Should there have been Nuremburg trials?

perseus

perseus

Active member
I‘ve just finished watching the docu-drama series called ‘Nazis On Trial’ by Professor Richard Overy. This focused on the accusations made against Goering, Hess and Speer and the major incidents whilst they were held in custody.

Winston Churchill wasn't too happy about the trials and proposed that a list of Nazi war leaders be prepared for summary execution, but would this have gained them martyrdom status. Indeed Goering made a mockery of the proceedings, using his wit to expose the hypocrisy of the accusers. At one stage he pointed out that France accuses Germany of stealing art treasures, England accuses Germany for planning aggressive war, Russia accuses Germany for Genocidal crimes, whilst America pays the bill for the whole charade. You must admit he had a point!

Who could have convicted them? It is well known that Switzerland and Sweden hoarded stolen gold and supplied weapons for the war. Denmarks shame is less well known. In 1945 Medical assistance was consistently denied to German refugees by Danish medical authorities and the Red Cross. As a result 13,492 died in the camps. This included around 7,000 children under the age of five.

Whilst I have no doubt that most of the defendants were guilty and should have been punished, it seems the attitudes that predominated in Germany at that time lie dormant in the genes of all of us. To learn anything from the sufferings of WW2 we need to recognise this and take steps to avoid them arising again.

With Saddam Hussein under trial and Bin Laden wanted for war crimes its a bit like deja vu. I wonder what Goering would have said if the British, French and Americans initially supported Germany and supplied him with weapons as well? Of course Russia did, in terms of raw materials.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In my opinion, they should have just lined them up against the wall and shot them. When they were in charge, there was no due process of the law and they should have been given a taste of their own medicine.
 
Are you saying you would have shot them without a trial? In that case the defendants found innocent would have been shot too.

Would you have shot other 'minor' defendants found guilty such as Eric Von Manstein so beloved of military strategists, and whose Russian prisoners preferred captivity under him than going back to their own side?

Isn't hanging a more appropriate for a war criminal. Goering requested to be shot and took poison when refused. Shooting gives the offence a sort of military authenticity but most of the crimes were non-military.

But their were military accusations that of waging or planning an aggressive war (an interesting term, what wars are not aggressive?) and how do the subsequent antics of the US and Britain compare with this?

The whole point of Nuremberg was to demonstrate to the world that war crimes had been committed and the defendants found guilty were to be punished for that reason, not because they were the losers. Allowing those found innocent to go free gives a degree of authenticity to this principle, and avoids subsequent generations seeing them all as martyrs to the ‘mistreatment’ of Germany by the allied powers.

Of course having the Russians in the same court and the subsequent behavior of Stalin as well as their, commanders and troops tends to make a mockery of it. Far less so Britain, France and America in my view, any atrocities they committed in recent history to Nuremberg (and they did) were mild in comparison.
 
Last edited:
perseus said:
Are you saying you would have shot them without a trial? In that case the defendants found innocent would have been shot too.

Would you have shot other 'minor' defendants found guilty such as Eric Von Manstein so beloved of military strategists, and whose Russian prisoners preferred captivity under him than going back to their own side?

Isn't hanging a more appropriate for a war criminal. Goering requested to be shot and took poison when refused. Shooting gives the offence a sort of military authenticity but most of the crimes were non-military.

But their were military accusations that of waging or planning an aggressive war (an interesting term, what wars are not aggressive?) and how do the subsequent antics of the US and Britain compare with this?

The whole point of Nuremberg was to demonstrate to the world that war crimes had been committed and the defendants found guilty were to be punished for that reason, not because they were the losers. Allowing those found innocent to go free gives a degree of authenticity to this principle, and avoids subsequent generations seeing them all as martyrs to the ‘mistreatment’ of Germany by the allied powers.

Of course having the Russians in the same court and the subsequent behavior of Stalin as well as their, commanders and troops tends to make a mockery of it. Far less so Britain, France and America in my view, any atrocities they committed in recent history to Nuremberg (and they did) were mild in comparison.
Click to expand...

