“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 Mark Weber ∙ September 1, 1993
On April 18, 1988, an Israeli court solemnly declared “without hesitation” that a simple Ukrainian-born auto worker, John Demjanjuk, was “the sadistic motorman who had operated the gas chambers at the Nazi death camp in Treblinka.” When the verdict was announced, hundreds in the Jerusalem courtroom jumped to their feet and launched into gleeful shouts…
By Mark Weber ∙ January 1, 1993
On the evening of May 10, 1941, the Deputy Führer of the Third Reich set out on a secret mission that was to be his last and most important. Under cover of darkness, Rudolf Hess took off in an unarmed Messerschmidt 110 fighter-bomber from an Augsburg airfield and headed across the North Sea toward Britain….
By Wolf Rüdiger Hess ∙ January 1, 1993
(Presented by videotape at the Eleventh IHR Conference, 1992) Wolf Rüdiger Hess studied at the Technical University in Munich, from where he graduated as a government-certified engineer in 1964. He is chairman of the Rudolf Hess Society (Postfach 1122, 8033 Planegg, Germany). He and his wife live in Bavaria. [He passed away on October 24,…
By Mark Weber ∙ July 1, 1992
A common response to expressions of skepticism about the Holocaust story is to say something like “What about Nuremberg? What about the trials and all the evidence?!” This reaction is understandable because the many postwar “war crimes” trials have given explicit, authoritative judicial legitimacy to the Holocaust extermination story. By far the most important of…
By Hideki Tojo ∙ April 1, 1992
Published here for the first time in English is the postwar prison “diary” of Japanese General and Premier Hideki Tojo. After an outstanding army career and service as War Minister, Tojo served as Prime Minister from October 1941 to July 1944 – perhaps the most critical period in his country's history. A few weeks after…
By Daniel D. Desjardins ∙ October 1, 1991
I was in Ohio on August 17, 1987 when news came of the death of Rudolf Hess at Spandau Prison. Within several days, it was reported that Hess had committed suicide, a version endorsed several weeks later by his Allied jailers (the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France) in official communiques: Rudolf…
By John Cobden ∙ July 1, 1991
Witness for the Defense, by Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Hardbound. 288 pages. Illustrations. $ 19.95. ISBN: 0-312-05537-4. Eyewitness testimony is the cornerstone of the Holocaust story. Much more than physical or documentary evidence, the accounts of “Holocaust survivors” have been crucial in convincing people that millions of European…
By Carlos Whitlock Porter ∙ October 1, 1990
In the Far Eastern war crimes trials, Japanese defendants were commonly convicted of killing POW’s by fiendish torture (possibly for tenderizing purposes), after which the victims were eaten. Today, of course, it is recognized that the Japanese are a nation of fastidious eaters who consume little meat; nor do they devour dogs, cats, rats, and…
By Karl Brecht ∙ October 1, 1990
Not Guilty at Nuremberg: The German Defense Case, by Carlos Porter. Brighton, England: Historical Review Press, n.d., pb., 22 pp., photographs, $5.00. ISBN: The Nuremberg Trials are arguably the gravest miscarriage of justice since the witch trials of pre-Enlightenment Europe and colonial America. At the close of the Second World War, the Allies arrested the…
By Leon B. Poullada ∙ April 1, 1991
Introduction by Mark Weber Published here for the first time is the informative and thought-provoking final defense plea in the postwar Nordhausen-Dora concentration camp case. U.S. Army Major Leon B. Poullada, chief defense counsel, made this presentation on December 23, 1947, to the seven American Army officers who served as judges. The text has been…
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