The photograph on the covering page fits every description of the person that Göring was, as portrayed amply by Upton Sinclair in the World's End series, in most of the eleven volumes thereof.
................................................................................................
"Why another book about the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials? It is true that the story has been re-told many times, but it bears repetition because with the passing of time the Nazis have assumed an almost mythic status in the minds of those who did not experience the war, or the horrors of the concentration camps.
"There is a very real danger that for subsequent generations they will be reduced to two-dimensional villains – no more real than the sinister SS caricatures in the Indiana Jones films. Of more importance, though, is the fact that the lessons of Nuremberg do not appear to have been learned. There are still those who deny the Holocaust – despite the fact that Holocaust denial is now a crime in many European countries including Germany – but they do so in the face of the facts that are presented in this book, where the personal testimonies of eyewitnesses are verified by the words of the accused themselves.
"Another reason why I felt compelled to write this account was that I have managed to unearth several personal recollections that to the best of my knowledge have never been published in book form. They are not of great length, nor even of great significance from a historical point of view, but they reveal certain aspects of the trials, and the personalities involved, that are not generally known. But of more importance, they underline the impression that all of the characters in this human catastrophe were quite ordinary people, who were living through extraordinary times. And that includes the defendants. The Nazis continue to hold a morbid fascination for many people. However, when they were stripped of their Satanic symbolism, and dispossessed of the power over life and death that fed their fanatical arrogance, Hermann Goering, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop and the rest of the Hitler gang were reduced to their essence – which in many cases was as pitiable as it was disturbing. Here was the ‘banality of evil’ laid bare. Hitler’s followers were the very embodiment of Untermenschen (the subhumans of Aryan master race mythology), who blindly obeyed immoral orders without recourse to their own conscience. They were men of diverse backgrounds – able military leaders, petty bureaucrats and mechanical functionaries. Some of them should have known better but they all willingly sold their souls to bring a madman’s nightmares to reality, feeding his neuroses and propagating his paranoid racist propaganda without considering the inevitable consequences of their actions. Deprived of the pretence of Teutonic heroism, and denied the ritual staging of their Wagnerian party rallies, the Nuremberg defendants were finally forced to face the sordid reality of the damage that their racist ideology and extreme nationalism had wrought upon the world.
"It is a disquieting fact that we tend to find villains more interesting than their victims – in fiction and in reality – but the Nuremberg Trials revealed that in real life criminals and murderers are invariably colourless individuals, who lack personality as well as compassion and conscience. It is their victims who frequently display courage and endurance beyond normal human experience."
................................................................................................
"On the morning of 15 April 1945, Clara Greenbaum woke from an uneasy sleep to the realization that her recurring nightmare had no end. She was still incarcerated in the notorious Nazi slave labour camp at Belsen in northwestern Germany, where an estimated 100,000 prisoners, half of them Russian prisoners of war, had died since its inception in 1943. Clara and her two children – Hannah aged seven and Adam, who was not yet four – were just three of some 60,000 inmates who had miraculously survived starvation, summary execution and the typhus epidemic. Typhus alone had claimed the lives of up to 35,000 prisoners in the first few months of 1945. But no less of a hazard was the daily brutality meted out by the sadistic SS guards, who beat the prisoners unmercifully and frequently shot them at random for ‘target practice’."
"Large numbers of prisoners lay dying or dead where only yesterday they had been forced to stand to attention. The contrast was too surreal for Clara to take in at first. She almost wished for order to return, because she was so conditioned by those who held the power of life and death in this accursed place. Looking up she noticed that the guard towers were empty. In fact, there were no guards to be seen anywhere. But if this was the day of liberation, it did not feel like it. There was no elation, only a crippling anxiety. For four hours the mass of prisoners remained on the Appellplatz, not daring to approach the unguarded gates. Many of them must have realized that they were only a few hundred metres from freedom, but they were unable to move. It was not that they were afraid that the guards would return but, as Clara later remembered, the guards were still inside them and they would remain there to the end of their lives. They were so indoctrinated that the very thought of freedom filled them with fear. It was not only their bodies that had been imprisoned and tortured beyond endurance, but their minds.
"Hours passed and then the mass of people stirred. They could hear the unmistakable sound of heavy vehicles approaching from behind the low hills to the north. A moment later a column of tanks and trucks appeared. The vehicles were rumbling across the ploughed fields towards the barbed wire. Panic went through the crowd like a bolt of electricity. This was it. The Germans were going to machine-gun them and then roll over their bodies to eradicate the evidence of their crimes. Then someone saw the Union Jack flying from the turret of one of the tanks. They were British! To the prisoners’ amazement the column circled the camp twice before drawing up in formation at the front gates, where the vehicles’ engines were turned off. Presumably they had been checking to see if any SS troops were prepared to make a final stand. And there they waited. Not a word was spoken. No orders were given. Clara estimated that as many as 500 troops were standing in complete silence, staring through the barbed wire."
