Yet Another Empty Comemoration

 

The BBC has run some weep-o-rama special on the Nuremberg Trials held 75 years ago...  The usual: "...crimes that defied the imagination..."  and "... established the principal..."

I donno.  Human beings have been committing crimes that defy the imagination since Cain killed Abel.  There is a level of horror, all too easily achieved, at which point it becomes pointless and even somewhat arrogant to argue over which moral obscenity and whose suffering is more "unique." Suffice to say that the full picture from 1919 to 1945 was not humanity's proudest moment.

As for "establishing principles" lemme offer not my opinion but that of Chief Justice Stone: 

"Chief US prosecutor 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." 

Justices Douglas, Murphy and Black agreed stating that he trials were "unconstitutional by American standards."    

And not only American.  Churchill, hardly a sentimentalist, was opposed to holding the trials at all.  He said that it would be better and more honest to shoot the bastards outright and upfront rather the degrade the majesty of the Common Law.

Some people may have heard (although not via the BBC) that convictions were based on ex post facto violations.  But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The tribunal, for example, decided for itself that it would “…not be bound by the technical rules of evidence.” The tribunal thus claimed for themselves the decision whether to admit evidence without any requirements establishing its validity.  Oh and they did... taking "judicial notice" of ultimate facts in issue, which the defendants therefore could not contest or argue against because once a fact is judicially noticed it is the "law of the case."  Yes... "lynching" was the appropriate word.

Worse even than that, the defendants were not allowed access to German government files (which were in the trusty hands of the Americans and Soviets).  They were only allowed to see those documents that the prosecution had selectively picked to bolster its case.   

So... did the trials at least establish "basic facts" even if the procedures were a little "twisty"?  No.  Absent access to all the files, which could contain defences, explanations, contextualizations and so on, there can be no adversarial testing.  Being confined to what the prosecution wants you to see is what is known as a Spanish Inquisition.

The trial even achieved the marvel of trying Germans for diplomatic crimes the Soviets had participated in while the Soviets sat as judges...

The trials established nothing of note except that the victor is always right...which is the one thing in  this world that Goering and Churchill agreed upon.

But does BBC note any of this?  No.  It uses the occasion to trek out yet another morose Auschwitz Special a week before Thanksgiving.  Not a real or even a light discussion of the "principles" of international law supposedly established or of how, in the manner of the making of sausages, the Tribunal at least set the stage for an International Criminal Court, which the U.S. still refuses to acknowledge... Zip.