“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 Carlos Whitlock Porter ∙ January 3, 1998
In my book, Not Guilty at Nuremberg, I wrote: “Telford Taylor was incapable of repeating the simplest statement truthfully. (See XX 626, the statements of General Manstein, compared with Taylor's 'quotation' from Manstein, XXII 276.) The following are “quotations” from Taylor (Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials, Back Bay Books, Little Brown & Co., paperback, by…
By Göran Holming ∙ January 8, 1997
As is well known, no order or any other kind of directive from Hitler or Himmler exists that calls for the extermination or gassing of the Jews. On the other hand, allied propaganda alleges that there was an order from Himmler to stop the gassings.[1] If such an order indeed existed, it would provide strong…
By Carlos Whitlock Porter ∙ January 1, 1996
In his famous dissentient judgment at the Tokyo Trial Justice R.B. Pal of India used the term “vile competition” in reference to propaganda and atrocity charges. One gets the impression that “witnesses”, “affiants” and “deponents” are striving to outdo each other in improvements upon the same tale, each claiming to have personally suffered the most….
By Lawrence Douglas ∙ January 11, 1995
Introduction: Film as Witness and The Problem of Representation[1] November 20, 1995, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the most unusual judicial proceedings of the century, the Nuremberg war crimes trials. After a day devoted to entering die indictment and the pleas, Robert H. Jackson, a sitting Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court…
By Victor Gollancz ∙ January 1, 1961
There are points of similarity, it is true, between the Nazi wickedness and other wickedness at various periods of the world's history. The Jews, for instance, slaughtered the Amalekites down to the last man, woman and child because their god, they believed, had ordered his chosen people to do so, just as the Nazi slaughtered…
By Carlos Whitlock Porter ∙ January 1, 1990
Note IMT = 1st Nuremberg Trial, in 4 languages. NMT = 12 later Nuremberg Trials, in English. In the absence of any indication to the contrary, all page numbers refer to the American edition, with the German page numbers in [brackets]. Dedicated to Barbara Kulaszka and Dan Gannon Introduction The re-writing of history is as…
By Wilhelm Stäglich ∙ February 1, 2015
Auschwitz is the epicenter of the Holocaust. There is no place on earth where more people are said to have been murdered than at Auschwitz. At this detention camp the industrialized mass murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany reached its demonic pinnacle. This narrative is based on a wide range of evidence, the most…
By Edward L. Van Roden ∙ January 2, 1949
I American investigators at the U. S. Court in Dachau, Germany, used the following methods to obtain confessions: Beatings and brutal kickings. Knocking out teeth and breaking jaws. Mock trials. Solitary confinement. Posturing as priests. Very limited rations. Spiritual deprivation. Promises of acquittal. Complaints concerning these third degree methods were received by Secretary of the…
By Carlos Whitlock Porter ∙ January 1, 1990
In war crimes trials, “conspiracy”, “design”, and “plan”, are used sometimes synonymously, and sometimes not. The doctrine of conspiracy was borrowed from American state and lower Federal Court decisions, particularly Marino vs. US, 91 Fed. 2d. 691, Circuit Court of Appeals. The rest of the world, of course, was not placed on notice to obey…
By Claus Jordan ∙ January 1, 1993
For a short time during the war, Gottfried Weise was a German guard in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Was he therefore automatically a subhuman not deserving to be heard? Gottfried Weise asserted that he did not do anything evil in these months, and ten former internees who could remember Weise confirmed this. However, two other…
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