University of Virginia Library

Nuremberg Trials
Need Impartiality

Perhaps it would have been best
to end the war crime trials and
forget about them. However, now
that the United Nations has decided
that they continue, we should take
a closer look at them.

Since all war crime trials are
based on the Nuremberg trials, let
us first examine them.

The two books "The Nuremberg
Trials" by August von Kirim
and "The Trial of the Germans" by
Eugene Davidson show how unfair
and one-sided the Nuremberg trials
really were.

First, the court was made up of
exclusively persons of the victors.
In other words, the court was not
impartial.

Second, since the victors could
have hardly convicted the vanquished
by international law, they
prepared their own statute and
called it international law although
it was only partly and loosely based
on international law. The fact that
they prepared that statute themselves
and the fact that they did so
only after the deeds to be tried
were done, did not bother the
victors.

The Victor And The Vanquished

Third, only persons of the vanquished
were tried by that statute,
although many persons of the victors
were also guilty under it. This
was obviously wrong. Since the
victors called their statute international
law, they should have also
applied it to their own countrymen.
If international law is to mean
anything at all, it must be applied
to victor and vanquished alike. But
this principle was violated at
Nuremberg. The vanquished were
simply not permitted to compare
some of the deeds they were condemned
for with similar ones committed
by the victors. Whenever
they tried to do so, they were
stopped and told the court was not
interested in what the victors might
have done.

Defense Not Treated Fair

Fourth, the defense was not
given a fair chance. Any attempt by
them to show that the Treaty of
Versailles was the real cause of
Hitler and the Second World War
was stifled in the bud. But even
without Versailles the defense was
not given a chance. Since the announcement
of the indictments was
delayed, the prosecution had much
more time to prepare themselves
than the defense. The defense
counsels were denied access to the
German and foreign archives, and
most of the documents they asked
for were not produced. The defense
were not permitted to use most of
their witnesses, and those which
they were permitted to use were
first interrogated by the
prosecution. The defense counsels
lacked office space and furniture,
they were not permitted to use
electric light in the evening, all 180
of them had to share one telephone,
they could not phone or
travel to other countries to gather
evidence, and their travelling freedom
in Germany was limited.

Surprise Witnesses

Fifth, while the defense was
thus hampered, the prosecution had
all the liberties, documents, witnesses,
and facilities they wanted.
Furthermore, the prosecution
could, unlike the defense, always
surprise the defense with new witnesses.
While the defense were
hindered even with the little evidence
they managed to collect, the
prosecution could even present
things as evidence which not
another court in the world would
have listened to. Since the prosecution
did not show most of their
documents to the defense they
succeeded in distorting some of
them.

Aftermath Of Trials

Since the Nuremberg trials
millions of Germans have been
forced before courts most of which
were even worse than that at
Nuremberg. Not only have such
trials been held by other countries,
but also Germany was pressured to
have them. Included in these
millions of trials were also those
held by the denazification courts,
which were established by the victors
and which were to a large
degree composed of carpenters,
criminals, Communists, and the like
who had no idea about law but who
had a strong animosity toward society
or toward Nazi Germany.

Although the victors said the
purpose of the Nuremberg trials
was to do justice and to establish
the truth, there can be no doubt
that the real purpose was to punish
the vanquished, distort the truth,
and fix all guilt upon the
vanquished.

And now the United Nations has
decided that the war crime trials
continue. If this is indeed to be
done then it is best to start all over
again, establish a fair statute which
would make no distinction between
victor and vanquished, organize
truly impartial and international
courts, and have fair trials for victor
and vanquished alike. Since these
would be international courts, administering
international law, they
should obviously also hear cases of
all other wars since the Second
World War. On the other hand if
the war crime trials cannot be made
fair and universal, then there should
be none at all.