DOCSLIB.ORG

The Nuremberg Justice Trial 1947

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Nuremberg Justice Trial 1947 JAN SCHNITZER THE NUREMBERG JUSTICE TRIAL 1947 – VENGEANCE OF THE VICTORS ? LLM THESIS LAWS 591 FACULTY OF LAW 2010 2 3 In memory of the victims of the German judiciary between 1933 and 1945 4 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................... 11 I INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 13 II LEGAL BASIS OF THE TRIAL ........................................................ 19 A The Allies as the Controllers of the Legislative Power in Germany after World War II ....................................................... 19 1 The legitimisation of the trial by Allied documents ................... 19 (a) Declaration on German Atrocities (Moscow Declaration 1943) ..................................................................................... 20 (b) London Agreement of 8 August 1945 .................................. 22 (c) Charter of the International Military Tribunal ..................... 25 (d) Allied Control Council Law No. 10 ..................................... 29 (e) Ordinance No. 7 of the US Military Government for Germany ............................................................................... 31 (f) Judgment of the International Military Tribunal .................. 33 2 Compatibility with existing international law and customs....... 34 (a) Non-applicability of Hague Convention No. IV ...................... (Laws and Customs of War on Land) .................................. 34 (b) The issue of Germany‟s remaining sovereignty................... 37 (i) View of US Military Tribunal III ..................................... 38 (ii) Dissenting view of Judge Blair ........................................ 41 (iii) Evaluation .................................................................... 45 (c) The implementation of a purely US court ............................ 47 (i) Historical experience ........................................................ 48 (ii) The violation of the principle of separation of powers .... 51 B The Moral Necessity of the Trial ................................................. 55 C Conclusion .................................................................................... 59 6 III INVOLVED PARTIES .................................................................... 61 A The Tribunal ................................................................................. 62 1 The judges and their qualifications ........................................... 63 2 Independence of the judges from US post-war politics ............. 65 3 Conclusion ................................................................................. 67 B The Prosecution ............................................................................ 69 1 The prosecutors and their qualifications ................................... 70 (a) Taylor ................................................................................... 72 (b) LaFollette ............................................................................. 73 2 Conclusion ................................................................................. 74 C The Defendants ............................................................................. 76 1 Selection criteria ........................................................................ 78 (a) General aspects..................................................................... 79 (b) Individual aspects ................................................................. 80 (i) Officials of the Reich Ministry of Justice ........................ 81 (ii) Members of the National Socialist People‟s Court .......... 82 (iii) Members of National Socialist Special Courts ............ 84 2 Conclusion ................................................................................. 85 IV TRIAL-PROCEEDINGS ................................................................. 89 A The Creation of a New International Criminal Law .................. 90 1 The charges and their development ........................................... 91 (a) Conspiracy to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity ............................................................................... 92 (b) War crimes ........................................................................... 94 (c) Crimes against humanity ...................................................... 96 (d) Membership in criminal organisations ............................... 100 2 The ex post facto principle (nullum crimen sine lege, ................... nulla poena sine lege) .............................................................. 103 3 Individual liability.................................................................... 108 4 The tu quoque argument .......................................................... 111 7 5 Conclusion ............................................................................... 114 B Fairness of the Trial ................................................................... 115 V JUDGMENT OF THE TRIBUNAL ................................................. 121 A General Remarks ........................................................................ 121 1 The Tribunal’s analysis of the German law under the Nazis .. 122 (a) Ermaechtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act 1933) ...................... 123 (b) Arbitrariness in criminal law .............................................. 124 (c) Discrimination against minorities ...................................... 127 (d) Expansion of the German law on occupied territories ....... 128 (e) Courts and the law of procedure ........................................ 129 (f) The execution of the law in Nazi Germany ....................... 