"Then some of the soldiers began throwing food over the fence and the prisoners scrambled to claim what they could. A moment later the leading tank roared into life and smashed through the gates, followed by orderly ranks of soldiers under the command of an officer. The inmates had been liberated, but Clara felt no joy. She only wanted to turn and hide. But after a few steps she was arrested by a terrible sound. It was the mourning wail of an old woman. Only it was not an old woman. It was Hannah. For the first time in three years she was crying – her convulsions were so violent that her mother feared that her small body would collapse. For three years she had kept her emotions in check, but now they had all risen to the surface and consumed her. Adam was also weeping, but in the way that a small child cries. That was the moment at which Clara’s stony resolve cracked. She too fell to the ground, screaming and pounding the dirt with her fists. Everything they had seen and suffered had to be exorcized.
"The survivors needed to be questioned before having their details taken for a Red Cross list, but first of all they were given soup. Clara asked for water to dilute it with because she knew that she and her children were too malnourished to drink it as it was. Even so they felt sick afterwards. Others were not so lucky. The soup was too much for their ravaged bodies and they died.
"‘In the concentration camp you cannot have hope. Only determination.’
"Clara Greenbaum"
................................................................................................
"In other camps Allied officers found it difficult to maintain discipline among their men – in some cases captured SS guards were summarily executed. This was soldiers’ justice, meted out by men who had seen their share of death, but who could no longer restrain themselves when confronted with the cold-blooded slaughter, or brutalization, of innocent civilians.
"At Dachau, near Munich, the liberators were checking the railway sidings when 2,310 corpses spilled out of a single train. It had been bringing in prisoners from other camps for execution. Most of the dead, including 83 women and 21 children, had expired from malnutrition, dehydration and suffocation – the Germans had crammed them in several hundred to a wagon. Those who had survived the journey were dragged out before being shot, beaten to death with rifle butts or torn to pieces by the guard dogs.
"The corpses were so emaciated that the first American officer on the scene thought he was looking at mounds of rags. Then he realized that the pathetic bundles were human beings. He estimated that the heaviest of them could not have weighed more than sixty or seventy pounds. With considerable effort he managed to keep his composure and then he attempted to maintain discipline by ordering his men – many of whom were sobbing uncontrollably – to count the corpses. But he was too late to prevent a GI from machine-gunning a number of captured SS personnel (as many as 122 Germans died, according to some accounts) while his squad urged him on, aided by the inhuman cries of the prisoners behind the wire.
"But the SS were anonymous servants of the Nazi regime. Their names and their fate would be lost among the appalling statistics of a war that had claimed some 64 million victims in 27 countries, 40 million of them non-combatants. Besides, the survivors did not want revenge, they wanted justice. Someone would have to pay, and be seen to pay, for what the Nazi regime had done to Clara and millions like her, many of whom had simply vanished from the earth, cremated in the ovens of Auschwitz and more than a thousand other camps throughout Germany and the occupied countries. The architects of the Final Solution would have to be brought to account and the German nation must be forced to face up to its collective responsibility for giving Hitler the mandate to wage his war. There would have to be a trial.
"‘I never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world... I made the visit (to Buchenwald) deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda”.’
"General Eisenhower"
................................................................................................
"Nuremberg was, in retrospect, the obvious venue for a public trial of the Nazi war criminals. It had been the site of the massed annual party rallies and it could be seen as the crucible of fascism. What more appropriate place to bring its demigods into the full glare of the public spotlight and reveal them for the ‘grotesque and preposterous... clowns and crooks’ (according to an Allied report) that they were?"
"Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Principal Points)
"Article 6
"The Tribunal... shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.
"(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
"(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
"(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated. Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
"Article 7
"The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment."
"The Allied powers had convened a War Crimes Commission as early as September 1943. One of its tasks was to draw up a list of suspected war criminals. Winston Churchill expected the list to include up to one hundred names, some of which would be those of Japanese or Italian participants. However, by the time the date and the venue for the International Tribunal at Nuremberg had been agreed upon the list had been whittled down to those who had served the German state.
"The Pacific War was not yet over, so it was agreed that if and when Japan finally surrendered there would be a separate trial to bring those accused of atrocities in the Far East to justice. As for the Italians, their allegiance had shifted with their surrender in 1943, so it was felt that it would not be politically expedient to accuse allies (no matter how recent) of war crimes, particularly in view of the fact that the Italians in the north of the country had been under German occupation since their capitulation.
"Despite Clement Attlee’s assertion that German officers who had behaved like gangsters should be shot and that German industrialists and financiers who had supported the regime should forfeit their assets, no members of these groups were arraigned when the time came for the final list to be approved. It was felt that it would be impossible to know where to draw the line. Instead one representative from each branch of the regime would stand trial and the prosecution would be charged with revealing their part in a criminal conspiracy to subjugate and enslave the peoples of Europe. It would not be necessary to prove individual acts of barbarity if the defendant was a member of one of the named criminal organizations. The seven named organizations were as follows: the Reich Cabinet; the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party; the SS; the SA; the Gestapo; the SD; and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.
"This approach also invalidated the cowardly defence that captured Nazis had offered in mitigation of their crimes – that they had been obeying superior orders.
"The prisoners were now being tried as participants in a common plan or conspiracy.
"If convictions were secured against the captured Nazis under these criteria it would make it easier to prosecute their associates and subordinates in future actions, on the grounds that they had shared a collective responsibility."
