Judge Dennis Davis
The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Part 2
Judge Dennis David and Professor David Peimer | The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Part 2
- So, morning everybody and welcome back. And I’m just going to hand over to David and to Dennis. This is part two of the Nuremberg Trials.
Visuals are displayed throughout the lecture.
- Thank you, Wendy. And let’s get started. And again, thank you to Judy and of course David for our ongoing dialectics on a whole range of matters including this. You’ll recall that at the last lecture that we did on Nuremberg, we sketched the background, the debate between Lemkin and Lauterpacht, the nature of the trial. And then we went on to talk about some of its implications, with the particular use of that remarkable film by Stanley Kramer called “Judgement at Nuremberg”. I want to continue this evening on a similar theme, if I may.
Let me just say a few things to start with, with regard to the nature of the trial itself. ‘Cause there’s some quite remarkable features of that trial. The trial was perhaps characterised by a range of important moments. I spoke last time to you about Robert Jackson, the Supreme Court Justice in the United States of America. And his opening address, and I cited part of, went on for hours, but the lecture, sorry, the lecture, the speech itself is well worth a read. And in fact, it’s remarkable that one can go on to the internet and find the 42 volume official record of what was referred to as International Military Tribunal. In addition to which, very much on the first couple of days, what was called the “Hossbach Memorandum” was presented, that was the document by Adolf Hitler, which was considered to be his last will and testament.
Otto Ohlendorf, the commander of a Nazi death squad was questioned, admitted to the murder of 90,000 Jews. The first testimony of Holocaust survivor was heard. And then of course there was the range of defence witnesses. Hermann Göring that took the stand. Rudolf Höss, the Commandant of Auschwitz admitted to mass murder at the Nuremberg trials. A range of aspects of the 1939 German-Soviet non-aggression pact were revealed, including, interestingly, the protocol for dividing Eastern Europe between the two. Albert Speer took the stand, partly called the good Nazi duties, plausible deniability. It was clear that subsequent events have shown that most of his testimony at Nuremberg was demonstrably false. On October the 1st, 1946, the tribunal came down with its verdict.
But perhaps, let me make one other point with regard to it, because the evidence that was provided at that trial, of course was extraordinarily important in the very slow process of educating the world to the horrors of what had engulfed it during the war. And in particular that means the nature of the Holocaust. Mention was made the other night in the lecture given about Vasily Grossman, about the fact that his work had served as testimony at Nuremberg, and that is indeed true. Stalin, apart from his great work, “Stalingrad”, and “Life and Fate”, which are monumental pillars to great literature.
In 1944, Grossman had entered Treblinka, camp Treblinka, and by 1944, he had published the work with regard to Treblinka. And it was that work and the nature of that work, that was a very important part of the evidence which was provided at Nuremberg. And I’m going to just have an extract of that work, read it to you, just one, to show the graphic nature of it, the extraordinary style of Grossman, and how that would’ve made an extremely formidable impact at the trial. So if we can just have that, oh, here we go.
So this is a short extract from “The Hell of Treblinka”, by Vasily Grossman. “Fascism did not succeed in concealing its greatest crime. But this is not simply because there were thousands of involuntary witnesses. Had Hitler won, he would’ve succeeded in covering up every trace of his crimes. He would’ve forced every witness to keep silent. Even if they had not been just, not just thousands, but tens of thousands of witnesses. Not one of them would’ve said a word. And once again, one cannot but pay homage to the men who at the time of universal silence, when a world now so full of clamour of victory was saying not a word, battled on in Stalingrad, by the steep banks of the Volga, against the German army, to the rear of which lay gurgling, smoking rivers of innocent blood. It’s the Red Army that stopped Himmler from keeping the secret of Treblinka. Today the witnesses have spoken, the stones in the earth have cried out aloud, and today before the eyes of humanity, before the conscience of the whole world, we can walk, step-by-step around each circle of the hell of Treblinka. In comparison with which Dante’s Hell seems no more than an innocent game on the part of Stalin.”
It’s a remarkable passage which reflects the whole of the work. I should just add one aspect. To those who may say that Grossman here was pandering to Stalin. The book “Stalingrad” and the reference here, very much focuses on the way in which the Russian people, notwithstanding their views about Stalin, fought every inch for the motherland. And it was their commitment to Russia, rather than Stalin, that ultimately in Grossman’s view, won the war. But I mention this only just to qualify the statement, but it gives you a sense of this extraordinary literature, that was then delivered as part of the evidence in Nuremberg, and a part thereof. So as I indicated, on the 1st of October, the tribunal handed down its judgement for each organisation.
And remember I mentioned to you that organisations were also tried, as well as individuals. And you may recall that there were four sets of crimes for which they’d been charged. And ultimately then, four of the seven organisations were found guilty and declared criminal, including the Nazi party, Hitler’s cabinet and the Gestapo. Of the 24 individuals accused, 12 were sentenced to death. Seven were given prison sentences, ranging from 10 years to life. Three were acquitted, and three were not charged. Of the 12 sentenced to death, 10 were hanged. One was sentenced in absentia, he had died before the trial, and Hermann Göring as we know, committed suicide the night before the trial. I’m going to play you just a short clip from the Movietone News, which broadcast the verdict to the world.
[Narrator] No chances were being taken at Nuremberg, as the hour of verdicts and sentences approached. A wide military cordon ringed the courthouse and many additional troops were on guard to deal with any eventuality. But no reports of any attempts to interfere with the course of justice were received. Even if demonstrations, attacks or rescue attempts had been contemplated, it doesn’t look as if they’d have met with much success. For all-
I think our sound is out.