Excellent question, Perseus. The creation of a balanced perspective is, however, going to require some time. I have collected a few good links that might help.

In general, the NT failed: "The Nuremberg trials did not, however, fulfill the grandest dreams of those who advocated them. They have not succeeded in ending wars of aggression. They have not put an end to genocide. Crimes against humanity are with us still".

Orwell's view:

AS I PLEASE, by George Orwell
Tribune, November 15, 1946

"...There is one question which at first sight looks both petty and disgusting but which I should like to see answered. It is this: In the innumerable hangings of war criminals which have taken place all over Europe during the past few years, which method has been followed — the old method of strangulation, or the modern, comparatively humane method which is supposed to break the victim's neck at one snap?

A hundred years ago or more, people were hanged by simply hauling them up and letting them kick and struggle until they died, which might take a quarter of an hour or so. Later the drop was introduced, theoretically making death instantaneous, though it does not always work very well.

In recent years, however, there seems to have been a tendency to revert to strangulation. I did not see the news film of the hanging of the German war criminals at Kharkov, but the descriptions in the British press appeared to show that the older method was used. So also with various executions in the Balkan countries.

The newspaper accounts of the Nuremberg hangings were ambiguous. There was talk of a drop, but there was also talk of the condemned men taking ten or twenty minutes to die. Perhaps, by a typically Anglo-Saxon piece of compromise, it was decided to use a drop but to make it too short to be effective.

It is not a good symptom that hanging should still be the accepted form of capital punishment in this country. Hanging is a barbarous, inefficient way of killing anybody, and at least one fact about it — quite widely known, I believe — is so obscene as to be almost unprintable.

Still, until recently we did feel rather uneasy on the subject, and we did have our hangings in private. Indeed, before the war, public execution was a thing of the past in nearly every civilized country. Now it seems to be returning, at least for political crimes, and though we ourselves have not actually reintroduced it as yet, we participate at second hand by watching the news films.

It is queer to look back and think that only a dozen years ago the abolition of the death penalty was one of those things that every enlightened person advocated as a matter of course, like divorce reform or the independence of India. Now, on the other hand, it is a mark of enlightenment not merely to approve of executions but to raise an outcry because there are not more of them.

Therefore it seems to me of some importance to know whether strangulation is now coming to be the normal practice. For if people are being taught to gloat not only over death but over a peculiarly horrible form of torture, it marks another turn on the downward spiral that we have been following ever since 1933...."

My Personal View: Some people bring up the fact that the international laws like those against waging a war of aggression did not exist in 1939. How could you then accuse the Nazi elite of breaking laws that did not exist? For the reasons outlined in other posts, I do not hold much merit in these arguments. I (and there are not many people in my camp) do not subscribe to the view that the Nazis planned and executed a war of aggression against either Britain, France or the United States (or Holland, Belgium, Denmark, etc.). I would not even argue that Japan waged a war of aggression against the United States. The Axis and Allies were responding to particular events from a particular perspective. That is all. War was an acceptable foreign policy tool. It still is. Think about the American invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq or even Vietnam.

In any case, I find any attempt at "judging" state behaviour in terms of morality a collosal absurdity. Stalin's judges helped convict the Germans after 1945. For what? Stalin instituted the world's greatest rearmament drive in the 1930s. Stalin and Hitler divided Poland between them in 1939. Stalin invaded Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Romania prior to summer 1941. Stalin's hacks also instituted murderous policies against virtually every occupied people...policies of ethnic cleansing that bordered on genocide.

I do not want to concentrate too heavily on comparitive "politics". A large number of Hitler's henchmen committed extensive atrocities that had nothing to do with military action. These were "normal" crimes of murder. In my opinion, these men should have been tried according to German law, found inevitably guilty, and punished accordingly. These crimes against humanity were crimes...pure and simple.