"The problem with this strategy was that it would be extremely difficult to prove that the Nazi leadership had planned to dominate Europe from the outset. Hitler had expounded his racist doctrine and his desire for conquest in Mein Kampf, but it was implied rather than explicit. The consensus among historians, some of whom acted as advisers to the American prosecution team in 1945, was that Hitler was an opportunist whose aggressive designs took shape as a reaction to events rather than according to a schedule. The Allies were also open to the accusation that they were writing ex post facto laws. That is, retroactive laws that make acts criminal that were not criminal when they were committed. In the past, crimes committed in wartime were not considered to be crimes at all."
"But the enormity of these offences was undeniable and it was generally accepted that those who endorsed the policy of genocide should answer for the crimes committed in their name, or with their tacit approval. If necessary, new laws would have to be drafted to define these crimes. The traditional legal categories that divided conflicts into either just or unjust wars were grossly inadequate when they were applied to German aggression in the occupied territories. A new law of ‘Waging Aggressive War’ would have to be drafted, followed by a further law that covered the Nazis’ murderous racist policies and the routine terrorization of civilians under occupation. These would be drafted under the heading ‘Crimes Against Humanity’. It was a far from ideal situation, but the existing laws governing the breaking of treaties and the flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention were woefully inadequate in the face of the Nazis’ abominable acts."
"Fortunately for the prosecution the German reputation for thoroughness and order was taken to an extreme by the Nazi administration. Detailed records of every order, and memos of every meeting, had been kept and dutifully filed. Requisitions for everything from stationery supplies to canisters of Zyklon B gas (used to murder the inmates of the death camps) had been countersigned by those responsible for the implementation of Nazi policy. Many of these documents had been burned in haste as the Allies closed in, but mountains of paperwork survived to be presented in evidence at the tribunal and at subsequent trials. All of this was augmented by excerpts from official decrees, the transcripts of key speeches and correspondence between departmental heads."
"There was no shortage of eyewitnesses. Former Nazi officials and concentration camp guards were among those who provided evidence in the hope of receiving a more lenient sentence, but the most damning evidence of all was extracted from the mouths of the accused themselves. Freed from the tyranny of Hitler’s personality, and no longer fearful of being denounced as traitors by their enemies within the Nazi regime, several of the defendants opened up to the prison psychiatrists during lengthy interrogations in their cells."
"Nuremberg was, in retrospect, the obvious venue for a public trial of the Nazi war criminals. It had been the site of the massed annual party rallies and it could be seen as the crucible of fascism. What more appropriate place to bring its demigods into the full glare of the public spotlight and reveal them for the ‘grotesque and preposterous... clowns and crooks’ (according to an Allied report) that they were?"
"Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Principal Points)
"Article 6
"The Tribunal... shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.
"(a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;
"(b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;
"(c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated. Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.
"Article 7
"The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment."
................................................................................................
"The Allied powers had convened a War Crimes Commission as early as September 1943. One of its tasks was to draw up a list of suspected war criminals. Winston Churchill expected the list to include up to one hundred names, some of which would be those of Japanese or Italian participants. However, by the time the date and the venue for the International Tribunal at Nuremberg had been agreed upon the list had been whittled down to those who had served the German state.
"The Pacific War was not yet over, so it was agreed that if and when Japan finally surrendered there would be a separate trial to bring those accused of atrocities in the Far East to justice. As for the Italians, their allegiance had shifted with their surrender in 1943, so it was felt that it would not be politically expedient to accuse allies (no matter how recent) of war crimes, particularly in view of the fact that the Italians in the north of the country had been under German occupation since their capitulation.
"Despite Clement Attlee’s assertion that German officers who had behaved like gangsters should be shot and that German industrialists and financiers who had supported the regime should forfeit their assets, no members of these groups were arraigned when the time came for the final list to be approved. It was felt that it would be impossible to know where to draw the line. Instead one representative from each branch of the regime would stand trial and the prosecution would be charged with revealing their part in a criminal conspiracy to subjugate and enslave the peoples of Europe. It would not be necessary to prove individual acts of barbarity if the defendant was a member of one of the named criminal organizations. The seven named organizations were as follows: the Reich Cabinet; the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party; the SS; the SA; the Gestapo; the SD; and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.
"This approach also invalidated the cowardly defence that captured Nazis had offered in mitigation of their crimes – that they had been obeying superior orders.
"The prisoners were now being tried as participants in a common plan or conspiracy.
"If convictions were secured against the captured Nazis under these criteria it would make it easier to prosecute their associates and subordinates in future actions, on the grounds that they had shared a collective responsibility."
"The problem with this strategy was that it would be extremely difficult to prove that the Nazi leadership had planned to dominate Europe from the outset. Hitler had expounded his racist doctrine and his desire for conquest in Mein Kampf, but it was implied rather than explicit. The consensus among historians, some of whom acted as advisers to the American prosecution team in 1945, was that Hitler was an opportunist whose aggressive designs took shape as a reaction to events rather than according to a schedule. The Allies were also open to the accusation that they were writing ex post facto laws. That is, retroactive laws that make acts criminal that were not criminal when they were committed. In the past, crimes committed in wartime were not considered to be crimes at all."