[Plays clip]
[Narrator] Attitude, others kept up an appearance of arrogance to the end. Crazy arrogance in the case of Hess. There was much hand shaking, and for many of them, this was the last opportunity. For now, the verdicts were to be pronounced. Before the verdicts on individuals were given, Lord Justice Lawrence spoke to the tribunal on the subject of the SS.
[Lawrence] In connection with the administration of the concentration camps, the SS embarked on a series of experiments on human beings, which were performed on prisoners of war or concentration camp inmates. These experiments included electrocuting to death, and killing by poisoned bullets.
[Narrator] Hess, in spite of having a blanket around his knees, appeared to develop cramp or something. Ribbentrop’s attentions proved ineffective and Hess was allowed to leave the court for a time. The first individual verdict dealt with Göring. Lord Justice Lawrence speaking.
[Lawrence] Göring claims its purposes have been misunderstood, but admits, that as a matter of course, and a matter of duty, we would’ve used Russia for our purposes.
[Narrator] The verdict on Hess was delivered in Russian, but it might have been any language for all the attention Hess paid to it. Mr. Justice Biddle dealt with Ribbentrop’s case.
[Biddle] The tribunal finds that Ribbentrop is guilty on all four counts.
[Tribunal Member] Streicher. His persecution of the Jews was notorious. The tribunal finds that Streicher is not guilty on count one, but he is guilty on count four.
[Biddle] The tribunal finds that Schacht is not guilty on this indictment, and directs that he should be discharged by the marshal when the tribunal presently adjourns.
[Tribunal Member] The tribunal finds that von Papen is not guilty under this indictment and directs that he is to be discharged by the marshal when the tribunal presently adjourns.
[Narrator] As we know, in addition to Schacht and Franz von Papen, Hans Fritzsche was also acquitted. All three, not unnaturally, received congratulations from the others. The scene that followed later when the three men were permitted a mild celebration and interviewed by the press, has received much publicity. But it’s really beside the point, the point being that the tribunal acquitted them on the charges brought against them. It certainly stresses the fairness of the trial. On the last day, the day of sentences, filming wasn’t permitted. Outside the courthouse after the sentences, newspapers were quickly sold out. As I say, the final scenes inside the court couldn’t be photographed, but there is this record of some of the last words spoken during the historic trial of Nuremberg.
[Tribunal Member] Defendant Hermann Wilhelm Göring, the International Bureau sentences you to death by hanging. Defendant Rudolph Hess, the tribunal sentences you to imprisonment for life.
[End clip]
- That gives you a sense of the momentous last day of the trial. I want to make three final points before handing over to David to take the development of our discussion further. One is that of course, as I indicated at the last lecture, the fact was this was not the only Nuremberg trial. There were many other Nuremberg trials including one on the judges, business people, the Krupp lot and particularly significant for my purpose was the fact that there was also a trial of doctors. There was a trial of 23 physicians from the German Nazi party who were tried for crimes against humanity for the atrocious experiments that they carried on out on unwilling prisoners of war and concentration camp victims.
At the end of the particular trial, of the 23 of them, 16 were found guilty, seven received death sentences and nine received prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment, seven were acquitted. But much more important than that was the consequence of the trial, because out of the Nuremberg Doctor’s trial came the famous Nuremberg Code of Ethical Guidelines for Research. There were 10 of them. I’ll read them very briefly to you.
Voluntary consent is essential. The results of any experiment must be for the greater good of society. Human experiment should be based on previous animal experimentation. Experiment should be conducted by avoiding physical mental suffering and injury. No experiment should be conducted of it is believed to cause death or disability. The risks should never exceed the benefits. Adequate facilities should be used to protect subjects. Experiments should be conducted only by qualified scientists. Subjects should be able to end their participation at any time. And finally, the scientists in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment when injury, disability or death is likely to occur.
It was a foundational document for clinical practise thereafter, and it is one of the significant implications that emerges out of the Nuremberg trials that I thought important to emphasise. I wish to emphasise two final points before moving on. You’ll recall at the last lecture I spoke at some length about the differences between Lauterpacht, crimes against humanity and Lemkin, the whole question of genocide. Well, after the Nuremberg trials, one of the most important of its legacies was the crafting of what now we would call international human rights law.
And whilst we know it is often honoured more in the breach than the compliance in the contemporary world, the fact was that following Nuremberg, there were a series of conventions that were passed, including the Geneva, sorry, the Genocide Convention of '48, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in '48, the Geneva Conventions in 1949, the Nuremberg Principles to which I’ve made mention in 1950, and The Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in 1968. In other words, that these crimes could not prescribe and therefore people could be charged at any time.
In relation to the genocide convention, it meant that Lempkin did have, as it were, a last say because you recall that his idea of genocide was not accepted by the prosecutors at Nuremberg. And I suppose the question I have for you, and one which I would love to engage with, it’s the first of the two questions I want to pose from my end, is whether in fact Lemkin or Lauterpacht were correct in this particular regard, and whether in fact we can say that the idea of a convention of genocide and therefore the genocide idea of crime is perhaps a bridge too far. In other words, the argument against the genocide crime was this, that it had too much of an emphasis on groups both as victims and perpetrators.
It would therefore it was argued, intensify tribal instincts and polarisation between them and us. And therefore making the acts that the notion of genocide sought to criminalise more rather than less likely to occur, and reconciliation even more difficult to obtain. That it was more important in other words, to take the Lauterpachtian view that crime really should focus on the individual rather than on the collective. Now, I’d be particularly interested in your views on this. In other words, why are the protection of groups on the one hand and on individuals on the other considered to be at odds? Why was Lemkin therefore marginalised and why was, and since the convention against genocide, albeit passed, subject to this kind of forensic scrutiny? The second question that I’d like to pose comes from something that’s on the board now for you. In 1946, the Atlantic published an article, a lengthy article in relation to the question of whether in fact the Nuremberg trials were justified in any way.