Documents:

http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-nurem.htm
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm
http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/docs_swi.php?DI=1&text=overview
http://library.law.columbia.edu/ttp/body.html

Secondary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Trials
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2371452,00.html
http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Nuremberg/
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials12.htm

[The text by Irving, despite the repugnant views he holds, is not as bad as orthodoxy makes out. And it's free].
 
Part of the reason for holding the trial was there had to be the semblance of justice if not justice for the war did not end when the armistice was signed. For another 5 years after the "end" of WWII there was a Nazi resistance (the Nazi Wolf Packs as they were known) that continued to fight. To have held summary executions or expanded the list of those charged would have fueled their cause. It would have been too much of a kick in the teeth, the very thing that Europe did to Germany after WWI that set the stage for WWII. You have to leave the vanquished some dignity or your progeny will pay the price in spades. There is a fine line between punishment and vengeance.
 
Ollie Garchy said:
In any case, I find any attempt at "judging" state behaviour in terms of morality a collosal absurdity. Stalin's judges helped convict the Germans after 1945. For what? Stalin instituted the world's greatest rearmament drive in the 1930s. Stalin and Hitler divided Poland between them in 1939. Stalin invaded Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Romania prior to summer 1941. Stalin's hacks also instituted murderous policies against virtually every occupied people...policies of ethnic cleansing that bordered on genocide.
Click to expand...

It's really quite simple and of course you know this. The victors can get away scot-free with actions that the losers are condemned for. Most people are aware that Stalin was a Soviet dictator, but his name is not synomonous with evil as the name of Adolf Hitler is. Both states committed mass murder on a gigantic scale. If we want to talk numbers the Stalinist regime was worse than the Nazi regime. Yet you rightly point out that Stalin got away with annexing most of Eastern Europe, at least until the 'Iron Curtain' fell.

On the subject of David Irving as a serious historian I have to argue that his treatment of Adolf Hitler, accusations about no knowledge of the Holocaust aside, are well regarded in academic circles. I haven't read 'Hitler's War', probably his seminal work, but I will one of these days. As an examination of how Adolf Hitler ticked there can be few more noteworthy works. Irving was one of the first to debunk the infamous Hitler Diaries as fake for example. It's just a pity that he holds the personal views he does.
 
bulldogg said:
Part of the reason for holding the trial was there had to be the semblance of justice if not justice for the war did not end when the armistice was signed. For another 5 years after the "end" of WWII there was a Nazi resistance (the Nazi Wolf Packs as they were known) that continued to fight. To have held summary executions or expanded the list of those charged would have fueled their cause. It would have been too much of a kick in the teeth, the very thing that Europe did to Germany after WWI that set the stage for WWII. You have to leave the vanquished some dignity or your progeny will pay the price in spades. There is a fine line between punishment and vengeance.
Click to expand...

1. No "Wolfpacks": Will you guys please stop with this "wolf pack" stuff. The Nazi plan to use irregulars after Allied physical occupation was never translated into reality. Take a look at Ziemke's book on the German occupation. The German irregulars only operated during wartime and in any case only conducted a few missions such as killing the German mayor of Aachen for collaborating with the Americans. (The German plan was supposedly called "Werwolf" anyway, although this might only have been the name given by Psych Ops).

There are authors out there who write as if armed guerilla actions actually characterized the occupation of Germany. This is just irresponsible trash. Armed actions by the Deported Peoples (DPs) was, on the other hand, a real problem. Armed gangs of Poles, for example, attacked American miltary installations or even killed the military police sent to stop them raping and pillaging. (Records of OMGUS).

The evidence points out clearly that armed German resistance stopped in summer 1945. The only real post-hostilities fighting was conducted by German forces in the east such as in the Breslau pocket. These soldiers did not surrender because they knew they would die in Soviet captivity. Over 90% did (according to Stephen Ambrose).