131 (i) Hitler as supreme judge .................................................. 131 (ii) Execution of Hitler‟s will ............................................... 133 (iii) Outcome ..................................................................... 135 2 The Tribunal’s evaluation of the legality of Nazi laws ............ 137 (a) Habitual criminals .............................................................. 138 (b) Plunder in German territory ............................................... 138 (c) Crimes against the wartime economy ................................ 139 (d) Undermining military efficiency ........................................ 139 (e) Treason and High Treason ................................................. 141 (f) The Nacht und Nebel Erlass (Night and Fog Decree)........ 142 (g) Racial persecution .............................................................. 144 3 Conclusion ............................................................................... 146 B Individual Verdicts and Sentences ............................................. 147 1 The Tribunal’s evaluation of the defendant’s role ........................ in Nazi Germany ...................................................................... 149 (a) Schlegelberger .................................................................... 149 (b) Klemm ................................................................................ 151 (c) Rothenberger ...................................................................... 153 (d) Lautz ................................................................................... 155 8 (e) Mettgenberg ....................................................................... 156 (f) von Ammon ........................................................................ 157 (g) Joel ..................................................................................... 158 (h) Rothaug .............................................................................. 160 (i) Barnickel, Petersen, Nebelung and Cuhorst ....................... 163 (j) Oeschey .............................................................................. 164 (k) Altstoetter ........................................................................... 167 (l) Engert and Westphal .......................................................... 168 2 The Tribunal’s relatively mild sentencing ............................... 169 3 Conclusion ............................................................................... 170 VI LEGACY OF THE TRIAL ............................................................ 175 A The Establishment of a New International Criminal Law ....... 175 1 Development ............................................................................ 175 2 Criticism................................................................................... 178 3 Conclusion ............................................................................... 180 B The Failure of the US War Crimes Trial Programme .............. 182 1 The upcoming Cold War .......................................................... 183 2 The resistance of Germany’s post-war judiciary ..................... 186 3 The amnesties of the 1950s ...................................................... 191 4 Conclusion ............................................................................... 194 VII CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 199 APPENDIX: PICTURES FROM THE TRIAL .................................... 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................... 213 9 ABSTRACT Nuremberg became famous for the
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 16. the Nuremberg Trials: Nazi Criminals Face Justice
    fdr4freedoms 1 16. The Nuremberg Trials: Nazi Criminals Face Justice On a ship off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, four months before the United States entered World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill agreed to commit themselves to “the final destruction of Nazi tyranny.” In mid-1944, as the Allied advance toward Germany progressed, another question arose: What to do with the defeated Nazis? FDR asked his War Department for a plan to bring Germany to justice, making it accountable for starting the terrible war and, in its execution, committing a string of ruthless atrocities. By mid-September 1944, FDR had two plans to consider. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. had unexpectedly presented a proposal to the president two weeks before the War Department finished its own work. The two plans could not have been more different, and a bitter contest of ideas erupted in FDR’s cabinet. To execute or prosecute? Morgenthau proposed executing major Nazi leaders as soon as they were captured, exiling other officers to isolated and barren lands, forcing German prisoners of war to rebuild war-scarred Europe, and, perhaps most controversially, Defendants and their counsel in the trial of major war criminals before the dismantling German industry in the highly developed Ruhr International Military Tribunal, November 22, 1945. The day before, all defendants and Saar regions. One of the world’s most advanced industrial had entered “not guilty” pleas and U.S. top prosecutor Robert H. Jackson had made his opening statement. “Despite the fact that public opinion already condemns economies would be left to subsist on local crops, a state their acts,” said Jackson, “we agree that here [these defendants] must be given that would prevent Germany from acting on any militaristic or a presumption of innocence, and we accept the burden of proving criminal acts and the responsibility of these defendants for their commission.” Harvard Law School expansionist impulses.
