Sunday, February 10, 2013
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Re-Appraisal
[The Nuremberg] war-crimes trials were based upon a complete disregard of sound legal precedents,
principles and procedures. The court had no real jurisdiction over the
accused or their offenses; it invented ex post facto crimes; it
permitted the accusers to act as prosecutors, judges, jury and
executioners; and it admitted to the group of prosecutors those who had
been guilty of crimes as numerous and atrocious as those with which the
accused were charged. Hence, it is not surprising that these trials
degraded international jurisprudence as never before in human
experience."
Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D.
Thompson, and Strutz ed., Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Re-appraisal,(Torrance: Institute for Historical Review, 1983) p.148.
"This kangaroo court at Nuremburg was officially known as the
'International Military Tribunal.' That name is a libel on the military
profession. The tribunal was not a military one in any sense. The only
military men among the judges were the Russians.... At Nuremberg,
mankind and our present civilization were on trial, with men whose own
hands were bloody sitting on the judges' seats. One of the judges came
from the country which committed the Katyn Forest massacre and produced
an array of witnesses to swear at Nuremberg that the Germans had done
it."
Rear Admiral, U.S.N. Dan V. Gallery
Thompson, and Strutz ed., pp.XXI-XXII.
"To me the Nuremberg trials have always been totally inexcusable and a
horrible travesty of justice. This is especially true when such trials
are used to punish the men of the military services who were directing
those services in time of war, and thus giving nothing more than an
expression of the basic purposes of their whole adult life. In the
execution of their wartime duties, these officers naturally carried out,
to the letter, the orders and directions which they received from the
head of their government.
If an officer... should ever, for one instant, consider disregard or
disobedience to his government's orders, all cohesion in the military
services would fail, from that moment, and the military services would
fail in the one reason for their existence - the waging of successful
war in the interests of their country."
Rear Admiral Robert A. Theobald, U.S.N.
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.39.
"The Tribunal claimed in theory the right — it certainly had the power
--to declare any act a war-crime. But it interpreted Article 6 of the
Charter creating it, as excluding from its consideration any act
committed by the victorious powers. As a consequence any act proved to
have been committed by the victorious powers could not be declared by
the Tribunal a war-crime. For this reason, the indiscriminate bombing of
civilians which had indisputably been initiated by Great Britain was
excluded from consideration as a war crime by the Tribunal."
F.J.P. Veale, English jurist and author
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.146.
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