2. Tens of Thousands of Germans were Exectued for War Crimes: "Many of those who were tried for offenses relating to the conduct of the war in Europe were brought before tribunals that were established by or in countries that had been occupied by Germany or who had been allied against her. British military tribunals were convened in Italy to prosecute those who were responsible for the committal of crimes against the Italian population after the Italian capitulation. Tribunals in Denmark, Greece, Holland, Norway, Poland, USSR and Yugoslavia tried large numbers of civilian, military, police, and SS personnel for atrocities and crimes committed during the German occupation."

The above quotation wisely neglects to mention how many were killed. Tens of thousands of Germans were hanged (Russia, Poland, Netherlands, France, etc.) as a result of trials in the occupied territories. Many of these "trials" were utterly farcical without the slightest pretence of a German defence. The Soviets rounded up hundreds of thousands of people (including children) and transported them to Gulags without trial...where they died.

3. The Postwar Occupation was "Carthage Revisited": The Potsdam agreement (and all of the other official elements of pre-1947 postwar policy) made Versailles look like the Marshall Plan. (Take a look at the work of Naimark or Beevor).

Ziemke: http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/wwii/Occ-GY/

Crap: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAB/is_6_113/ai_n8693890

Other Stuff: http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/overview_trials.htm
 
Last edited:
looks like you are condoning or agreeing with nazi germany and imperial japan actions through out the 1930s and 1940s , what are your political sympathies now a days ? My point is that even tho a law was not made of "crimes against humanity" or whatever they were charged during their time ,it does not give them the right to kill millions of innocent civilians, they had to be brought to justice, under the title of "nuremburg trails" or not.
 
On the subject of David Irving as a serious historian I have to argue that his treatment of Adolf Hitler, accusations about no knowledge of the Holocaust aside, are well regarded in academic circles. I haven't read 'Hitler's War', probably his seminal work, but I will one of these days.
Click to expand...

I have part 2 of this book chronicling from around 1943 to the last events in his bunker. This was read before I knew anything about Irving's views but I didn't find anything particularly strange or biased in his writings.

I think his views regarding Hitlers knowledge is less controversial than his opinion that the holocaust never happened, at least not to the extent it probably did. It seems that once a scholar takes a view they cannot change it irrespective of how much evidence to the contrary emerges. I understand he is in jail in Hitlers home country for these views, quite a bizarre turn of events, and perhaps one that suggests that Nuremberg did have positive results. If his anti-Semitic views that the Holocaust was overdone has any basis it is that they distract too much from all the other atrocities committed in WW2, against Slavs, Chinese and other ethnic groups in particular.
 
Last edited:
perseus said:
I have part 2 of this book chronicling from around 1943 to the last events in his bunker. This was read before I knew anything about Irving's views but I didn't find anything particularly strange or biased in his writings.

I think his views regarding Hitlers knowledge is less controversial than his opinion that the holocaust never happened, at least not to the extent it probably did. It seems that once a scholar takes a view they cannot change it irrespective of how much evidence to the contrary emerges. I understand he is in jail in Hitlers home country for these views, quite a bizarre turn of events, and perhaps one that suggests that Nuremberg did have positive results. If his anti-Semitic views that the Holocaust was overdone has any basis it is that they distract too much from all the other atrocities committed in WW2, against Slavs, Chinese and other ethnic groups in particular.
Click to expand...

I agree. There are no thought crimes, though.

ill be damed if i know said:
looks like you are condoning or agreeing with nazi germany and imperial japan actions through out the 1930s and 1940s , what are your political sympathies now a days ? My point is that even tho a law was not made of "crimes against humanity" or whatever they were charged during their time ,it does not give them the right to kill millions of innocent civilians, they had to be brought to justice, under the title of "nuremburg trails" or not.
Click to expand...

What do you think? If you are going to accuse me of something, why not assemble the facts and make a case.