    [Show full text]
  • Document and Analyse: the Legacy of Klemperer, Fraenkel and Neumann for Contemporary Human Rights Engagement Luz Oette, School O
    This is the version of the article accepted for publication in Human Rights Quarterly published by John Hopkins University Press: https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/human_rights_quarterly/index.html Accepted version downloaded from SOAS Research Online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/23313/ Document and analyse: The legacy of Klemperer, Fraenkel and Neumann for contemporary human rights engagement Luz Oette, School of Law, SOAS University of London Human rights discourse has been criticised for being legalistic, decontextualised and failing to focus on factors explaining violations. Victor Klemperer‟s diaries chronicled the life and suffering of a German Jew in Nazi Germany and the manipulation of language by a totalitarian regime. Ernst Fraenkel‟s Dual State and Franz Neumann‟s Behemoth set out theories offering profound insights into the legal and political nature of the Nazi system. Revisiting their work from a human rights perspective is richly rewarding, providing examples of engaged scholarship that combined documentation and critical analysis. Their writings hold important lessons for contemporary human rights engagement and its critics. I. Introduction The human rights movement and language of human rights has been the subject of sustained criticism. Besides its supposed Western liberal bias, critics have focused particularly on human rights as a mode of political engagement. Human rights discourse is seen as legalistic and decontextualised. Richard Wilson argued in 1997 that human rights reports “can depoliticise human rights violations
    [Show full text]
  • Discrimination and Law in Nazi Germany
    Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Name:_______________________________ at Keene State College __________________________________________________________________________________________________ “To Remember…and to Teach.” www.keene.edu/cchgs Student Outline: Destroying Democracy From Within (1933-1938) 1. In the November 1932 elections the Nazis received _______ (%) of the vote. 2. Hitler was named Chancellor of a right-wing coalition government on _________________ _____, __________. 3. Hitler’s greatest fear is that he could be dismissed by President ____________________________. 4. Hitler’s greatest unifier of the many conservatives was fear of the _____________. 5. The Reichstag Fire Decree of February 1933 allowed Hitler to use article _______ to suspend the Reichstag and suspend ________________ ____________ for all Germans. 6. In March 5, 1933 election, the Nazi Party had _________ % of the vote. 7. Concentration camps (KL) emerged from below as camps for “__________________ ________________” prisoners. 8. On March 24, 1933, the _______________ Act gave Hitler power to rule as dictator during the declared “state of emergency.” It was the __________________ Center Party that swayed the vote in Hitler’s favor. 9. Franz Schlegelberger became the State Secretary in the German Ministry of ___________________. He believed that the courts role was to maintain ________________ __________________. He based his rulings on the principle of the ____________________ ___________________ order. He endorsed the Enabling Act because the government, in his view, could act with _______________, ________________, and _____________________. 10. One week after the failed April 1, 1933 Boycott, the Nazis passed the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional _________________ ______________________. The April 11 supplement attempted to legally define “non-Aryan” as someone with a non-Aryan ____________________ or ________________________.
    [Show full text]
  • From the Nuremberg Trials to the Memorial Nuremberg Trials
    Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit Memorium Nürnberger Prozesse Hirschelgasse 9-11 90403 Nürnberg Telefon: 0911 / 2 31-66 89 Telefon: 0911 / 2 31-54 20 Telefax: 0911 / 2 31-1 42 10 E-Mail: [email protected] www.museen.nuernberg.de – Press Release From the Nuremberg Trials to the Memorial Nuremberg Trials Nuremberg’s name is linked with the NSDAP Party Rallies held here between 1933 and 1938 and – Presseinformation with the „Racial Laws“ adopted in 1935. It is also linked with the trials where leading representatives of the Nazi regime had to answer for their crimes in an international court of justice. Between 20 November, 1945, and 1 October, 1946, the International Military Tribunal’s trial of the main war criminals (IMT) was held in Court Room 600 at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. Between 1946 and 1949, twelve follow-up trials were also held here. Those tried included high- ranking representatives of the military, administration, medical profession, legal system, industry Press Release and politics. History Two years after Germany had unleashed World War II on 1 September, 1939, leading politicians and military staff of the anti-Hitler coalition started to consider bringing to account those Germans responsible for war crimes which had come to light at that point. The Moscow Declaration of 1943 and the Conference of Yalta of February 1945 confirmed this attitude. Nevertheless, the ideas – Presseinformation concerning the type of proceeding to use in the trial were extremely divergent. After difficult negotiations, on 8 August, 1945, the four Allied powers (USA, Britain, France and the Soviet Union) concluded the London Agreement, on a "Charter for The International Military Tribunal", providing for indictment for the following crimes in a trial based on the rule of law: 1.
    [Show full text]
  • SS-Totenkopfverbände from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande)
    Create account Log in Article Talk Read Edit View history SS-Totenkopfverbände From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande) Navigation Not to be confused with 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, the Waffen-SS fighting unit. Main page This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason Contents has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2010) Featured content Current events This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding Random article citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Donate to Wikipedia [2] SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), rendered in English as "Death's-Head Units" (literally SS-TV meaning "Skull Units"), was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi SS-Totenkopfverbände Interaction concentration camps for the Third Reich. Help The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command About Wikipedia structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Community portal Buchenwald; in Nazi-occupied Europe, it ran Auschwitz in German occupied Poland and Recent changes Mauthausen in Austria as well as numerous other concentration and death camps. The Contact Wikipedia death camps' primary function was genocide and included Treblinka, Bełżec extermination camp and Sobibor. It was responsible for facilitating what was called the Final Solution, Totenkopf (Death's head) collar insignia, 13th Standarte known since as the Holocaust, in collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office[3] and the Toolbox of the SS-Totenkopfverbände SS Economic and Administrative Main Office or WVHA.