"But the enormity of these offences was undeniable and it was generally accepted that those who endorsed the policy of genocide should answer for the crimes committed in their name, or with their tacit approval. If necessary, new laws would have to be drafted to define these crimes. The traditional legal categories that divided conflicts into either just or unjust wars were grossly inadequate when they were applied to German aggression in the occupied territories. A new law of ‘Waging Aggressive War’ would have to be drafted, followed by a further law that covered the Nazis’ murderous racist policies and the routine terrorization of civilians under occupation. These would be drafted under the heading ‘Crimes Against Humanity’. It was a far from ideal situation, but the existing laws governing the breaking of treaties and the flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Convention were woefully inadequate in the face of the Nazis’ abominable acts."
................................................................................................
"The picturesque medieval city where once the Meistersingers had celebrated German culture, and where the artist Dürer had been born, had been all but obliterated by no fewer than 11 major bombing raids. A quarter of a million of Nuremberg’s inhabitants had been left homeless and 6,000 bodies were said to lie unburied under mounds of rubble. The stench of decomposition was partially masked by the equally pungent fumes of gallons and gallons of disinfectant, the water supply was contaminated, there was no electricity or gas and the sewage system was not functioning.
"In the summer of 1945 the only building with electric light and hot running water was the Grand Hotel, which American engineers had renovated to provide 270 rooms, a night club and a gymnasium for the Allied prosecution teams. In the evenings cheap music would drift across the wasteland of the shattered city from the dance floor. It was the only sign of life in the ruins.
"But the survivors did not feel that they were at all to blame for what had taken place in the war years. When Jackson went to check on how the renovation of the Palace of Justice was coming along, in preparation for the trial, he was confronted by groups of shabbily dressed women. They were on their way to scavenge what they could from the few shops that were still standing. Their clothes were as colourless as their gaunt, sour faces and their only expression was one of hatred for the soldiers, who stared back as if they were looking at a lost tribe. The troops were no doubt mindful of the army information films, which reminded them that these same civilians were the ones who had cheered Hitler through the streets only a few years earlier, their arms raised in the Führer salute, their eyes glazed as they looked on their Messiah and their throats hoarse from crying, ‘Sieg Heil’. They were not sorry for supporting the war, only for having lost it. The trial would force them to listen to those who had suffered far worse than the loss of their homes."
................................................................................................
"The shell-scarred Palace of Justice resembled a besieged fortress in bandit country. It had been the site of the final battle for the city. The courtyard was still strewn with pieces of shrapnel and spent cartridges where the remnants of two SS divisions had held out until they had been shelled into submission. Now five Sherman tanks squatted at key points around the main building, their gun barrels loaded with 76 mm shells, while GIs crouched behind sandbags at the entrance to the court.
"More troops were on guard on the ground floor. They stood stiffly to attention, looking as rigid as the marble pillars, while other GIs stood outside the administration offices on the floor above. In the cell block to the rear of the courthouse the sentries were armed with automatic weapons. No one was taking any chances. There were rumours that fanatical bands of SS ‘Werewolves’ – led by the elusive Martin Bormann, Hitler’s sycophantic secretary – might stage a suicide raid to free the prisoners. Ludicrous though it might sound in retrospect, the prospect of a final blood sacrifice in the city that had been a bastion of National Socialism was very real in the minds of those charged with guarding the last of the Hitler gang. Even in the shattered city, a few fanatics were still fighting a lost war by stringing steel wire across the streets to decapitate the drivers of American jeeps, which had been fitted with vertical steel bars to cut through any such obstructions."
"An initial inspection had revealed that the principal court room was far too small for such a momentous trial, so it would have to be enlarged. This would mean demolishing a wall to accommodate the larger than usual dock, while a raised dais would have to be built for the eight judges. In addition, dozens of legal representatives would need to be housed and there would have to be a glass booth for the interpreters, a press gallery and seating for up to 500 spectators. The only original features to be retained were the chandeliers, three bronze plaques that were affixed to marble pillars in the entrance hall and the coat of arms behind the judge’s bench."
"In the final phase of reconstruction the courtroom was fitted with a sound system that promised simultaneously translated testimony in three languages."
"The picturesque medieval city where once the Meistersingers had celebrated German culture, and where the artist Dürer had been born, had been all but obliterated by no fewer than 11 major bombing raids. A quarter of a million of Nuremberg’s inhabitants had been left homeless and 6,000 bodies were said to lie unburied under mounds of rubble. The stench of decomposition was partially masked by the equally pungent fumes of gallons and gallons of disinfectant, the water supply was contaminated, there was no electricity or gas and the sewage system was not functioning.
"In the summer of 1945 the only building with electric light and hot running water was the Grand Hotel, which American engineers had renovated to provide 270 rooms, a night club and a gymnasium for the Allied prosecution teams. In the evenings cheap music would drift across the wasteland of the shattered city from the dance floor. It was the only sign of life in the ruins.