The past is whatever the Party chooses to make it....
If the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered.​

Doppleganger said:
It's really quite simple and of course you know this. The victors can get away scot-free with actions that the losers are condemned for. Most people are aware that Stalin was a Soviet dictator, but his name is not synomonous with evil as the name of Adolf Hitler is. Both states committed mass murder on a gigantic scale. If we want to talk numbers the Stalinist regime was worse than the Nazi regime. Yet you rightly point out that Stalin got away with annexing most of Eastern Europe, at least until the 'Iron Curtain' fell...On the subject of David Irving as a serious historian I have to argue that his treatment of Adolf Hitler, accusations about no knowledge of the Holocaust aside, are well regarded in academic circles. I haven't read 'Hitler's War', probably his seminal work, but I will one of these days. As an examination of how Adolf Hitler ticked there can be few more noteworthy works. Irving was one of the first to debunk the infamous Hitler Diaries as fake for example. It's just a pity that he holds the personal views he does.
Click to expand...
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs
Iin one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.​

(sorry for all the Orwell today)​
 
Last edited:
All I need is to quote you to get my facts , iam not going to accuse u of anything but your comments has nothing less than condoned nazi germany actions during ww2, if u re read your posts u may see what i mean . i have no idea what your political leanings are, u may or may not be your intention to sound "pro nazi" , i did agree with some of your points about german greivances over versailles but disagree with german rights to invade poland . Its how these forums work different people putting their different views foward but i have never heard anyone ( german or others) to condone germanys action to invade poland.
 
Doppleganger said:
No worries Ollie, except I'm at a loss as to why you've quoted me with regards to Doublethink. ;)
Click to expand...

I only meant the idea we both seem to be referring to and wanted to cite some Orwell in the process. (Now I guess that I should try refining the idea a bit. This is hard because I am sort of confused by doublethink)

Using the excesses of the Nazi system as a reason for war, while simultaneously glossing over Soviet excesses and extending a hand of friendship, was doublethink. So was Hitler's alliance with Stalin. The destruction of Communism was a central component of Nazism. Fascism was also the sworn enemy of the Communists. This type of ideological inconsistency in pursuit of realist power principles (actually a strong case in favour of the realist school) was doublethink.

But, for me, nothing was as morally bankrupt as having the Soviets actually preside over a court and judging Germans for war crimes. In this case, however, the Germans were guilty of "crimes" and Soviet acts were either understandable acts of revenge (like killing Poles or Ukrainians) or simply "collateral damage" (oops...that rape was unintentional).

Chomsky goes to great lengths in exploring how different words are used for different political situations by different political actors. The "partisans" of WWII were therefore considered "freedom fighters" by the Allies. The Germans called them "unlawful combatants" and executed them as stipulated by international law. The anti-partisan activities of the German army were subsequently attacked as barbaric and as another example of crimes against humanity. This problem resurfaced in Vietnam or in the current American struggle against terrorists. Whereas the Mujahadeen who fought the Soviets were also called "freedom fighters", these men are now called "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "unlawful combatants" -- any negative expletive will do. CNN likes the word "fighters" to describe the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah look upon themselves as real soldiers. All of this is just semantics. What is really being said is: "our side is noble and the other is evil". Law becomes irrelevant.

"Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration in particular has suggested that those who do not meet this definition should be determined to be "unlawful combatant." It is opined that by this definition legal protection under the Geneva Conventions is not warranted. Nathaniel Berman in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law observes that by declaring that some detainees do not merit the protections of criminal law, because of their combatant activities, and that they do not merit the protections of jus in bello due to the unlawful nature of their combat, the use of the term in current legal discourse seems "designed to put detainees beyond the reach of any law"".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant

ill be damed if i know said:
All I need is to quote you to get my facts , iam not going to accuse u of anything but your comments has nothing less than condoned nazi germany actions during ww2, if u re read your posts u may see what i mean . i have no idea what your political leanings are, u may or may not be your intention to sound "pro nazi" , i did agree with some of your points about german greivances over versailles but disagree with german rights to invade poland . Its how these forums work different people putting their different views foward but i have never heard anyone ( german or others) to condone germanys action to invade poland.
Click to expand...