    [Show full text]
  • The Trial of Paul Touvier
    A CENTURY OF GENOCIDES AND JUSTICE: THE TRIAL OF PAUL TOUVIER An Undergraduate Research Scholars Thesis by RACHEL HAGE Submitted to the Undergraduate Research Scholars program at Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation as an UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SCHOLAR Approved by Research Advisor: Dr. Richard Golsan May 2020 Major: International Studies, International Politics and Diplomacy Track TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................1 Literature Review.....................................................................................................1 Thesis Statement ......................................................................................................1 Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................2 Project Description...................................................................................................2 KEY WORDS ..................................................................................................................................4 INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................5 United Nations Rome Statute ..................................................................................5 20th Century Genocide .............................................................................................6
    [Show full text]
  • Hitler's American Model
    Hitler’s American Model The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law James Q. Whitman Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford 1 Introduction This jurisprudence would suit us perfectly, with a single exception. Over there they have in mind, practically speaking, only coloreds and half-coloreds, which includes mestizos and mulattoes; but the Jews, who are also of interest to us, are not reckoned among the coloreds. —Roland Freisler, June 5, 1934 On June 5, 1934, about a year and a half after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich, the leading lawyers of Nazi Germany gathered at a meeting to plan what would become the Nuremberg Laws, the notorious anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi race regime. The meeting was chaired by Franz Gürtner, the Reich Minister of Justice, and attended by officials who in the coming years would play central roles in the persecution of Germany’s Jews. Among those present was Bernhard Lösener, one of the principal draftsmen of the Nuremberg Laws; and the terrifying Roland Freisler, later President of the Nazi People’s Court and a man whose name has endured as a byword for twentieth-century judicial savagery. The meeting was an important one, and a stenographer was present to record a verbatim transcript, to be preserved by the ever-diligent Nazi bureaucracy as a record of a crucial moment in the creation of the new race regime. That transcript reveals the startling fact that is my point of departure in this study: the meeting involved detailed and lengthy discussions of the law of the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Friedrich Berber and the Politics of International Law in Germany and India, 1920S-1960S
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sussex Research Online K. Rietzler Journal of Global History, 11.1 (2016) Counter-Imperial Orientalism: Friedrich Berber and the Politics of International Law in Germany and India, 1920s-1960s Katharina Rietzler1 This is the peer reviewed, accepted manuscript of an article which will be published in final form in the Journal of Global History, Vol. 11.1 (March 2016), doi:10.1017/S1740022815000303 Abstract: The most trenchant critiques of Western international law are framed around the legacy of its historic complicity in the imperial project of governing non-European peoples. International law organised Europe and its ‘others’ into a hierarchy of civilizational difference that was only ever reconfigured but never overturned. But when analysing the complex relationship between international law and imperialism the differences within Europe—as opposed to a dyadic opposition of Europe versus the ‘rest'—also matter. Within the historical and political constellations of the early and mid-twentieth century, German difference produced a set of arguments that challenged dominant discourses of international law by posturing as anti- imperial critique. This article focuses on the global career of Friedrich Berber (1898-1984) who, as a legal adviser in Nazi Germany and Nehru’s India, was at the forefront of state-led challenges to liberal international law. Berber fused notions of German civilizational superiority with an appropriation of Indian colonial victimhood, and pursued a shared politics of opposition. He embodies a version of German-Indian entanglement which did not abate after the Second World War, emphasizing the long continuities of empire, power differentials, civilizational hierarchies and developmental logics under the umbrella of international law.
