WAR CRIMES: The Fallen Eagles

Civilization wore a cutaway and grey striped trousers for the great occasion.

To prosaic observers, the figure thus impeccably attired was not really Civilization, but just a powerful, angry American, name of Robert Jackson, of Jamestown, N.Y. But to the more imaginative (including Jackson) it was Civilization itself which stood at the prosecutor’s rostrum, resonantly accusing the 20 Germans in the dock of vile assault & battery on all mankind.

Hell’s Fires. “We are gathered,” said the presiding judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, “to try crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.” With this mildly prejudicial statement, the Nürnberg trial opened. The four judges and their four alternates on the bench of the international tribunal sat reassuringly close to their respective national flags. Their high office and lofty task were symbolized by specially designed emblems, showing judicial scales suspended over a red area (presumably hell’s punishing fires) and a fallen German eagle.

On the other side of the floodlit, simply furnished courtroom sat Germany’s fallen leaders. They had fallen far and hard. Only a short time ago, their words and deeds had brought fear to people from Murmansk to Lands End to Jamestown, N.Y. Now they were just an odd and seedy assortment of soldiers, rowdies, bureaucrats and bourgeoisie, who hardly looked important enough to have provoked the heavy wave of hatred, disgust and indignation which had swept them into the prisoners’ box.

“If You Lose. . . .” The only thing they had salvaged from their days of dubious glory was their arrogance, and that was tattered. They displayed it as best they could, by exhibiting supercilious boredom during the reading of the indictment. Hermann Göring, whom most of them tacitly accepted as their “Führer,” had also managed to salvage his vastly deceptive joviality (he graciously gave his autograph to a U.S. Navy technician) and one of his fancy uniforms, a fawn-colored, brass-buttoned affair, stripped of medals and cut down to fit his slenderized body. The uniform was obviously good for his morale. He wore it proudly, shunning the civvies G.I.s had presented to him with the note: “Dear Hermann, if you lose, please return the suit.”

The moods of his fellow defendants were varied. Most were nervous, winced even at the mention of their names. Ex-Foreign Minister Ribbentrop looked broken and old, with a hurt, petulant look on his frozen face. Ex-Ambassador Franz von Papen spoke to no one, listened impassively (but he had Mass said for him before he came to court in the morning). Best show of austere indifference was given by former Chief of the Supreme High Command Wilhelm Keitel (who was in good health: Allied physicians had successfully doctored his flat feet).

Rudolf Hess, now officially pronounced an amnesia victim, was the most morose-looking of all, his green-tinged skin drawn tightly about his cadaverous skull. He tried to pass the time by reading a book of Bavarian folk tales, but was much disturbed by stomach cramps, which made him rock back & forth on his bench. (Unimpressed, his U.S. doctor advised him to keep rocking.) The only display of what the Germans call Galgenhumor (humor of the gallows) came from ex-Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach. Said he, as he was served dinner in his cell: “If the victuals continue to get better, they’ll be serving us steak by the time they hang us.”

Their first day as defendants had tired them. By 7 the cell block was quiet. All were asleep. Mused a reporter: “I’d give anything for a look at their dreams.”

Victors & Vanquished. Next day the accused passed before the judges, entering their fervent pleas of “not guilty.” It was clear that the men whose brass-knuckle philosophy had brushed aside not only legalisms but law itself would seek refuge in legalistic arguments. The defense presented a motion “in re Göring et al,” questioning the legal basis of the trial, which was promptly dismissed by the bench. The main defense points:

¶ War-making and other offenses against humanity were not illegal when committed. Prosecutor Jackson’s answer: “If there is no law now under which to try these people, it is about time the human race made some.”

¶ Only victor nations were represented on the bench. Prosecutor Jackson’s answer: “Either the victors must judge the vanquished or we must leave the defeated to judge themselves. After the first World War, we learned the futility of the latter course.”

In his four-hour opening oration, Jackson expounded his theory that international law, like domestic common law, must grow from unprecedented, bold judicial actions. Said he: “[The defendants] are living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. . . . Must such wrongs either be ignored or redressed in hot blood? . .. [The defendants hope] that international law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is a crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law. . . .”

On the Table. Jackson’s assistants took over, had bales of documents carted into court. Most of them merely documented well-known history, but there were some interesting fillips: a Japanese plot to assassinate Stalin; the first admission that Hindenburg’s will approving Hitler’s move toward sole power in Germany was actually forged; an April 1941 agreement with Japan to attack the U.S. There were also endless transcripts of bloodcurdling dialogue between Hitler and the defendants. Sample: Hitler (to Göring)—”[We must] kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children of the Polish race or language. … I have only one fear and that is that Chamberlain or another such dirty swine comes to me with a proposition or a change of mind. He will be thrown downstairs even if I must personally kick him in the belly. . . .” (In ecstasy, Göring jumps on table and dances a savage czardas.)

The defendants listened raptly to the detailed account of their rise to power. Some, smiling for the first time, lost themselves in the memories of the good old days. Their lawyers, wanting to make the most of what Jackson called the “dramatic disparity” between victors and vanquished, were less pleased, got ready to fight back. At a press conference (at which they faced some 200 hostile reporters, most of whom jeered and booed) they announced an impressive list of witnesses they wanted subpoenaed, including Lady Astor, Lords Beaverbrook, Londonderry and Derby, all supposedly belonging to the prewar “Cliveden Set” of after-dinner appeasers.

Also a Floor Show. Outside the drab Palace of Justice, the citizens of ancient Nürnberg expended little thought or care on their former leaders. Once, in this very town, they had cheered them year after year with apoplectic fervor. Now, one of them said: “The trials? Na ja. Of course criminals should be brought to trial. It isn’t the fault of us poor people.” Said another: “You accuse them of making war. Are you not preparing new wars now?”

But most Nürnbergers were simply concerned with finding food and shelter and warmth in the soggy, smelly ruins of their city. Enviously they looked at the Grand Hotel (requisitioned for the trial staff) which was well heated, served plenty of food on fabulously clean linen, and had a bar, dancing, and a floor show.