And I’m going to just read you one small extract, pose a question and hand over to David. At the moment, it writes, the world is most impressed by the undeniably and dignity, undeniable dignity, sorry, and efficiency of the proceedings. And by the horrible events recited in the testimony. But upon reflection, the informed public may be disturbed by the repudiation of the widely accepted concepts of legal justice. It may see too great a resemblance between this proceeding and others, which we ourselves have condemned. If in the end there is a generally accepted view that Nuremberg was an example of high politics masquerading as law, And let me emphasise that, high politics masquerading as law, then the trial instead of promoting may retard the coming of the day of world law.
Quite apart from the effect of the Nuremberg trial upon the particular defendants involved, there is a disturbing effect of the trial upon domestic justice here and abroad. We but teach bloody instructions, which being taught, return to plague the inventor. Our acceptance of the notion of ex post facto law and group guilt blunt much of our criticism of Nazi law. Indeed a complacence may mark the beginning of an age of reaction in constitutionalism in particular and of law in general. Have we forgotten that law is not power, but restraint on power? If the Nuremberg trial of the leading Nazis should never have been undertaken, it does not follow that we should not have punished these men.
It would have been more consistent with our philosophy and our law to have disposed of such of the defendants as were in the ordinary sense murderers by individual, routine, undramatic, military trials. This was the course proposed in the speeches of the Archbishop of York, Viscount Cecil Lord Wright, and others in the great debate of March 20th, 1945, in the House of Lords. In such trials, the evidence and the legal issues would’ve had a stark simplicity and the lesson would be inescapable. It’s an interesting argument. It was raised literally less than a year, April, 1946, less than a year after the verdicts had passed in Nuremberg. The question I have for you is whether that was in fact correct.
The question I suppose is this, is whether in fact when you run trials like this, is this quote, an example of high politics masquerading as law. Should these people have been treated as ordinary murderers charged under the criminal law and sentenced to death accordingly, if that was your view, that capital punishment was required, which I think in this case is a certain justifiable exception to be drawn by even those of us who are abolitionists or on the other hand, or was it right to have gone the route of Nuremberg.
Not withstanding, and then you have to take this into account, all of the achievements that Nuremberg did in fact fulfil, including a body of international human rights law, the Nuremberg Code to which I’ve mentioned, and in a sense, a vast array of evidence, which essentially showed the unique horrors of that period as for example, were illustrated in the passage I gave you from Grossman. I know that David wants to take this last point further and I’m going to hand over to him to do so.
- Thanks so much Dennis, and as always, great to be working with you and thanks to Judy and hi to everybody. So to develop what Dennis has been saying is to move on with the question of was justice done? We know that these henchmen leaders and what happened to some of them 10 or so, 10, 11, you know, sentenced to death, but then what happened with the others? And there were only 24 of them in total here.
What happens to the next layer, as Dennis just mentioned, in terms of doctors, judges, industrialists, all if you like, the military leaders, if you like, the second tier of this horrific machinery of war and extermination, then what happens in the third tier to the soldiers who are a bit below, those who are actually doing the shooting, actually putting in the gas canisters, et cetera, the bankers, what happened to all of those, and then of course, as everyone knows the book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, what happens to many others who knew at different levels?
At what point does this go on, this idea I’m not going to get into whole debate, we don’t have time, but, you know, collective guilt or individual guilt? How far does one go in order to achieve some sense of justice? At what point does one stop or not? And I pose these as questions for perhaps a future debate and discussion because in addition, there were the needs of the Cold War. I’m going to come on a little bit later, you know, what happened to the many SS spies and Gestapo and the torturers and what happened to many of them and how they were taken up to work for the allies in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
Notwithstanding the extraordinary achievements of the Nuremberg trials, as Dennis has mentioned, human rights, international court, and many of the others, that’s absolutely golden and given. This is looking at another aspect to it, which perhaps is not quite as well known. And I guess the final real question is how can this all be seen to help from a perspective today to help nations, leaders, and people, restrain the fascination with fascism wherever in the world? So it’s “was justice done?”.
I want to first just mention here that I’m going to show a little clip from the Judgement at Nuremberg film. It’s a Maximilian Schell speech towards the end of the trial. And the scene is known as, Was the World Guilty? Where was the World? It’s an amazingly written speech by Abby Mann, the screenwriter and Stanley Kramer, the director.
- What about the rest of the world? They did not know the intentions of the Third Reich? Did you not hear the words of Hitler’s, broadcast all over the world? They did not read his intentions in Mein Kampf published in every corner of the world? Where’s the responsibility of the Soviet Union who signed in 1939 the pact with Hitler, enabled him to make war, are we now to find Russia guilty? Where’s the responsibility of the Vatican who signed in 1933 the Concordat with Hitler, giving him his first tremendous prestige, are we now to find the Vatican guilty?
Where’s the responsibility of the world leader Winston Churchill, who said in an open letter to the London Times in 1938, 1938, your Honour, were England to suffer national disaster, should pray to God to send a man of the strength of mind and will of an Adolf Hitler, are we now to find Winston Churchill guilty? Where’s the responsibility of those American industrialists who helped Hitler to rebuild his armaments and profited by that rebuilding? Are we now to find the American industrialist guilty?
