“I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled. Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time. The concept of ex post facto law is not congenial to the Anglo-American viewpoint on law. Before criminal penalties can be imposed there must be fair warning that the conduct which one undertook was criminal.”—William O. Douglas, LL.D. (Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the U.S., 1939-1975)
We used to have these trials listed under postwar crimes, but since most visitors don't expect them there, hence had a hard time finding it, we moved it up one notch. If you wonder why we put it there in the first place: because the Allied tribunals and all the trials that followed in their wake were a crass violation of international law and thus a crime by definition. Here are papers bringing that message home.
By T.D. Hendry ∙ April 1, 1982
Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Re-Appraisal, edited by H.K. Thompson, Jr. and Henry Strutz, preface by Justice William L. Hart, Amber Publishing (available from the IHR), Hb, 230pp heavily illustrated $11.00, ISBN 0-916788-01-6. This exceptionally comprehensive book was dedicated to Admiral Karl Doenitz, “a naval officer of unexcelled ability and unequalled courage who, in his nation's…
By William B. Lindsey ∙ October 1, 1983
We still have judgement here, that we but teach Bloody instructions, which being taught return To plague thinventor. This even handed justice Commends thingredience of our poison'd chalice To our own lips.—Shakespeare, Macbeth The Prelude to "Justice" Toward the end of World War II, the designated legal representatives of the United Nations,[1] meeting in London…
By Ray Merriam ∙ July 1, 1981
In 1977, I received a newspaper clipping from a reader of my Own publication, The Military Journal. The clipping contained an interview with Paul Martin, a survivor of the so-called “Malmédy Massacre,” and had apparently been published on the previous anniversary of the incident. Martin's comments are quite interesting. It is readily apparent that he…
By Andreas R. Wesserle ∙ July 1, 1981
On 14 November 1945, the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg (Nuremberg) were opened. The twenty-four accused, whose number was later reduced to twenty-two by disease and death, among the top officials of the National Socialist Party, the top leadership of the armed forces and of the state administration of the defeated German…
By Wayland D. Smith ∙ April 1, 1983
Failure at Nuremberg: An Analysis of the Trial, Evidence and Verdict, Institute for Historical Review (pb reprint) 42pp, $2.50, ISBN 0-939484-04-8. Rudolf Hess: Prisoner of Peace, by Ilse Hess and Rudolf Hess, translated from the German by Meyrick Booth, Ph.D. and edited by George Pile with a Foreword by Air-Commodore G.S. Oddie, D.F.C., A.F.C. (Royal…
By H. Keith Thompson ∙ October 1, 1983
On the afternoon of 30 April 1945, with Berlin engulfed in flames and besieged by the Russians, the Hero of the Second World War[1] took his own life in his cement bunker beneath the chancellery complex. This courageous act, perhaps the ultimate act of courage, represented the termination of the heroic last stand of Western…
By Mark Turley ∙ August 1, 2009
‘Why, of course, the people don’t want war… Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece… But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine…
By Paul Grubach ∙ October 1, 2009
Introduction Claiming he spent most of WWII as a prisoner of the Germans, John Demjanjuk gained entry to the United States in 1952. In 1977, he was first sought out by US Federal Prosecutors, who insisted he was a war criminal who murdered Jews during WWII. Years later, in 1986, the former autoworker was extradited…
By Joseph Bishop ∙ August 1, 2009
After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation, by Giles MacDonogh. Basic Books, New York, 2007. 618pp., illustrated, with notes, bibliography, indexed. A recent work with some refreshing angles on the post-WW2 occupation of defeated Germany is always welcome, minimally at least as a small antidote to the continued appearance of Holocaust-related works…
By Andrew Allen ∙ August 18, 2012
Allan A. Ryan, Quiet Neighbors: Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals in America, San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984, 386 pages (Hardcover) Early in his book, Quiet Neighbors, Allan A. Ryan, Jr. tells us that, “nearly 10,000 nazi war criminals came to America” and these “henchmen” of Hitler could be living right next door! A quarter…
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