“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 Lesya Jones ∙ November 1, 1995
The Demjanjuk Affair: The Rise and Fall of a Show-Trial, by Yoram Sheftel. London: Victor Gollancz, 1994. 379 pages. Lesya Jones is the former Secretary of the Canadian Charitable Committee in Defence of John Demjanjuk. This review first appeared in The Ukrainian Voice (Winnipeg), July 31, 1995. On July 29, 1993, John Demjanjuk was acquitted…
By Mark Weber ∙ July 1, 1995
This is a revised and updated version of an article that first appeared in The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1989-90 (Volume 9, number 4), pages 439-452. For more than 40 years, Simon Wiesenthal has been tracking hundreds of “Nazi criminals” from his “Jewish Documentation Center” in Vienna. For his work as the world’s most…
By Jerome Brentar ∙ November 1, 1993
John Demjanjuk’s vindication – culminating in his recent reunion with his family in the United States – has special meaning for Jerome Brentar. For more than a decade, this deeply religious man of Croatian ancestry and anti-Communist conviction has devoted countless hours of his own time and considerable money from his own pocket to help…
By Joseph Sobran ∙ November 1, 1993
The Israeli Supreme Court has finally acquitted John Demjanjuk of the charge of being “Ivan the Terrible,” the Treblinka guard who is said to have killed and tortured countless Jews. The acquittal is also a vindication of Pat Buchanan, who led the calls for the old Ukrainian's release. It has become increasingly obvious that Demjanjuk…
By Andrew Gray ∙ July 1, 1993
The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials, by Telford Taylor. Alfred A. Knopf and Sons, New York, 1992. Hardcover. 703 pages. Photographs. Bibliography. Notes. Index. $35.00. ISBN: 0-394-58355-8. Andrew Gray, a writer and translator, is a former office director in the US Department of Commerce. He lives in Georgetown, Washington, DC. “All in all, the members…
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…
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