No, your honour. No, Germany alone is not guilty. The whole world is as responsible for Hitler’s Germany. It is an easy thing to condemn one man in the dark. It is easy to condemn the German people, to speak of the basic flaw in the German character that allowed Hitler to rise to power and at the same time comfortably ignore the basic flaw of character that made the Russians sign pacts with him, Winston Churchill praise him, American industrialists profit by him. Ernst Janning said he’s guilty if he is, Ernst Janning’s guilt-
- Okay, I hold it there because I think what’s fascinating is this idea of how far does guilt go? And was justice done by taking these few, you know, obvious henchmen gangster leaders at the first trial? And then, you know, there were subsequent trials of close to 190 others who were found guilty and various things that happened to them, sentenced to prison, a few sentenced to death, et cetera, and I want to go into those a little bit. But just before it, in the first big trial with the first major Nuremberg trial that we’re speaking about, couple of specifics I think give a clue in terms of this question, you know, of justice.
Dönitz, who was the, as I’m sure people know, was the head of the Navy and he sunk the British and American merchant ships with the, he promulgated the U-boat policy and offered not to rescue the sailors of the allies, you know, from this, from their torpedoed ships. He got 10 years, came out a little bit before. Hans Frank, as everyone knows, was the Governor General of Poland, responsible for the hell and the horror of the camps, of the ghettos, of everything that happened. He initially denied knowledge and responsibility of anything and then the allies found 36 volumes of his journal, which are brought to the courtroom on October the eighth. Then he shifted his testimony from denial of knowledge to denial of responsibility. And finally, he openly condemned Hitler, accepted guilt and pleaded for mercy. He got the death sentence.
Just trying to show a pattern of the mindset of these guys afterwards, who still thought in some way they could perhaps get away with something, Hans Fritzsche, who I’ve mentioned last week, he was the head of radio in the propaganda ministry under Goebbels, an enormous amount as we know, the radio was one of the primary means of mass communication, I guess equivalent of the internet today. He was acquitted. Walter Funk was involved with economics and many other aspects during the buildup and then during the war. And he knew that jewellery, gold from teeth, had been taken and were deposited in Swiss banks and elsewhere. All of this came out in the trial. He was sentenced to life, but released in 1957, 11 years after. Was justice done?
Kaltenbrunner. He was the head of the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile death squads and the killers roaming around the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, et cetera, as we all know, killing Jews. And he replaced Heydrich to become number two, three under, under Himmler, together with Otto Ohlendorf. He got the death sentence. Erich Raeder, who took over as the head of the Navy from Donitz, sorry, he was the head of the Navy before Donitz, he’d pushed for aircraft carriers and many other things, and many of the other pretty awful horrific policies, again, towards the sailors of sunken ships. And Raeder, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, was released in 1955.
Schacht, the one I mentioned last week, economics minister until 1939, responsible for arranging the loans with the industrialists of the west, responsible for building the economy and enabling the money to re-arm, and fully involved in the rearmament. And a big anti-Semites, huge. Acquitted. Von Papen, he was the vice chancellor that Hindenberg had thought he could make a deal and von Papen thought, well, you know, the conservatives would really dominate Hitler and take over, of course Hitler completely out flanked and out manoeuvred them all. He, nevertheless, he was the vice chancellor. And I don’t believe for a second that he didn’t know what was going on. And later he was sent as the ambassador to Vienna during the war. Acquitted, I’m going to come on in a moment to Krupp and some of the other industrialists just to, but to give you an idea of what changed.
And one can argue that it was primarily the Cold War or the reconstruction of Europe, or there was lack of interest or there was another, perhaps more sinister reasons for releasing some of these characters. Okay, this goes on to here in terms of couple of ideas were linked to the Nuremberg trial and also the Cold War. This is Fritzsche, very, very interesting and very intelligent character. This is the one who ran the radio in in Goebbels’s propaganda ministry. Throughout history, advocating racial prejudice is the spiritual father of mass murder. In one sentence he sums it up. Is this extreme cynicism and therefore, in a sense, using the Jews, is it linked to the absolute extreme antisemitism and so on? We don’t really know it, we we can’t prove it ultimately. But this shows the understanding of how they were working with propaganda, which as I think lasted all the way from there to today. And of course was used in centuries before.
And they had a very interesting quote from Philippe Sand’s book where he, which Dennis had, when Dennis interviewed Philippe Sand before, and this is a quote from John le Carre, who was Philippe Sand’s neighbour in Cornwell in England. “How the Nazis could help in the emerging struggle against communism”, sorry, I should just say that le Carre was a lieutenant who was seconded by MI-6 and worked for British intelligence during the war and after the war. And his job was to round up using the intelligence to find some of these leaders, bring them to justice, bring them to trial. So he travelled Germany, Austria, and elsewhere collecting information. Of course, the Germans had kept so much paperwork, had charted everything, had categorised, all the detail was there. And his job was to collect paperwork and find some of these leaders, bring them to court. So that’s the context of this quote.
“How the Nazis could help in the emerging struggle against communism”. This is what he was told by his commander. “It was bewildering. I’d been brought up to hate Nazism and that stuff, and all of a sudden find that we’d turned on a sixpence and the great new enemy was to be the Soviet Union”. And I think he puts it in a very, very clear, direct way that of course, and understandably from a geopolitical point of view, that of course, you know, the next great battle was the ideological and reality of possible military battle between the West and the Soviet Union. But it’s also part of what these Nazi leaders used in their defence in the trials and in many conversations and discussions afterwards. And it’s a little bit linked to that speech of Abby Mann’s that Maximilian Schell gives in the movie, it’s linked to where does the guilt go? How far does it go? When does it stop? And justice?
