RichardQ Loc: Colorado

If anybody could be named as the "father" of the International War Crimes Tribunal in 1945-1946, it was 54-year-old Robert H. Jackson, an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He took a year's leave of absence from Washington and went to Nuremberg.

Since a Supreme Court Justice organized the Tribunal and served as the Chief Prosecutor, who would dare challenge the validity of the proceedings? The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 74-year-old Harlan Fisk Stone, that's who.

Chief Justice Stone wrote, "Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg. I don't mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas."

Another Supreme Court member, Justice William O. Douglas, was equally dubious. He later wrote that in Nuremberg the Allies were "substituting power for principle ... 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."

Apparently Justice Jackson had some testy relationships with his Washington colleagues. Perhaps that was due to the fact that he did not graduate from any law school, although he did attend the Albany Law School for one year. Reportedly, in the minds of the Yale, Columbia and Harvard graduates, he was a "county-seat lawyer."

They under-estimated Jackson. He was a forceful man, considered by many lawyers to be the best writer on the Court. Jackson was a strong advocate of due-process protections against over-zealous federal agencies at home, and a fierce proponent of American values in Nuremberg.

Organizing and driving an unprecedented multi-national trial demanded his assertive personality. Yet he was willing to bypass some of the conventions of the American and British legal systems in order to merge with the very different French and Russian systems.

The result was a procedural hodge-podge that dissatisfied legal purists but which functioned. The world public wanted the Nazis punished for their actions, including outrages which were legal under domestic laws passed by the elected German Parliament in peacetime.

American and British lawmakers cringed at the precedent set by infringing on Nazi Germany's legal pre-war sovereignty.

In October, 1945, Jackson bluntly advised President Truman of the contradictions permeating the International Tribunal. "The Allies themselves have done or are doing some of the very things we are prosecuting the Germans for," he wrote.

"The French are so violating the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners of war that our command is taking back prisoners sent to them. We are prosecuting plunder and our Allies are practicing it. We say aggressive war is a crime and one of our Allies asserts sovereignty over the Baltic States based on no title except conquest."

But the German defense lawyers were prohibited from citing any of those points in their arguments.

Perhaps the greatest irony was to have the Soviet Russians prosecuting and judging the same Nazis who were their partners in the joint 1939 invasion and occupation of Poland.

Talk about a conflict of interest!

Justice Robert Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor in Nuremberg Tribunal


View of courtroom 600 from Judges Bench


Some of the photographers covering the Nuremberg trials - 1946

Mike D. Loc: Crowley County, CO.

What an amazing collection of history and the view from the bench is nothing short of incredible.

Long time no see Richard, welcome back.

warrior Loc: Paso Robles CA

Das ist Be stempt

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Many thanks for the comments and your interest, Mike! I must emphasize that none of those photos are mine -- I never personally got to Nuremberg because we were discouraged from going there while the trials were still on. Those photos are from U.S. Government archives. I should have so marked them. Sorry for the confusion.

I posted two other "German Occupation" vignettes last month (April 3, "Interpreters at Nurember", and April 13, "Hiring a Hangman"). If you missed them and want to read them (the hangman article had over 3,500 visits), just click on my avatar, then click on my topics, then click on those titles to bring them up My health is holding up so far, but I am now 89 so I have to slow down a little.

RichardQ Loc: Colorado

Thanks for your interest, Warrior! I think you meant to write "bestimmt" (meaning "for sure").

Mike D. Loc: Crowley County, CO.

Will do.

exakta56 Loc: Orford,New Hampshire

Thank you for shedding light on this controversial subject.
To the victors go the spoils and also the 'right' to write history to their liking.

richosob Loc: Lambertville, MI

Thank you Richard for another history lesson. The time you put into these articles is greatly appreciated. I had very little knowledge of the trials after the war, but have gained from your stories.

Rich

MTG44 Loc: Corryton, Tennessee

Thanks again for your wonderful tidbits if history. Enjoy them immensely.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

Very interesting. The history in the textbooks is very sanitized - little mention of the controversies surrounding historical events. But it does remind me of the saying that "war crimes are what the loser is guilty of" which seems continually true - given that in our recent history we participated in and attempted to justify activities (kidnapping, imprisoning citizens without charges, waterboarding) that previously were considered war crimes and unconstitutional by our government.

mikedidi46 Loc: WINTER SPRINGS, FLORIDA

I remember sitting in that courtroom in 2014 while on a river cruise. I do not know it that was a valid trial or not. But the people on trial were getting what they deserved in the court of opinion for what they did under the guise of WAR. That may be cruel to some people.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Most interesting.

windshoppe Loc: Arizona

A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit that courtroom in Nuremberg. The prison where those being tried were housed is still there and there is a very interesting museum with lots of photos, video, etc. in the building. Your article points out a controversy that, to my knowledge, is not dealt with in any of the exhibits at the museum.
Another great read. Thank you.

pegasusphil Loc: London, UK

God bless the Americans..... won the war for us, fixed the dysfunctional justice system of European countries, then eradicated communism, saved SE Asia from the scourge, liberated the Middle East and S. America, and even managed to capture an Enigma machine and end the Second World War early - oh no, I forgot , that was Hollywood that did that. Muddled it up with dropping two horrendous nuclear bombs and mudering millions in Japan, and ending the war early. American justice was imposed on Europe in 45/46, just as most things American are imposed around the world. You know what's good for us......

f8bengal Loc: West Nawth Carolinah

I take a dim view of passing judgement on 1945-46 actions filtered through 2016 lens. Who can know the pain being felt at that time from the thousands of American and allied dead? And who can know the sure potential of thousands more Americans that would be killed by a land invasion of Japan if the bombs had not been used? Fire bombing of Japanese cities before the nukes killed many more civilians than the nukes did; yet they would not surrender. I respect Truman's decision because it was made through 1945 eyes and not 2016 eyes.