"But the survivors did not feel that they were at all to blame for what had taken place in the war years. When Jackson went to check on how the renovation of the Palace of Justice was coming along, in preparation for the trial, he was confronted by groups of shabbily dressed women. They were on their way to scavenge what they could from the few shops that were still standing. Their clothes were as colourless as their gaunt, sour faces and their only expression was one of hatred for the soldiers, who stared back as if they were looking at a lost tribe. The troops were no doubt mindful of the army information films, which reminded them that these same civilians were the ones who had cheered Hitler through the streets only a few years earlier, their arms raised in the Führer salute, their eyes glazed as they looked on their Messiah and their throats hoarse from crying, ‘Sieg Heil’. They were not sorry for supporting the war, only for having lost it. The trial would force them to listen to those who had suffered far worse than the loss of their homes."
................................................................................................
"The shell-scarred Palace of Justice resembled a besieged fortress in bandit country. It had been the site of the final battle for the city. The courtyard was still strewn with pieces of shrapnel and spent cartridges where the remnants of two SS divisions had held out until they had been shelled into submission. Now five Sherman tanks squatted at key points around the main building, their gun barrels loaded with 76 mm shells, while GIs crouched behind sandbags at the entrance to the court.
"More troops were on guard on the ground floor. They stood stiffly to attention, looking as rigid as the marble pillars, while other GIs stood outside the administration offices on the floor above. In the cell block to the rear of the courthouse the sentries were armed with automatic weapons. No one was taking any chances. There were rumours that fanatical bands of SS ‘Werewolves’ – led by the elusive Martin Bormann, Hitler’s sycophantic secretary – might stage a suicide raid to free the prisoners. Ludicrous though it might sound in retrospect, the prospect of a final blood sacrifice in the city that had been a bastion of National Socialism was very real in the minds of those charged with guarding the last of the Hitler gang. Even in the shattered city, a few fanatics were still fighting a lost war by stringing steel wire across the streets to decapitate the drivers of American jeeps, which had been fitted with vertical steel bars to cut through any such obstructions."
"An initial inspection had revealed that the principal court room was far too small for such a momentous trial, so it would have to be enlarged. This would mean demolishing a wall to accommodate the larger than usual dock, while a raised dais would have to be built for the eight judges. In addition, dozens of legal representatives would need to be housed and there would have to be a glass booth for the interpreters, a press gallery and seating for up to 500 spectators. The only original features to be retained were the chandeliers, three bronze plaques that were affixed to marble pillars in the entrance hall and the coat of arms behind the judge’s bench."
"In the final phase of reconstruction the courtroom was fitted with a sound system that promised simultaneously translated testimony in three languages."
................................................................................................
"‘I would like to sit down and write one final blast about the whole damn Nazi mess and mention names and details and let the German people see once and for all what rotten corruption, hypocrisy, and madness the whole system was based on. I would spare no one, including myself.’
"Albert Speer, February 1946
"Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and minister of armaments, knew the full extent of the Nazi slave labour programme, although he denied doing so under cross-examination. His overly sincere protestations of guilt struck many who attended the trial as merely expedient, as did his subsequent claim to have planned an attempt (conveniently impractical) on Hitler’s life. It was all seen as a cynical ploy to portray himself as the ‘good German’, the repentant Nazi. He claimed to have woken from the nightmare just in time to prevent Hitler from instigating his scorched earth policy, which would have robbed Germany of any chance of regeneration."
"‘I would like to sit down and write one final blast about the whole damn Nazi mess and mention names and details and let the German people see once and for all what rotten corruption, hypocrisy, and madness the whole system was based on. I would spare no one, including myself.’
"Albert Speer, February 1946
"Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and minister of armaments, knew the full extent of the Nazi slave labour programme, although he denied doing so under cross-examination. His overly sincere protestations of guilt struck many who attended the trial as merely expedient, as did his subsequent claim to have planned an attempt (conveniently impractical) on Hitler’s life. It was all seen as a cynical ploy to portray himself as the ‘good German’, the repentant Nazi. He claimed to have woken from the nightmare just in time to prevent Hitler from instigating his scorched earth policy, which would have robbed Germany of any chance of regeneration."
................................................................................................
"Fortunately for the prosecution the German reputation for thoroughness and order was taken to an extreme by the Nazi administration. Detailed records of every order, and memos of every meeting, had been kept and dutifully filed. Requisitions for everything from stationery supplies to canisters of Zyklon B gas (used to murder the inmates of the death camps) had been countersigned by those responsible for the implementation of Nazi policy. Many of these documents had been burned in haste as the Allies closed in, but mountains of paperwork survived to be presented in evidence at the tribunal and at subsequent trials. All of this was augmented by excerpts from official decrees, the transcripts of key speeches and correspondence between departmental heads."
"There was no shortage of eyewitnesses. Former Nazi officials and concentration camp guards were among those who provided evidence in the hope of receiving a more lenient sentence, but the most damning evidence of all was extracted from the mouths of the accused themselves. Freed from the tyranny of Hitler’s personality, and no longer fearful of being denounced as traitors by their enemies within the Nazi regime, several of the defendants opened up to the prison psychiatrists during lengthy interrogations in their cells."
................................................................................................
"He wondered if Hitler had known of the atrocities. Ribbentrop still regarded the dictator as a ‘good man’, a vegetarian who was kind to animals and children. He was convinced that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was rooted in his belief that the Jews were behind an international conspiracy to bring about war between America and Germany.