When do they stop and shift, because whoa, there’s a new enemy, Cain and Abel, you know, the Western allies and the Soviet Union now turn on each other. It’s the old ancient story of the metaphor of Cain and Abel. And then an interesting phrase here from Harlan Stone, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. For him, the whole Nuremberg trial was “just a high-grade lynching party”. I leave that just there, for everyone to have a thought and have a judge- to get a sense of different perspectives happening at this time, of what I believe was an extraordinarily important and significant trial, no matter. I’m giving, if you like, a complement, complement with an e, to the full narrative of what the trial did accomplish.
And I think it accomplished huge things, massive, massive things which were vital and are vital and the stories got out. Most importantly, the stories got out to go to cultures throughout the world and nations could not be denied afterwards. At the same time, I want us to be honest and see what was not dealt with and the reasons why, after the war. Okay, then I want to just move on here.
This is dealing with the, Dennis has spoken about the trials of some of the medical profession and dealing with some of the industrialists. One of the main trials was the Krupp trial in 1947. And this is in your very front, on the left hand side, you can see Alfried Krupp. He claimed health problems. Subsequently, we said, didn’t really look, believe it wasn’t really real. And these are the main directors of the Krupp industrial cohort. And this trial took place in '47 and was primarily around forced labour, which in reality was slave labour. There was another huge trial afterwards, similar trial with the IG Farben company. Of course, we all know they were responsible for the Zyklon B gas canisters and so on. I’ll come to that in a moment.
In terms of the Krupp trials, 12 directors, Krupp, and his son were put on trial and we know they were the steel magnates, so producing many of the armaments, from the tanks to the guns, to the artillery, to the ships, so many things were produced by Krupp and of course, slave labour from the concentration camps all over. And of course, the appalling horrific conditions that so many died in these camps, so many died in the slave labour, of course, many, many of them Jewish and others from other nationalities and ethnic origins. So what happens to these guys? Alfried Krupp denied guilt completely.
And in 1947, he stated this at the trial, “the economy needed a steady or growing development. Because of the disorder there was no opportunity for prosperity for us, as industrialists and as a country. We thought that Hitler would give us such a healthy environment. And he did do that. This is Krupp in 1947 at the trial. What happens to these guys? 11 were found guilty and they were convicted on slave labour, and they were sentenced to varying degrees of between two and a half and 10 years in prison. Well, 10 were released early, none of them served more than two and a half years and came out, Krupp himself complained, he gave bad health as a reason and he was not interred. And what happened was his possessions were taken from him and given to the new West German state.
1953, the possessions were given back to Mr. Krupp and he regained control of his firm, which he built into the multinational we all know of. And most of the directors came back into their work. And let’s not forget, these are directors of slave labour. What was the pay? What was the food? How many died? How many worked? How many came from the Jewish? How many were Jewish who came from the camps? How many were were Polish? How many were Sl-, whatever, they had all the figures and facts because they were the ones running the business side of it. Economics. I’m not going to go into detail with the IG Farben, but just to mention that they, I suppose, one of the primary claims to notoriety, what they’re responsible for, the manufacturing of the Zyklon B gas and the canisters.
Now, if we think for a moment, the directors of IG Farben, all of them, not only building these camps, who were the architects? Who were the ones who came to Auschwitz and the other camps to build it? Who were the ones who tested to make sure that the gas canisters worked? Who were the ones to ship and send the gas? Where was the money? Who paid? Who paid IG Farben? Where did the money come from and what was it used and why were so many more gas? What was it used at different times? And not only gas, as we know, they’re responsible for many, many other chemical and other horrors.
IG Farben had a similar experience to the Krupp trial in terms of the directors, the leaders, the owners, et cetera. So as in that little quip from the movie, it’s was the Western industrialists, we all know Ford and General Motors, who not only helped finance Hitler to re-arm, but also they afterwards claimed money back from the American government because their factories had been destroyed and they got the payment back from the American government afterwards. So we need to, I think, get a sense of this, this much bigger picture in a way. So that was the IG Farben trial.
Dennis has mentioned the medical, of course, the scientists, we all know the stories of Verna Van Brown and the many others who were responsible not only for the V2 rockets that were sent over to bomb Britain and elsewhere, but there were the scientists at the forefront of the new generation of weaponry, you know, and working more and more to create weapons of what we would call today, weapons of mass destruction. So all these brilliant scientists and John le Carre was part of this whole MI-6 intelligence gathering unit, together with the CIA, the forerunner of the CIA, together with them to help get the scientists over to the West. And we, I’m sure many of us know the stories of Wernher von Braun and many, many others. So the scientists as well, were part of it.
Then I want to go on to another part, and this is a character. This guy was Reinhard Gehlen. He was an SS General in charge of intel, one of the very high ranking generals in charge of intelligence, not only for the military, but for the Nazi’s as well. So he, this guy, and he was in particular, his area of so-called specialty was the East. So this guy knew exactly what was going on everywhere in the east, Head of Intelligence for the east and an SS general, this guy, Reinhard Gehlen, he set up immediately after, here you can see him dressed in his SS uniform, et cetera, and then afterwards. He became the intelligence chief of the Gehlen organisation and kept many of the spies that SS had used, and they were all pretty much members of the SS and so knew, you know, of course, what had been happening and were responsible in various, in varying ways.
So here, Gehlen brought them all together and went straight to the allies and said, right, you need to battle in the Cold War context, Soviet Union, we have spies who not only can speak Russian, but we’ve put them inside Russia, they know so much of what’s going on in the Kremlin and elsewhere. I’ve got a ready-made spy group for you, and this is your new enemy, let’s make a deal. And of course, you made a deal with the allies. It’s estimated that at least a thousand, but that’s the minimum, probably more ex-SS spies were part of the Gehlen organisation as it was called.
