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THE NUREMBERG LEGACY How the Nazi War Crimes Trials Changed the Course of History

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THE NUREMBERG LEGACY How the Nazi War Crimes Trials Changed the Course of History THE NUREMBERG LEGACY How the Nazi War Crimes Trials Changed the Course of History Norbert Ehrenfreund 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page i ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR THE NUREMBERG LEGACY “In this pertinent, thorough overview, Ehrenfreund revisits the initial trial and considers its legacy, both as it affected his decision to become a trial lawyer, and the important precedents it has set in terms of prose- cuting and checking future crimes against humanity.... The author makes a tremendous case for adhering to the Nuremberg legacy of fair treatment for even the most odious offenders.” —Kirkus Reviews “The Nuremberg Legacy offers a compelling and original contribution to our understanding of the first international criminal tribunal in history. Through each passing decade and with each succeeding generation, we must take greater care to uphold its memory. And Judge Norbert Ehren- freund reminds us why we should never forget.” —Professor William Aceves, California Western School of Law, San Diego “This book describes the horror of the Nazi genocide, and my life as one of the Untermenschen Hitler sought to exterminate, but what is different about this work is that Judge Ehrenfreund tells what that experience means for modern times.” —Lou Dunst, Holocaust survivor, Auschwitz and Mauthausen (Ebensee) concentration camps This page intentionally left blank 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page iii THE NUREMBERG LEGACY How the Nazi War Crimes Trials Changed the Course of History NORBERT EHRENFREUND 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page iv THE NUREMBERG LEGACY Copyright © Norbert Ehrenfreund, 2007. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Excerpts from letters from Judge Francis Biddle to his wife Katherine in 1945 and 1946, reproduced by permission of the Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Library. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN–13: 978–1–4039–7965–0 ISBN–10: 1–4039–7965–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ehrenfreund, Norbert. The Nuremberg legacy : how the Nazi war crimes trials changed the course of history / Norbert Ehrenfreund. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–7965–0 (alk. paper) 1. Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945–1946—Influence. I. Title. KZ1176.5.E37 2007 341.6’90268—dc22 2007006581 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre First edition: October 2007 10987654321 Printed in the United States of America. 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page v To My Children Laurel and Zachary This page intentionally left blank 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page vii Will there ever be an end to discussion of the Nuremberg trials? Although only limited new or startling facts or opinions may ap- pear in the future, each new intellectual mood or development may return to judge the Tribunal. As long as the monstrous out- rages of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen are vivid in men’s minds, as long as the long bloody years of the Second World War are remembered personally and ruefully, men will return to stand in judgment upon the Tribunal which sought to establish the verdict of human justice upon those accused of causing death, misery, and sorrow of those bitter years. But even when the last person who experienced the war is dead, men will return to the Nuremberg court because it was a test of men’s basic concepts of law, politics, and morality. Nuremberg is significant not so much because of what happened once and for all in 1946 in a Bavarian city, but because of what it has become for many men—sign and symbol of greater realities. —William J. Bosch, Judgment on Nuremberg: American Attitudes toward the Major German War-Crimes Trials This page intentionally left blank 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue xi Introduction xiii PART ONE NUREMBERG REDUX Chapter 1. Witness to the Holocaust 3 Chapter 2. The Defining Moment 7 Chapter 3. Who Could Be Objective? 19 Chapter 4. The Case Unfolds 31 Chapter 5. Defending the Indefensible 37 Chapter 6. Jackson vs. Goering: The Title Fight 65 Chapter 7. Jackson’s Breach of Ethics 75 Chapter 8. Deliberations, Verdicts, Sentences 85 Chapter 9. The Twelve Other Nuremberg Trials 93 Chapter 10. Victims’ Rights 107 PART TWO THE NATURE OF THE LEGACY Chapter 11. Tokyo: Almost a Nuremberg Copy 113 Chapter 12. A Giant Step for Human Rights 121 Chapter 13. The Impact on Racial Prejudice 131 Chapter 14. The Importance of the Record 139 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page x Chapter 15. How Nuremberg Changed Medical Ethics 149 Chapter 16. A New Meaning of Justice 153 Chapter 17. The International Criminal Court: Nuremberg Offspring 173 Chapter 18. The Effect of the Krupp Case on Big Business 179 Chapter 19. Nuremberg and the Supreme Court 187 Chapter 20. The Trials of Saddam Hussein 191 PART THREE THREATS TO THE LEGACY Chapter 21. What Happened to Due Process? 201 Chapter 22. Sabotage of the International Criminal Court 209 Conclusion 215 Acknowledgments 221 Further Readings 225 Notes 227 Index 249 10 pages of photographs appear between pages 110 and 111. 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page xi PROLOGUE ON A COLD AFTERNOON IN 1939 I CAME HOME FROM SCHOOL TO find my mother in tears. She sat on the sofa clutching several envelopes. When I asked what was wrong she simply handed them to me, too choked up to speak. They were unopened letters she had sent to her fa- ther in Czechoslovakia. They had all been returned, all stamped with the same two words: “Address Unknown.” What was wrong? He had always answered before. Where was he? Her father had always lived at the same address in the city of Ostrava, the same house where she had spent her youth until her marriage to my father and their emigration to America in 1910. He would not have moved without notifying her. No wonder she was upset. In the next year our family tried frantically to find out what had happened to my grandfather. We called the Red Cross, tried to contact the government in Washington, all to no avail. The Red Cross told us that the Nazis occupying the country would not give them any information. This was the first time I knew that something seriously wrong was going on in Europe. My mother never heard from her father again. When World War II ended in 1945 I was in Austria as an American ar- tillery officer with our occupation forces. My mother wrote asking if I could possibly visit her hometown to find out what happened to her fa- ther. I had a jeep and a driver willing to accompany me. My request to make such a trip went all the way from my battery commander to Wash- ington, D.C., but was turned down because it would have required my traveling through Russian lines, believed to be unsafe. Years later, after the cold war and after my mother had died, I went to Ostrava to seek in- formation about my grandfather. I found out what I expected. He had 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page xii xii THE NUREMBERG LEGACY been murdered by the Nazis at a concentration camp in Treblinka, Poland. At the time my mother’s letters were being returned, many similar incidents were happening in homes across the country. Thousands of Americans had their letters sent back also, all stamped with the same words “Address Unknown.” They began asking questions too, trying to find out what happened to their missing relatives in Europe. Thus began the investigation that led to the trials at Nuremberg. 01 ehrenfreund fm 9/25/07 1:02 PM Page xiii INTRODUCTION I COULD SMELL THE STENCH OF DEATH AS I WALKED THROUGH THE streets of Nuremberg on my way to the Palace of Justice. Beneath the rubble of the shattered city lay the bodies of 20,000 air raid victims. In that macabre setting the first international trial in history for crimes against humanity and crimes of waging aggressive war was under way. This book tells why the Nuremberg trials matter today and how much they affect our lives in the twenty-first century. Ever since the trial of some of the major Nazis began in 1945, ex- perts have debated whether the event was the greatest trial in history, a beacon of justice for all the world to follow, or merely the wreaking of vengeance by the Allied victors over Hitler’s top brass with little mean- ing for modern times. These remain intriguing questions for histori- ans but what matters to us now is not just the trial itself but rather its impact on law and society, the Nuremberg legacy. As I sat in the press gallery I knew I was witness to a historic mo- ment but I had no idea how much it would mean in the next century.
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