    [Show full text]
  • Justice in the Justice Trial at Nuremberg Stephen J
    University of Baltimore Law Review Volume 46 | Issue 3 Article 4 5-2017 A Court Pure and Unsullied: Justice in the Justice Trial at Nuremberg Stephen J. Sfekas Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/ublr Part of the Fourteenth Amendment Commons, International Law Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Sfekas, Stephen J. (2017) "A Court Pure and Unsullied: Justice in the Justice Trial at Nuremberg," University of Baltimore Law Review: Vol. 46 : Iss. 3 , Article 4. Available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/ublr/vol46/iss3/4 This Peer Reviewed Articles is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Baltimore Law Review by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A COURT PURE AND UNSULLIED: JUSTICE IN THE JUSTICE TRIAL AT NUREMBERG* Hon. Stephen J. Sfekas** Therefore, O Citizens, I bid ye bow In awe to this command, Let no man live Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny . Thus I ordain it now, a [] court Pure and unsullied . .1 I. INTRODUCTION In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the common understanding was that the Nazi regime had been maintained by a combination of instruments of terror, such as the Gestapo, the SS, and concentration camps, combined with a sophisticated propaganda campaign.2 Modern historiography, however, has revealed the
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliography Primary Sources Biddle, Francis. "The
    Bibliography Primary Sources Biddle, Francis. "The Nürnberg Trial." In Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial, 200-12. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Francis Biddle, the primary American judge of the IMT, wrote this short piece only months after the conclusion of the trials. His purpose was largely to clarify common misconceptions about the trial - primarily their "root in victor's justice." This article helped clarify some essential points of the trial and its justification for me. Dodd, Christopher J., and Lary Bloom. Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative of a Quest for Justice. New York: Crown Pub., 2007. Print. This is a collection of letters written by Thomas Dodd to his family members back home detailing the events of the International Military Tribunal and his involvement in it. These provide a unique first-hand look at what the prosecution team was doing in Nuremberg and helped provide a better understanding of the prosecutors' strategy and mentality throughout the trial. European Advisory Council. Charter of the International Military Tribunal - Annex to the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the uropean Axis ("London Agreement"). August 8, 1945. The Charter of the IMT, commonly known as the "London Charter," authorized the formation of the International Military Tribunal and outlined the rules and procedures it was to follow. This is one of the central documents of the trial, and its contents were drawn upon in future trials and in the Rome Statute. It was incredibly important to this project, and it is featured in full on the website.
    [Show full text]
  • JUDGEMENT at NUREMBERG 1946 Fact Sheet
    JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG 1946 Fact Sheet On the morning of October 16, 1946, five of the Nazi war criminals who had been tried and convicted at the Nuremburg Trials were seated at the prison morning mess table. Their breakfast was interrupted by a United States Soldier who asked for their autographs. They had never seen this person before and his unfamiliar face aroused the suspicions of Herman Goering. When he inquired as to the identity of the mysterious soldier he learned that Master Sergeant John Woods was the official hangman for the prisoners and that his real purpose had not been collecting autographs but estimating bodyweight of three of the five men seated at the table. The gallows had been secretly constructed in the prison gym and the executions would begin that evening. Goering was first on the list. He had stated earlier that if he was to be executed, it should be by firing squad instead of being hung like a common criminal. Early that evening Goering asked the guard to go into the luggage room and bring him some of his personal belongings. Within an hour, he had committed suicide by biting down on a glass capsule filled with cyanide that he had secretly hidden in his belongings. Sergeant Woods, on hearing of Goering’s death, was enraged at missing the opportunity of hanging the infamous war criminal, but continued with the other hangings as scheduled. Woods was a professional who had hanged hundreds of people and these executions were no different. The routine for hanging each convicted criminal was the same.
    [Show full text]
  • Filming the End of the Holocaust War, Culture and Society
    Filming the End of the Holocaust War, Culture and Society Series Editor: Stephen McVeigh, Associate Professor, Swansea University, UK Editorial Board: Paul Preston LSE, UK Joanna Bourke Birkbeck, University of London, UK Debra Kelly University of Westminster, UK Patricia Rae Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada James J. Weingartner Southern Illimois University, USA (Emeritus) Kurt Piehler Florida State University, USA Ian Scott University of Manchester, UK War, Culture and Society is a multi- and interdisciplinary series which encourages the parallel and complementary military, historical and sociocultural investigation of 20th- and 21st-century war and conflict. Published: The British Imperial Army in the Middle East, James Kitchen (2014) The Testimonies of Indian Soldiers and the Two World Wars, Gajendra Singh (2014) South Africa’s “Border War,” Gary Baines (2014) Forthcoming: Cultural Responses to Occupation in Japan, Adam Broinowski (2015) 9/11 and the American Western, Stephen McVeigh (2015) Jewish Volunteers, the International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War, Gerben Zaagsma (2015) Military Law, the State, and Citizenship in the Modern Age, Gerard Oram (2015) The Japanese Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery During the China and Pacific Wars, Caroline Norma (2015) The Lost Cause of the Confederacy and American Civil War Memory, David J. Anderson (2015) Filming the End of the Holocaust Allied Documentaries, Nuremberg and the Liberation of the Concentration Camps John J. Michalczyk Bloomsbury Academic An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 Paperback edition fi rst published 2016 © John J.
    [Show full text]