I’m not going to go into the details, but all of them were highly trained, extreme anti-Semites and all the rest of it you can imagine. Gehlen actually went to meet Edgar Hoover. And Hoover not only approved the use of ex-Nazi’s as spies, but he also, and this is from reliable historical sources, He seemed to, I’m quoting here, "He seemed to dismiss some of the horrific acts that had been approved during the war, as Soviet propaganda”. So Edgar Hoover was obsessed with the Cold War and the Soviets, I guess understandably if one sees it from his perspective only, but from the other perspective, that was his priority and didn’t care where the spies came from or what they had been responsible for before. So Gehlen connects all these people and uses it for the West.
Later this became the precursor of the Federal Intelligence Service for the West German government, which existed all the time through the Cold War. One example was this character called Alois Brunner. He was Eichmann’s deputy, responsible directly for the murders of 140,000 Jews, and obviously responsible for 6 million in all the other ways, knew everything. He was brought in by Gehlen and worked and had a fine life and died of natural causes. An SS captain, Silberbauer was also part of the Gehlen organisation. He was responsible for the capture of Anne Frank and her family. I just want to give these, 'cause I’m highlighting a few big examples if you like, but of course many, many of the others were all part of this.
Gehlen hired many of them, and it was, he claimed that it was reluctantly under the pressure from the German Chancellor, Adenauer, to deal with the avalanche of subversion hitting them from East Germany, which was of course, part of the Soviet Union. And in 1956 is when the Gehlen organisation officially became the Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany, which still exists. Reinhard Gehlen was the first president and he stepped down in 1968 after reaching retirement age and died of natural causes, as did most of all his spies. And after World War II, then come on to, this gives you an idea of the scientists, the doctors, the industrialists, many of the other, I suppose second and third ranking after the main Nuremberg trial.
Then the last one I want to go on to here is a certain, this guy called Otto Skorzeny, because this is a very interesting, I guess it’s a bit of a segue from the primary discussion that we are looking at, but I think it is interesting and important to look at. This guy, and you can see a picture of him in the top right, that’s him. He was from Vienna originally, and he was, he became Hitler’s favourite commander, high ranking member, colonel in the SS. And what happened, one of his, he did many, many things. He was a parachutist, et cetera. One of his main achievements was rescuing Mussolini. You see him on the bottom right with, this is Mussolini. He was the one who rescued Mussolini, brought him back to Germany and then, sorry, rescued Mussolini.
Then at the top right, you see him there. And then later he became a farmer in Ireland. You see the picture next to him there without a uniform, the bottom left, this is Skorzeny together with Hitler. He was part of, originally part of Hitler’s bodyguard unit and as I said, Hitler’s favourite commander. And then this is some newspaper cuttings, which we can see of, he sets up home in Ireland, he was in Madrid, elsewhere and so on. Now, what is interesting about this guy, is that he was a devout Nazi SS, devout anti-Semite. He was apparently part of a plan to kill, to assassinate Eisenhower. We are not sure if he was a part of a plan to try and at the meeting in Tehran, to assassinate Churchill, Roosevelt and so on, not proven.
Then in addition, he was the commander of the group after D-Day, to set up Germans who could speak English well, they dressed in American uniforms to get behind allied lines. And this is a well-known story of the panic it caused amongst many of the allied soldiers. So this guy was involved in many, many commando type operations and subterfuge. He never denounced Nazism at all. And he was kept as a prisoner of war, then he was acquitted, then he was kept because he hadn’t gone, because some of the other countries wanted him as, wanted to put him on trial as well afterwards. But he escaped with the help of SS comrades. He became one of the bodyguards for Eva Peron in Argentina.
He somehow got back and he went to, he was living in Ireland, he was living in Madrid and part of all, part of the Gehlen organisation, constantly sending information through to the West German intelligence service, and all about ostensibly, the Cold War and the Soviet Union. What happens in 1963? In 1963, this guy becomes part of the Mossad. And he was recruited by the Mossad in '63, and he’s recruited for two main reasons, to get information on German scientists, ex-Nazi scientists working for Nasser and the Egyptian military to produce missiles to hit Israel. And secondly, when is Nasser going to invade Israel?
This is 1963, you know, four years before the '67 war. So, and other reasons as well, whether because he was scared that the Israelis were going to kill him or he’d be arrested by Wiesenthal, apparently he said he wanted to do a deal that he would not be arrested, not be killed by Wiesenthal or by the Mossad, or whether it was because he had links to the Vatican or whether it was he was a, he wanted more adventure and military action. Who knows? We just speculate about motivation.
He becomes a Mossad agent in 1963. He helps with the killing of the very important ex-Nazi German scientist, a guy called Krug. And he takes him out of Cairo together with some Mossad agents and they kill him in a fairly horrible way, but they kill him, which sends a message to the other German scientists who get to hear about it on the grapevine. Anyways, so as a scientist and their knowledge and their information gets all sent back through the Mossad, back to the Israeli government. It’s from '63 to '67. Secondly, he just, he finds very important information about the Syrian and Egyptian airfields. And when Nasser is probably, or possibly planning to attack Israel, which gives Israel the opportunity to do a preemptive strike on the Syrian and Egyptian airfields and destroy those countries, war planes, and of course, a huge advantage for the '67 war.