"‘The American Jews and others obviously hated the Nazi regime. They refused to co-operate in preventing President Roosevelt and his brain trust from lending assistance to England. Lend-lease continued and the whole American atmosphere toward Germany was hostile. If only these American bankers had intervened and threatened England, forced her to accept Hitler’s peace offer – and we were prepared to make a peace with England in 1940 – all these terrible exterminations of the Jews could have been prevented… I was truly under Hitler’s spell, that cannot be denied... He had terrific power, especially in his eyes... Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me.’"
"He sincerely believed that the German people would always regard the Nuremberg defendants as their leaders and that the trial would later be seen to have been a ‘mistake’. If only the Allies would admit that there had been such ‘mistakes’ on both sides there might be some form of reconciliation. Otherwise the German nation would consider any sentences passed on the Nazi leaders as harsh and they would view their leaders as martyrs."
................................................................................................
"Goldensohn’s interpreter during these informal exchanges was 21-year-old Howard (Hans) Triest. Born in Munich, he left Germany for a new life when Hitler came to power. As Private Triest he landed on Omaha beach with the United States Infantry Division, two days after D-Day, and by May 1945 he was looking forward to going home. But then he was reassigned to Nuremberg to work as a translator. For seven months he accompanied Major Goldensohn on his daily visits to the cells.
"‘Leon was a really nice, compassionate man,’ Triest remembered. ‘He had an air around him that made people feel comfortable about confiding in him.’
"But his most memorable encounter was when he stood face to face with Jew-baiter Julius Streicher, who took him aside on one of his visits and asked him if he would look after his personal papers. He feared they might fall into the hands of Jews.
"‘I can smell a Jew from a mile away,’ he boasted. ‘I can see it in their face, their eyes, from the way they walk, even the way they sit!’
"He told Triest that he could tell he came from a very fine Nordic family, which allowed the GI to enjoy a rare moment of macabre humour.
"‘He went to the gallows not knowing I was Jewish,’ said Triest later.
"The young German-American experienced very different emotions when he found himself accompanying Dr Goldensohn to the cell where Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, was being held temporarily while he testified at Nuremberg. Triest’s parents had perished at Auschwitz and here was the man who had ordered their deaths, sitting an arm’s length away.
"‘What should I have done, knifed him?’ says Triest, when he was asked how he could have suppressed his instinct for revenge. ‘No, it was a tremendous satisfaction to know we had captured him and that he was going to hang. That was a comfort.’"
"He wondered if Hitler had known of the atrocities. Ribbentrop still regarded the dictator as a ‘good man’, a vegetarian who was kind to animals and children. He was convinced that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was rooted in his belief that the Jews were behind an international conspiracy to bring about war between America and Germany.
"‘The American Jews and others obviously hated the Nazi regime. They refused to co-operate in preventing President Roosevelt and his brain trust from lending assistance to England. Lend-lease continued and the whole American atmosphere toward Germany was hostile. If only these American bankers had intervened and threatened England, forced her to accept Hitler’s peace offer – and we were prepared to make a peace with England in 1940 – all these terrible exterminations of the Jews could have been prevented… I was truly under Hitler’s spell, that cannot be denied... He had terrific power, especially in his eyes... Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me.’"
"He sincerely believed that the German people would always regard the Nuremberg defendants as their leaders and that the trial would later be seen to have been a ‘mistake’. If only the Allies would admit that there had been such ‘mistakes’ on both sides there might be some form of reconciliation. Otherwise the German nation would consider any sentences passed on the Nazi leaders as harsh and they would view their leaders as martyrs."
................................................................................................
"Goldensohn’s interpreter during these informal exchanges was 21-year-old Howard (Hans) Triest. Born in Munich, he left Germany for a new life when Hitler came to power. As Private Triest he landed on Omaha beach with the United States Infantry Division, two days after D-Day, and by May 1945 he was looking forward to going home. But then he was reassigned to Nuremberg to work as a translator. For seven months he accompanied Major Goldensohn on his daily visits to the cells.
"‘Leon was a really nice, compassionate man,’ Triest remembered. ‘He had an air around him that made people feel comfortable about confiding in him.’
"But his most memorable encounter was when he stood face to face with Jew-baiter Julius Streicher, who took him aside on one of his visits and asked him if he would look after his personal papers. He feared they might fall into the hands of Jews.
"‘I can smell a Jew from a mile away,’ he boasted. ‘I can see it in their face, their eyes, from the way they walk, even the way they sit!’
"He told Triest that he could tell he came from a very fine Nordic family, which allowed the GI to enjoy a rare moment of macabre humour.
"‘He went to the gallows not knowing I was Jewish,’ said Triest later.
"The young German-American experienced very different emotions when he found himself accompanying Dr Goldensohn to the cell where Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, was being held temporarily while he testified at Nuremberg. Triest’s parents had perished at Auschwitz and here was the man who had ordered their deaths, sitting an arm’s length away.
"‘What should I have done, knifed him?’ says Triest, when he was asked how he could have suppressed his instinct for revenge. ‘No, it was a tremendous satisfaction to know we had captured him and that he was going to hang. That was a comfort.’"
