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The Nuremberg trials, imperfect though they were, certainly represent an improvement over earlier theories of proper post victory behavior. There was a time when the German loss would have meant that all their cities were looted and razed, all of the adult males slaughtered, and the women and children sold into slavery or taken as concubines. I think maybe Patton actually wanted to do that but was restrained by the idea that he might need the Germans to help him in the war he wanted to start immediately against the Russians.
And the Russians did actually behave in the old manner, at least partially.
And the Russians did actually behave in the old manner, at least partially.
hmmmm.....You know there was some irony with the Trials in that the Soviets were there but they weren't technically in the dock if you get the drift since they were on the side of the winners. When speaking about war crimes there were a few things swept under the rug with them, i.e. Katyn, the mass murders under Stalin and the pillage of the Poles. All of these poisons got much more attention after the Trials when the Soviets and the US dropped the pretence of buddies after the war. But at Nuremburg not s sniff.
The allied troops were exhausted after five long years of war and they just wanted to put the horrors behind them.
It was well known that Churchill favored the immediate execution of the captured Nazi leaders to prevent the tangles of legal procedure, and certain elements within the American administration felt the same.
After all the Nazis had denied their victims a fair trial so why should they deserve a hearing? Besides, there was the very real worry that the accused might use their day in court as a public forum, so they could pollute the air with their racist propaganda. And what if the prosecutors failed to secure a conviction? The prospect of an acquittal for any of these "monsters" was just too hideous to contemplate.
The GI's who found atrocities had meeted out their own justice to the guards who hadn't run yet, or gave prisoners a rifle for an hour or two to take care of the problem, since they knew who they were. They were the first to march out the citizenry who 'didn't know' except it smelled like a rotting slaughter house and make them personally bury the bodies without gloves. They gave what you might call direct justice. By then, of course, the commanders were long gone.
It's good, though, that these leaders were not simply executed. The documentation of what they did was done. They were allowed to defend themselves and often dug the hole deeper. But laying the framework for an international court and recognition of human rights has had effects that shooting them at dawn never would have.
The Japanese defendents got it easier, but much of the 'evidence' was already dead, and some places like their medical island every prisoner died and everything else was burned. With no evidence there were no charges and no witnesses except in the afterlife. And Japanese all looked alike and their names were odd and unrecognizable, and most of all people wanted to move on. And there were the commies....
The men who fought that way and came home to the suburbs and to raise a family never quite forgot, though even if they didn't talk much about it.
Too bad the evil Communists who killed way more than the Nazis were never brought to justice.
And who would "brought them to justice" back in the day?
Definitely not the allies - Americans in particular, who never experienced occupation and who preferred to nuke Japanese cities with its civilian population rather than to risk the lives of their own soldiers.
The allies didn't have the ground to stand on in this respect, when they saw all the material compiled from the 1942 on, that the Soviets presented to them. They clearly understood that even if Soviets did commit any crimes in retaliation, it was unavoidable, because of the "human factor," not because of the official policies of the government towards the enemy.
Not a supporter of any of the the bad Nazi stuff of course, but I know that the victors of any conflict get to write the rules and in the case of Nuremberg, there were many bad decisions in the name of "justice".
True. I'll tell you one thing though. Those who did get into the dock got a better trial than the 'resisters' in say Hitler's Nazi courts. The concept of justice there was an oxymoron.
Let's not forget the Nazis were a vile collection of thugs, misfits, criminals, sadists, and petty bureaucrats bound together only by their philosophy of hate and their love of plunder. The stronger their stranglehold on power, the more monstrous their crimes.
Therefore Nuremberg Trials is the most important criminal hearings ever held, which established the principle that individuals will always be held responsible for their actions under international law, and which brought closure to world war II.
The stronger their stranglehold on power, the more monstrous their crimes.
And it's fascinating to see how the individuals involved rationalized their criminal behavior. Some argued obedience to duty. Others argued indignation that they had to be mixed up with others who they loathed in Hitler's military hierarchy. Perhaps some of you know that PBS has a dvd out which shows excerpts from the trial.
Yes, they were, at least some prominent individuals. U.S. Senator Robert Taft (son of U.S. President William Howard Taft) criticized and condemned the Nuremberg Trials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert...remberg_Trials
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