So all of this comes through this guy, Skorzeny. So, and at the same time he’s working for the allies, and this is the history, he’s a devout SS Nazi. What happens finally when he dies? This is a picture from his funeral. He died of cancer, a natural death of cancer, if you like. At his funeral, these are all his Nazi friends. He was draped in the Nazi flag, the coffin, all his Nazi friends come and do the salute. And during his life, he never denounced Nazism. He held to the ideals of Nazism. He never challenged or said a word against it, ever. This is the extraordinary life of this one guy, if you like. And the risk, I guess the Mossad took as well, in getting him to become one of the agents. So I just share this because I wanted to give a very contemporary sense of how complicated some of these characters were, I guess, finally, very, very few, but there were a few, which it does become interesting to explore.
It’s reckoned that at least 10,000 ex-Nazis made their way to the south, South America, often with the help of the Vatican, as everyone knows. As John le Carre said, it was a time of willing seller, willing buyer. And he said this guy, the SS General Reinhard Gehlen had a disgraceful record of murdering Jews and many other ethnic nationalities recruited by Allen Dulles, director of the CIA at a certain period. So this is just to give a sense of what happened to the second tier, if you like, of many of them afterwards. Was justice done?
How many of them Hitler’s willing executioners, what happens post-war notwithstanding the extraordinary and I think incredibly important legacy of the Nuremberg trials, which last to this day as an extremely powerful moment of human history. In addition, we need to look at the second layers, the third layers, and some of these others, because of course we have to come back to the question of guilt. How far does it go? And secondly, was justice ultimately done or not? Dennis, over to you.
- I don’t really have much more to add, David, I think, I think the point being made that certainly there’s a wonderful part of judgement , Nuremberg, just a clip where the Richard Widmark character, who’s the prosecutor, is confronted with the fact that they need to wrap these trials up. And he says, why? What did we fight for during the war? To which the answer is, the Russians have now, as it were, moved against Berlin, we need to get the Germans on our side. And I think it does reveal precisely the point made quite often in these two lectures by both David and I about the ambiguity of these trials.
Namely, at some point morality went out of the window and political pragmatism trumped it in very disturbing ways. But I do want to just conclude by saying, as I indicated at the beginning that a body of international law did emerge out of the Second World War. Much of it, which is basically today we refer to as International Human Rights law. It may be honoured often in the breach, but it’s still rather important that we have those laws and may herald perhaps in the future, some basis for better forms of international governance than we have at present. But thank you to you all and I think we’ll move on to questions now.
- Can I just say, Dennis, that I fully agree with you, what you said there, absolutely.
Q&A and Comments
- Thanks David. I’m just going to get onto the questions and I will share them with you as we go through. Thelma, the Chief US judge was Biddle, Judge Biddle. Yes, I did do a Freudian slip in quoting Grossman and saying Stalin when I meant Satan, but it’s a Freudian slip, still appropriate. Let me just go down.
Zahava - were lie detector tests- I really don’t know whether they were.
It is very interesting Helen, what you say about Stalin and his henchman being included in the Nuremberg trials. Of course, if Russia had been on the other side or been as it were, conquered, not the victor, that would’ve happened. And we have to accept readily that if you look at the particular conventions through including the Genocide Convention in Crimes against Humanity, Stalin was perhaps even a greater or certainly as great, it’s so hard talking in the heart of darkness as it were, perpetrator of those. How was some- Sorry, go on, David, yeah.
The polygraph was only invented after the war by Marsden, just to fill it in. Okay.
Yeah, I’m sorry. Yeah, thank you.
Q: Then how could some of them been acquitted, said Irene? A: Well, the answer was that if you looked at the four charges, a couple of them such as Schacht who had basically run the finance side, but had basically departed before the war began. It was difficult to find them guilty of any of the crimes as charged.
Ellen, I think I’ve answered the point about Grossman.
Q: Were the doctors acquitted and allowed to practise again? A: I’m- thanks for your kind comment, Linda, well, the answer was that those were questions, I think the answer is yes, if I recall correctly.
Q: That’s an interesting question, Robert, since Nuremberg, how many convictions of genocide have been handed down? A: Yes, there was the one in Ethiopia, a couple of Khmer Rouge, there was Karadžic, and there was also, in Rwanda there were convictions for genocide. But you did write, if you wanted to go through all of the crimes that have been perpetrated since that convention was passed, I guess you could have had many, many more con-
And Bosnia.
[Dennis] Yeah. And Bosnia. Yes. Yeah.
Q: Was it innovation to make the waging of aggressive war, says Darrell, an indictable war crime, this does seem a bit attitudal to accept it now as not right? A: Well, the answer was, the answer to the first part of your question, Darrell, is yes, as I’ve indicated in the first lecture, there was a great debate about the crafting of the charges. And again, that reverts back to the argument that I cited from the Atlantic article as to whether in fact they were not in fact creating, is it were, political crimes other than that.
I’ll just dispose with the question of Keitel and Jodl, because both of them were sentenced to death at Nuremberg. Both of those generals.
They were sentenced to death. Yep.
Yes. They they were executed.
Q: How was it decided who would hang and who would go to prison? A: Well, I think that depended on the weight of the conviction against them. Speer, as I think both David and I, and David, you’re very welcome to talk more about that, I mean, he just lied and therefore in a sense, he got away with it, didn’t he? I mean that’s really the answer.
Yeah, Speer basically said that he personally was not responsible, but he would take the responsibility on for the entire German government because they, he should have known and they all should have done something, but he personally didn’t know the details of slave labour and the camps, et cetera, which later was proved to be a complete lie.
David, I’m moving down to a question for you. Who was Hans Fritz? Fritz.
Sorry, which one?
[Dennis] Hans Fritz. Audrey asks F r i t z s c h e.
Hans Fritzsche. Hans Fritzsche, he was the head of radio in Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda.
[Dennis] Okay. Stevens says this shows that-
[David] He was acquitted, sorry, yeah.
Sorry, David.