................................................................................................
"Lawrence was a paragon of patience. Having served as a gunnery officer in the First World War, he understood that the law governing the conduct of war cannot always be applied rigidly and to the letter when men are under fire. He would be scrupulously fair to all parties, for he knew that the victors were not without blame and that it was all too easy to demonize the defendants. Most importantly, he never lost sight of the fact that the accused were on trial for their lives and in the full glare of the world’s press. Any lawyer who attempted to use the stage to his personal advantage, or sought to delay the proceedings, was brought sharply back to reality. In his black frock coat, pinstriped trousers, wing collar and bowler hat, the balding judge embodied the qualities of the English gentleman and the principle of ‘fair play’.
"By the end of the trial even the German lawyers had come to respect him. In the often impromptu and chaotic atmosphere of the trial, where new rules of international law were being defined from day to day, he brought stability, authority and the quiet certainty that what was being done was right."
"The terms of the charter were clear – the prisoners had a right to be defended by counsel of their choice. This did not preclude former Nazi lawyers. The Russians were outraged but they were eventually overruled. Biddle argued convincingly that if former Nazis were prohibited from defending the accused, there might not be enough lawyers left in Germany to speak on their behalf. Very few suitably qualified German lawyers were at first willing to defend representatives of the Gestapo and the SS, but Major Neave appealed to their sense of duty. No doubt they were also tempted by the offer of more comfortable accommodation than they had at present, plus the promise of three square meals a day."
"The two French judges were reticent and unassuming. They spoke rarely and were seemingly content to observe and report back to Paris. However, when they did interject it was to ask highly pertinent questions, or untangle a convoluted point of law, and this they did with skill and erudition. Donnedieu de Vabres held the post of law professor in Montpelier and had been drafted in for his knowledge of international law, whereas Falco was an appeal court counsel.
"Their Russian counterparts could not have been more different. Nikitchenko and Volchkov sat scowling throughout the entire proceedings. They seemed eager to sink their talons into ‘the fascist hyenas’ who had ravaged their country. Vice-president of the Soviet Supreme Court, Nikitchenko was a hard drinker, who was allegedly frequently seen drunk in public during the course of the trial. But most of the Russians were heavy drinkers and no one begrudged them the right to try to forget what they had been through. Nikitchenko could be good company, however, when Volchkov was not within earshot. It seemed that Volchkov was not so much his partner as his keeper. It was suspected that he was in the employ of the secret police, because he was the only judge to refuse to chair a preliminary meeting when it was his turn. He excused himself by admitting that he was ‘unqualified’ to do so."
"There were 20 men in the dock on the first day. Fritzsche and Raeder had been duly delivered from the Russian zone but Kaltenbrunner had been taken to hospital with a suspected subarachnoid haemorrhage. The former Gestapo thug was suffering from acute anxiety – clinically speaking, he was almost frightened to death."
"It was something of an anticlimax after months of anticipation, but much of the trial would be taken up with monotonous routine, points of procedure and the dictating of reams of documents on which subsequent questions would be based. That said, for anyone who listened carefully there was drama in the indictment, because the full range of Nazi iniquities was detailed in public for the first time. After the main charges of conspiracy were laid out there came references to specific atrocities: the Führer’s order for the total destruction of Leningrad, in which one million of its citizens perished; the deportation of civilians; the ‘mute evidence of anonymous massacres’; the death of 780 Christian priests at Mauthausen from exhaustion; the execution of civilian hostages in reprisal for acts of sabotage; the destruction of entire communities by the Einsatzgruppen in the East; the 400-mile forced march endured by British prisoners of war, who went for 40 hours without food after the fall of Dunkirk; and the murder of 50 RAF officers, who had been recaptured after the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III in 1944.
"The only people to be unimpressed by the catalogue of crimes were the perpetrators themselves. Having presumably familiarized themselves with the charges during the long hours of boredom in their cells, they stared blankly ahead as the indictments were read aloud. Hess read a novel or slept and Goering allowed himself the odd chuckle as an inventory of his loot was detailed, but otherwise the men in the dock sat restless and impatient as if they were being forced to listen to a particularly tedious sermon."
"Goering, far less gross than in the old days, and looking remarkably fit except for the heavy sadness of his eyes, permitted himself a discreet smile at the mention of the million bottles of champagne looted from France, and it was Hess at his side who for the general tenseness of his bearing was constantly to be remarked among the defendants – Hess and the insolent laugh of Hans Frank seated in the middle of the front row.’"
"The crimes which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated."
"‘We have no purpose here to incriminate the whole German people. Hitler did not achieve power by a majority vote but seized it by an evil alliance of revolutionaries, reactionaries and militarists."
"Lawrence was a paragon of patience. Having served as a gunnery officer in the First World War, he understood that the law governing the conduct of war cannot always be applied rigidly and to the letter when men are under fire. He would be scrupulously fair to all parties, for he knew that the victors were not without blame and that it was all too easy to demonize the defendants. Most importantly, he never lost sight of the fact that the accused were on trial for their lives and in the full glare of the world’s press. Any lawyer who attempted to use the stage to his personal advantage, or sought to delay the proceedings, was brought sharply back to reality. In his black frock coat, pinstriped trousers, wing collar and bowler hat, the balding judge embodied the qualities of the English gentleman and the principle of ‘fair play’.
