What do you think about the Nuremburg trials?
Reconsidering the Nuremberg Trials
"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
John F. Kennedy (Yes, the president), Profiles in Courage, (New York: Harper & Row, 1964),p.190.
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"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 occurredin either of the trials I refer to herein."
Edgar N. Eisenhower, American Attorney, brother of President Dwight D.Eisenhower Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.168.
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"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 (inventor of tank warfare theory), C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O. Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.43.
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"This kangaroo court at Nuremburg was officially known as the 'InternationalMilitary 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 committedthe Katyn Forest massacre and produced an array of witnesses to swear atNuremberg that the Germans had done it."
Rear Admiral, U.S.N. Dan V. Gallery Thompson, and Strutz ed., pp.XXI-XXII.
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"I may, and do, say that I have always regarded the Nuremberg prosecutions as a step backward in international law, and a precedent that will prove embarrassing, if not disastrous, in the future."
Honorable Justice Learned Hand Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.
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The designation and definition by the London Charter of the so-called crimes with which the defendants were charged, after such so-called offenses were committed, clearly violated the well-established rule against ex post facto legislation in criminal matters. The generally accepted doctrine is expressedin the adage: "Nullum Crimen Sine Lege" - a person cannot be sentencedto punishment for a crime unless he had infringed a law in force at the time he committed the offense and unless that law prescribed the penalty. Courts in passing on this proposition had declared that: "It is to be observed that this maxim is not a limitation of sovereignty, but is a general principle of justice adhered to by all civilized nations." In my opinion, there was no legal justification for the trial, conviction or sentence of the so-called "war criminals" by the Nuremberg Tribunal. We have set a bad precedent. It should not be followed in the future.
William L. Hart, Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.xx.
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"The war crimes trials were a reversion to the ancient practice of the savage extermination of a defeated enemy and particularly of its leaders. The precedent set by these trials will continue to plague their authors."
Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, U.S.N. Thompson, and Strutz ed., p. 42.
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"I could never accept the Nuremberg Trials as representing a fair and just procedure."
Dr. Igor I. Sikorsky (of helicopter fame) Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.3.
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"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 Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, p.191.
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"I have always regarded the Nuremberg Trials as a travesty upon justice andthe farce was made even more noisome with Russia partipating as one of thejudges."
Charles Callan Tansill, Ph.D. Thompson, and Strutz ed., p. 47.
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"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 John Kennedy, Profiles in Courage p.189-190.
One difference is that in Nuremberg the sponsors of anti-Serb crimes were on trial. The key travesty was that among judges and prosecutors were murderers who had blood of tens of millions on their hands, but Stalin was a good guy then.
There is no question that the Nuremberg tribunals were legitimate bodies since the occupying powers were the ruling authority in Germany. They had the power, and the right, to try anyone within their jurisdiction.
Some question where a UN tribunal gets its power from.
The Nuremburg Trials were a start down a slippery slope. They should never have happened.
We, as an occupying power, had every right to line every one of those maggots up against a wall and execute them.
We had no right to put them on trial.
The UN Tribunal is the grandson of the Nuremburgers and a big mistake in my book.
Whatever you think of the Nuremburg Trials, there were not dozens of secret "witnesses" in closed sessions as is the style in the Milosevic "trial." The Nazis provided the evidence for their own crimes in writing and photographs, they were that thorough.
The Serbs would have hung Milosevic long ago.