Q: Were 6 million people only because they were Jewish and also one man, woman and child murdered 6 million times only because they were Jewish. So what would be the difference in crime against humanity or individuals? A: I think the answer is that the Lauterpacht argument was that of course you’d be convicted for 6 million murders. But the idea was to steer away from the problematic of the collectivities. The collectivity is a victim, the collectivities of perpetrators. And as we’ve seen in an earlier answer, the crime against genocide has been used very rarely.
Q: What action was taken against Edwin Watson? A: I don’t think you mean Edwin Watson, I think you mean the Watson who was the head of IBM. I don’t think his first name was Edwin, if I recall correctly. Can’t remember his first name. But the answer is nothing. Even though, if I can recall correctly, he got a medal from Hitler, which he claimed to have given back, I think in the early 1940s. But it’s a good question because IBM were fairly complicit at that time in relation to the Germans. It supports everything that David was talking about, about the business people. I don’t know if you have any further comment on that, David.
No, exactly what you’re saying, Dennis. Yep.
[Dennis] Yeah. Yes, there was a Japanese, Malcolm, there was a trial, there was the Tokyo War trials, which went on for an incredibly long time, I think a year and a half at least. And a number of convictions were procured at that trial. And I think five or six sentences to death, including Hirota, the prime minister, if my memory serves me correctly. I think there were others as well, but there was exactly the equivalent trial in relation to the Japanese, not in relation to the Italians and which really answers David’s- Graham- I’m not saying Churchill was blameless and everything, but could you revise the point that the character in the film was making against him, which placed him in a par with the saviour packed in almonds, David, since he raised that-
Yeah, that’s Graham.
[Dennis] I’m not sure I follow it.
Graham, thanks. I think what Abby Mann the writer, is doing here, the screenwriter, he is using, I think the quote is meant, I think Churchill meant it ironically when he wrote the letter in 1938 to the Times in London where, because let’s remember at the time that Chamberlain and the appeasement policy held sway in the British government. And I’ve just read this brilliant book, which is called Appeasing Hitler, and it’s by this brilliant new historian, which is incredibly detailed and it’s about the whole appeasement policy under Chamberlain and how it lasted all the way through 1939. And even after war was declared Chamberlain and others were still trying to find if there was some way they could have a negotiated settlement with Hitler, even after the declared war.
Anyway, so here Churchill did write the letter in ‘38, but he was saying that because in the context, he was facing these appeasers in the British cabinet in number 10, you know, and he was outside of the British cabinet at the time, of course. So he said, we need a basically a tough prime minister. We need somebody who can stand up to a Hitler, to stand up to Hitler, almost. So it was kind of in Churchill’s ironic way to say, Chamberlain, you don’t have a clue of this character Hitler that you’re dealing with. You need some,
Hey, there’s a question. I’m not sure that question of Irene, that Gehlen worked for Mossad. I thought it was the other guy, the fellow.
No, Gehlen worked for the Allies, for MI-6, and the CIA. So he set up-
Well, Skorzeny worked for Mossad, definitely.
Yeah. Skorzeny worked for the SS and Skorzeny was part of the Gehlen organisation, which became the West German Intelligence Department. And they were under the CIA and MI-6. And then Skorzeny worked under Gehlen as part of the East German Intelligence Agency as an ex-SS commander.
Yeah, there’s a question here about the, from David, about the, sorry from Rod, about the Vatican. It’s a very complicated story on the Vatican. And in fact it was something that I canvased with Philip Sands in the interview. And I can only suggest that if you read Ratline, you’ll get a far better answer about that than you’re going to get from me, in which he canvases that very well. Thank you very much to Elaine.
Q: Where did the funeral of Skorzeny take place? David, you want to answer the question? A: My mind is stiff for a moment. Was it Ireland or Madrid? I think Madrid. I’ll check that and get back to you.
- Yeah. Yes, it was Thomas. Thank you Bernie Fenras for Thomas J. Watson. That was the guy who really, and Monroe Blocht, that was the guy’s name, escaped me. Quite shocking about their involvement. A whole lot of discussion about that.
Yeah Robin, there’s a whole long story about why Goring wasn’t relieved of his cyanide. Quite frankly, a very, very odd, very odd story about the suicide of Goebbels and him cheating the, cheating the-
Just a terrible story to add onto the Goring cyanide was that, you know this Dr. Douglas Kelly who together with Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the two psychologists we spoke about last week.
[Dennis] Yeah.
[David] Who had, who interviewed all these defendants in the Nuremberg, the first major Nuremberg trial and published their books. And then some years after, I think it was seven or eight years after the end of the trial, Kelly committed suicide by cyanide. Apparently he went a bit crazy because of the whole thing that had happened. And in particular the interviews with Goring, and committed suicide in the same way. Terrible irony of history. And this, it’s all of that, that also led later to the Stanley Milgram experiments and the others of the sixties in terms of, you know, obeying orders, authoritarianism, how many would rather go for that than for individuality and independence.
Right. I think David, we’ve basically covered all the essential questions.
Yep.
Unless there’s anything else, in which case, can I just thank everybody for their attention? And I hope that these are debates that we can continue in one or other way to having, 'cause I think some of these questions are very profound ones, which is difficult, they’re difficult to answer. And frankly, the purpose of these lectures are not so much to give answers, but to promote debate, discussion, and consideration amongst all of yous. David, thank you very much and everybody have good evening or good morning or whatever time.
[Wendy] Thanks Dennis. Thanks, David.
Thank you so much too.
[Judi] Thanks everyone.
Thanks Dennis. Thanks.
[Wendy] Take care.
Thanks, Judy.
[Judi] Take care.
[Dennis] Take care.