"By the end of the trial even the German lawyers had come to respect him. In the often impromptu and chaotic atmosphere of the trial, where new rules of international law were being defined from day to day, he brought stability, authority and the quiet certainty that what was being done was right."
"The terms of the charter were clear – the prisoners had a right to be defended by counsel of their choice. This did not preclude former Nazi lawyers. The Russians were outraged but they were eventually overruled. Biddle argued convincingly that if former Nazis were prohibited from defending the accused, there might not be enough lawyers left in Germany to speak on their behalf. Very few suitably qualified German lawyers were at first willing to defend representatives of the Gestapo and the SS, but Major Neave appealed to their sense of duty. No doubt they were also tempted by the offer of more comfortable accommodation than they had at present, plus the promise of three square meals a day."
"The two French judges were reticent and unassuming. They spoke rarely and were seemingly content to observe and report back to Paris. However, when they did interject it was to ask highly pertinent questions, or untangle a convoluted point of law, and this they did with skill and erudition. Donnedieu de Vabres held the post of law professor in Montpelier and had been drafted in for his knowledge of international law, whereas Falco was an appeal court counsel.
"Their Russian counterparts could not have been more different. Nikitchenko and Volchkov sat scowling throughout the entire proceedings. They seemed eager to sink their talons into ‘the fascist hyenas’ who had ravaged their country. Vice-president of the Soviet Supreme Court, Nikitchenko was a hard drinker, who was allegedly frequently seen drunk in public during the course of the trial. But most of the Russians were heavy drinkers and no one begrudged them the right to try to forget what they had been through. Nikitchenko could be good company, however, when Volchkov was not within earshot. It seemed that Volchkov was not so much his partner as his keeper. It was suspected that he was in the employ of the secret police, because he was the only judge to refuse to chair a preliminary meeting when it was his turn. He excused himself by admitting that he was ‘unqualified’ to do so."
"There were 20 men in the dock on the first day. Fritzsche and Raeder had been duly delivered from the Russian zone but Kaltenbrunner had been taken to hospital with a suspected subarachnoid haemorrhage. The former Gestapo thug was suffering from acute anxiety – clinically speaking, he was almost frightened to death."
"It was something of an anticlimax after months of anticipation, but much of the trial would be taken up with monotonous routine, points of procedure and the dictating of reams of documents on which subsequent questions would be based. That said, for anyone who listened carefully there was drama in the indictment, because the full range of Nazi iniquities was detailed in public for the first time. After the main charges of conspiracy were laid out there came references to specific atrocities: the Führer’s order for the total destruction of Leningrad, in which one million of its citizens perished; the deportation of civilians; the ‘mute evidence of anonymous massacres’; the death of 780 Christian priests at Mauthausen from exhaustion; the execution of civilian hostages in reprisal for acts of sabotage; the destruction of entire communities by the Einsatzgruppen in the East; the 400-mile forced march endured by British prisoners of war, who went for 40 hours without food after the fall of Dunkirk; and the murder of 50 RAF officers, who had been recaptured after the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III in 1944.
"The only people to be unimpressed by the catalogue of crimes were the perpetrators themselves. Having presumably familiarized themselves with the charges during the long hours of boredom in their cells, they stared blankly ahead as the indictments were read aloud. Hess read a novel or slept and Goering allowed himself the odd chuckle as an inventory of his loot was detailed, but otherwise the men in the dock sat restless and impatient as if they were being forced to listen to a particularly tedious sermon."
"Goering, far less gross than in the old days, and looking remarkably fit except for the heavy sadness of his eyes, permitted himself a discreet smile at the mention of the million bottles of champagne looted from France, and it was Hess at his side who for the general tenseness of his bearing was constantly to be remarked among the defendants – Hess and the insolent laugh of Hans Frank seated in the middle of the front row.’"
................................................................................................
"The crimes which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated."
"‘We have no purpose here to incriminate the whole German people. Hitler did not achieve power by a majority vote but seized it by an evil alliance of revolutionaries, reactionaries and militarists."
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
The book forbids any more copying, and one would have to do a painstaking exercise to continue quoting, however worth - so one reads on, faster. One grips one's heart and numbs mind to go through various parts such as when they mention children thrown alive in fire by Nazi guards of the concentration camps, because gas chambers weren't working due to supply of gas having run out.
Then one watches television and hears about poor children in a poor country being treated properly for cancer, and the care and concern involved. One is breaking down within, thinking of those children over eight decades ago.
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
The book forbids any more copying, and one would have to do a painstaking exercise to continue quoting, however worth - so one reads on, faster. One grips one's heart and numbs mind to go through various parts such as when they mention children thrown alive in fire by Nazi guards of the concentration camps, because gas chambers weren't working due to supply of gas having run out.
Then one watches television and hears about poor children in a poor country being treated properly for cancer, and the care and concern involved. One is breaking down within, thinking of those children over eight decades ago.
................................................................................................
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