacket with wide flashy lapels, which added an even more bizarre effect to his wild appearance.

“Is this dignified?” he shot at me as he saw me through the window in his cell. “Is this the way to treat an enemy?” I could conscientiously have answered, “No,” to both questions. Perhaps a way could have been found to conduct the necessary search without this inconvenience. Doenitz regarded it as a humiliation, but I’m certain no humiliation was intended, and I regretted that circumstances had compelled this unavoidable perquisition.

Atrocities recalled

But a perverse nature at that movement filled me with sympathy not for Doenitz but for some other undressed creatures I had seen, that is, in pictures. I shall never get over my horror the day photographs were shown, at the trial, of men, women and children who were stripped of all clothing by SS fiends and then, in all their pitiful nakedness were shot down in cold blood.

There was no dignity there, as Doenitz complained there was none in this cell before me. Doenitz was exonerated of all complicity in those blood-freezing atrocities and it was unfair on my part that I should think of them now.

But it was comforting to hear someone talk about dignity of the human race. For ten years life has been cheap throughout the world. Dignity of the human body, of the family home, of all the charming subtleties of human relationship and intimacies have been treated with such flippancy and even scorn by power-crazed ideologies that one wondered whether the atomic bomb could be any more destructive than loss of all respect for privacy and the sovereignty of the human soul.

Burned down homes

Keitel left his cell neat and tidy in a gesture of orderliness and respect for system and correctness. This kind of respect did not guide him when he ordered the burning down of homes in conquered countries so that there might not be left even one room in any condition for the inhabitants, if they survived, to live there.

No one can honestly and intelligently say that the Nuernberg trials accomplished nothing when they brought a haughty and merciless warlord to the point where he asked, even though while standing on the gallows, that Providence provide “tenderness and mercy” to those he left behind him.

In all this grimness it is pleasant to note a bit of humor. Franz von Papen provides it, albeit unwittingly. He appealed to me to do something to get him out of jail. I said: “You have been acquitted by the Tribunal. You can leave when you wish.”

Afraid of arrest

“That is true, but I mean to leave so as not to be arrested again.” The German denazification law awaited outside the Nuernberg prison to nab the former Nazi vice-chancellor. Von Papen regards this as most unjust and exclaims “Why, they would arrest and punish me only because I entertained a certain public opinion.”

I tried to repress a certain amusement but failed. Von Papen said, “Commander, why do you smile?”

“I was just thinking of the concentration camps. What “crimes had the inmates of those institutions committed? Was it not that they merely entertained a political opinion? Of course,” I hastened to add, “that doesn’t justify the same thing being done today unless the political opinion involves the commission of a crime.”

Still the diplomat

As Von Papen is a sort of special guest at the prison he was not subjected to the undressing process of his seven less fortunate former dock companions. On the contrary Von Papen dresses the part of the diplomat he used to be. He wears a pin-striped suit with a flaring breast pocket, handkerchief and culls which project from his coat sleeves. But his sartorial munificence comes to grief in his battered shoes which are tied. not by laces, but simply by white string.

Shoe laces were used to bind the hands of the condemned as they ascended the gallows. Let us hope that from the Nuernberg trials will emerge such a respect for law and human dignity that shoe laces will be used exclusively for the purpose originally intended so that the future von Papens will not need to have recourse to string for their footgear.

And let us trust also that the future von Papens will realize that walking as did von Papen may acquit you before the law but it will still keep you in prison although free.