There is no real "condoning" involved. An historian's job is to answer what happened and why. We gain no insight into the origins of WWII if we work according to the bias of Allied propaganda. It is hardly surprising that German actions appear illogical or wicked if you begin the inquiry with this assumption.

"If Nazism is evil, and Nazism is German, Germans are evil"....or is it "If Germans are evil, and Nazism is German, Nazism is evil"...or is it "If both Nazism and Germans are evil, and I present a non-critical position of something German, then I am a Nazi and hence evil"...or "was I originally evil because a took a positive German perspective"? What if a positive German perspective is actually only a critical position of non-German actions? Wait a minute, I am German...so I guess that makes me a Nazi by birth, so I had better not say anything positive about Germans or be critical of non-Germans. Or is it the other way around? Ok, I guess it works this way: I am German and I am therefore a Nazi, unless I bend over backwards and prove that I do not support anything German or am critical of non-Germans, which in that case makes me a reformed German of Nazi lineage, and both evils cancel each other out. But what happens if I do not think that being a German is evil and refuse to accept that 100% of all German or even Nazi actions between 1933-1945, or in your case 1870-1990, were evil? What if I disprove of the actions of non-German states? What if I am just pointing out what happened and am only being pro-German by default? I guess I return to being de facto evil. Which in that case only means that I am absolved of my sins if I turn into a self-hating German...you know the type of jackass the British seem to loathe. Oh well. Tough for me, I guess. In that case, just call me whatever you want. I prefer the name "Ollie Garchy" or "Ollie".

Of course, "Fascist" is also one of those general epithets that someone hurls when he has nothing meaningful to say. But I think you have misunderstood my intentions.
 
Last edited:
Well it was victors hypocrisy at its best. By the same rules Stalin would have hung from a tree. The funny thing is they put Karl Donitz on trial for his unrestricted submarine warfare when the allies employed the same tactics. It is also worth noting that both France and Britian delcared war on Germany and thus STARTED the battle of France and Britian as well as North Africa. And lets not forget about the Soviet POW camps or their mass rape (not just German but other females as well) . So things are not as black and white as most people think.

This being said the Nuremburg Trials should not have even have taken place. It was a complete waste of time, money and brain drain. Most of the people who where on trial should have just been taken out and shot. It was clear that almost every bozo on trial was as guilty as sinned. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes, the hardy boys or a forensics expert to solve this so called "mystery". It was 100% assured that most of these clowns were guilty of the crimes for which they were charged.
:bang:
 
I think that it was important for the German People to see just what had been in their name, also it gave the rest of the world a chance to see just why the war had become so important to win. Killing people is the easy part getting the peace afterwards is the difficult bit. Now in several parts of Britain those killed out of hand after some trouble are still remembered and those that helped carry out these acts are still despised hundreds of years later. Also people can still watch the films of trials and see that they are as fair as they could be in those days
 
LeEnfield said:
I think that it was important for the German People to see just what had been in their name, also it gave the rest of the world a chance to see just why the war had become so important to win. Killing people is the easy part getting the peace afterwards is the difficult bit. Now in several parts of Britain those killed out of hand after some trouble are still remembered and those that helped carry out these acts are still despised hundreds of years later. Also people can still watch the films of trials and see that they are as fair as they could be in those days
Click to expand...

I would love to see how British people see who were killed in their name. What about the empire? Was this just a noble right or was it an artificial extension of national power? Was the British domination of India a good and normal thing? Was the extirmination of the N. American Indian really necessary? We can look at the good aspects of the empire (I do), but were there bad elements? Sure. Empire's have their downpoints. Think about the Americans. Think about the Chinese. People get screwed. That is the nature of the game. Why look on the Germans as guilty of commiting crimes...these crimes were committed by all empires and all states who aspired/aspire to the same?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top