| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
22 Apr 2005 05:52:42 PM |
| Object: |
War Crimes Trials |
War crimes trials
Note: The fact file series is intended to present facts of history,
free from the polemics and misinformation so often presented in this
medium. Hopefully the facts contained herein will serve the cause of
truth in history.
Don Van Handel (DonVH@aol.com)
The Nuremberg Trials ...had been popular throughout the world and
particularly in the United States. Equally popular was the sentence
already announced by the high tribunal: death. But what kind of trial
was this? ...The Constitution was not a collection of loosely given
political promises subject to broad interpretation. It was not a list
of pleasing platitudes to be set lightly aside when expediency
required it. It was the foundation of the American system of law and
justice and [Robert Taft} was repelled by the picture of his country
discarding those Constitutional precepts in order to punish a
vanquished enemy.
U.S. President, John F. Kennedy
No matter how many books are written or briefs filed, no matter how
finely the lawyers analyzed it, the crime for which the Nazis were
tried had never been formalized as a crime with the definiteness
required by our legal standards, nor outlawed with a death penalty by
the international community. By our standards that crime arose under
an ex post facto law. Goering et al deserved severe punishment. But
their guilt did not justify us in substituting power for principle.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and
vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted
will be a blot on the American record which we shall long regret.
U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft
It was clear from the outset that a death sentence would be pronounced
against me, as I have always regarded the trial as a purely political
act by the victors, but I wanted to see this trial through for my
people's sake and I did at least expect that I should not be denied a
soldier's death. Before God, my country, and my conscience I feel
myself free of the blame that an enemy tribunal has attached to me.
Reichsmarschall Herman Göring
This kangaroo court at Nuremburg was officially known as the
'International Military Tribunal.' That name is a libel on the
military profession. The tribunal was not a military one in any sense.
The only military men among the judges were the Russians.... At
Nuremberg, mankind and our present civilization were on trial, with
men whose own hands were bloody sitting on the judges' seats. One of
the judges came from the country which committed the Katyn Forest
massacre and produced an array of witnesses to swear at Nuremberg that
the Germans had done it.
Rear Admiral, U.S.N. Dan V. Gallery
I think the Nuremberg trials are a black page in the history of the
world...I discussed the legality of these trials with some of the
lawyers and some of the judges who participated therein. They did not
attempt to justify their action on any legal ground, but rested their
position on the fact that in their opinion, the parties convicted were
guilty...This action is contrary to the fundamental laws under which
this country has lived for many hundreds of years, and I think cannot
be justified by any line of reasoning. I think the Israeli trial of
Adolf Eichmann is exactly in the same category as the Nuremberg
trials. As a lawyer, it has always been my view that a crime must be
defined before you can be guilty of committing it. That has not
occurred in either of the trials I refer to herein.
Edgar N. Eisenhower, American Attorney, brother of President Dwight D.
Eisenhower
My opinion always has been that the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials were
acts of vengeance. War is a political and not a legal act, and if at
the termination of a war, should it be considered that certain of the
enemy's leaders are politically too dangerous to be left at large,
then, as Napoleon was, they should be banished to some island. To
bring them to trial under post facto law, concocted to convict them,
is a piece of hideous hypocrisy and humbug.
Major General J.F.C. Fuller, C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O.
To me the Nuremberg trials have always been totally inexcusable and a
horrible travesty on justice. This is especially true when such trials
are used to punish the men of the military services who were directing
those services in time of war, and thus giving nothing more than an
expression of the basic purposes of their whole adult life. In the
execution of their wartime duties, these officers naturally carried
out, to the letter, the orders and directions which they received
fromt he head of their government. If an officer... should ever, for
one instant, consider disregard or disobedience to his government's
orders, all cohesion in the military services would fail, from that
moment, and the military sevices would fail in the one reason for
their existence-the waging of successful war in the interests of their
country.
Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, U.S.N.
I am quite clear that any trial of defeated foes by their victors is a
mistake and a precedent which should not be followed among what are
commonly described as civilised nations.
Dr. George Peabody Gooch, C.H., British historian and author
[The Nuremberg] war-crimes trials were based upon a complete disregard
of sound legal precedents, principles and procedures. The court had no
real jurisdiction over the accused or their offenses; it invented ex
post facto crimes; it permitted the accusers to act as prosecutors,
judges, jury and executioners; and it admitted to the group of
prosecutors those who had been guilty of crimes as numerous and
atrocious as those with which the accused were charged. Hence, it is
not surprising that these trials degraded international jurisprudence
as never before in human experience.
Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D.
The Tribunal claimed in theory the right - it certainly had the power
- to declare any act a war-crime. But it interpreted Article 6 of the
Charter creating it, as excluding from its consideration any act
committed by the victorious powers. As a consequence any act proved to
have been committed by the victorious powers could not be declared by
the Tribunal a war-crime. For this reason, the indiscriminate bombing
of civilians which had indisputably been initiated by Great Britain
was excluded from consideration as a war crime by the Tribunal.
F.J.P. Veale, English jurist and author
--
"The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination
of the Jews was arrived at"..."hardly a conference" and "little of what was said there was executed in detail."
Yehuda Bauer
Canadian Jewish News (Toronto), Jan. 30, 1992.
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