Light Reading is for communications industry professionals who are developing and commercializing services and networks using technologies, standards and devices such. Crimes against humanity are certain acts that are deliberately committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population or an. Karl Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) was born in Germany, the son of an industrialist 1 who . The Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust (continued from part 1) Torture. Allied prosecutors used torture to help prove their case at Nuremberg and other postwar trials. The latest travel information, deals, guides and reviews from USA TODAY Travel. Command Responsibility. Evan Wallach and Maxine Marcus. Chapter in Cherif Bassouni, International Criminal Law (3rd Ed., 2008) Page 1 Command Responsibility. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trials or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try. If the tenets of the Nuremberg principles and the Geneva Conventions were applied, both George W. Bush and Tony Blair would most likely be convicted for. The Nuremberg Trials (part 2)The Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust(continued from part 1)Torture. Allied prosecutors used torture to help prove their case at Nuremberg and other postwar trials. His testimony before the Nuremberg Tribunal, a high point of the proceeding, was perhaps the most striking and memorable evidence presented there of a German extermination program. No serious or reputable historian now accepts either of these fantastic figures, and other key portions of H. What Was Significant About Tokyo And Nuremberg TrialsIt wasn't until several years later that he was finally able to prove that he had actually spent that time in Munich studying to become an electric welder. An important piece of evidence presented to the Tribunal by the US prosecution was an affidavit signed by the defendant. He was badly beaten, kicked, whipped, spat at, forced to drink saliva and burned with cigarettes. His genitals were beaten. Eyebrow and chest hair was pulled out. He was stripped and photographed. Fellow defendant Hans Frank was savagely beaten by two black GIs shortly after his arrest. August Eigruber, former Gauleiter of Upper Austria, was mutilated and castrated at the end of the war. A simple threat to turn the subject over to the Soviets was often enough to persuade him to sign an affidavit or provide testimony needed in court. Threats against the subject's wife and children, including withdrawal of ration cards, delivery to the Soviets or imprisonment, often quickly produced the desired results. If all else failed, the subject could be placed in solitary confinement, beaten, kicked, whipped or burned until he broke down. The American defense attorney, Warren Magee, had somehow obtained the transcript of the first pretrial interrogation of Friedrich Gaus, a former senior official in the German Foreign Office. Despite frantic protests by prosecuting attorney Robert Kempner, the judge decided to permit Magee to read from the document. During the pretrial interrogation session, Kempner told Gaus that he would be turned over to the Soviets for hanging. Tearfully pleading for mercy, Gaus begged Kempner to think of his wife and children. Kempner replied that he could save himself only by testifying in court against his former colleagues. A desperate Gaus, who had already endured four weeks in solitary confinement, agreed. When Magee finished reading from the damning transcript, Gaus sat with both hands to his face, totally devastated. American officials also threatened to turn Morgen over to the Soviets if he did not sign the false statement. The American officer told Milch that if he persisted, he would be charged as a war criminal himself, regardless of whether or not he was guilty. In 1. 94. 7 a US Nuremberg court sentenced him to life imprisonment as a war criminal. Four years later, though, the US High Commissioner commuted his sentence to fifteen years, and a short time after that Milch was amnestied and released. A US Army Commission of inquiry consisting of Pennsylvania Judge Edward van Roden and Texas Supreme Court Judge Gordon Simpson officially confirmed the charges of gross abuse. German defendants, they found, were routinely tortured at Dachau with savage beatings, burning matches under fingernails, kicking of testicles, months of solitary confinement, and threats of family reprisals. Low ranking prisoners were assured that their . Later, though, these hapless men found their own . High ranking defendants were cynically assured that by . He testified to a US Senate subcommittee that the . Although operating procedures at the Dachau trials were significantly worse than those used at Nuremberg, they give some idea of the spirit of the . After repeated brutal beatings by US authorities, he broke down and signed a perjured statement. He was also whipped and threatened with immediate shooting. Petrat was prevented from securing exonerating evidence, and even potential defense witnesses were beaten and threatened to keep them from testifying. After a farcical trial by a US military court at Dachau, Petrat was sentenced to death and hanged in late 1. Such techniques have been systematically used by governments around the world. During the Korean War, American airmen held as prisoners by the Communist North Koreans made detailed statements . Under physical and psychological torture, 3. US airmen . These statements were later shown to be false, and the airmen repudiated them after returning to the United States. Their phony confessions were the same kind of evidence given by Rudolf H. Under similar circumstances, Americans proved at least as ready to . After his capture in 1. Nenndorf where British soldiers tied him to a chair and beat him unconscious. He lost two teeth in repeated beatings. Altogether there were about 7. During this period he had no access to an attorney or any other help. He was never formally charged with anything, nor even told precisely why he was being interrogated. In a statement written after he was sentenced to death at Nuremberg in November 1. American military court (. Pohl described his treatment. The interrogators themselves knew very well that such accusations were lies and tricks meant to break down his resistance, Pohl declared. As he recalled: Whenever genuine documents did not correspond to what the prosecution authorities wanted or were insufficient for the guilty sentences they sought, . The most striking feature of these remarkable trial documents is that the accused often condemned themselves in them. That is understandable only to those who have themselves experienced the technique by which such . Among the false statements signed by Pohl was one that incriminated former Reichsbank President Walter Funk, whom the Nuremberg Tribunal eventually sentenced to life imprisonment. A whole string of these shady, wretched characters played their contemptible game at Nuremberg. They included high government officials, generals and intellectuals as well as prisoners, mental defectives and real hardened criminals .. During the WVHA trial . The same is true of prosecution witness Krusial who presented the most spectacular fairy tales to the court under oath, which were naturally believed .. Pohl also protested that defense attorneys were not allowed free access to the German wartime documents, which the prosecution was able to find and use without hindrance: For almost two years the prosecution authorities could make whatever use they wanted of the many crates of confiscated documentary and archival material they had at their disposal. But the same access right was refused to the German defendants despite their repeated efforts .. This meant a tremendous or even complete paralysis and hindrance of the defense cases for the accused, for those crates also contained the exonerating material that the prosecution authorities were able to keep from being presented to the court. For 3. 3 years I had served by country without dishonor, and I was unconscious of any crime. Their goal was not the search for truth but rather the annihilation of as many adversaries as possible. To an old friend Pohl wrote: . No more, however, did I expect a death sentence. It is a sentence of retribution. In his final plea to the Nuremberg court, Pohl expressed his faith that one day blind hysteria would give way to just understanding: /9. After distance and time have clarified all events and when passion has ceased and when hatred and revenge have stilled their hunger, then these many millions of decent Germans who have sacrificed their lives for their fatherland will not be denied their share of sympathy which today is being attributed to the victims of the concentration camps, although a large number of them owe their fate not to political, racial or religious characteristics, but to their criminal past. Extermination denied. Along with the millions of people around the world who avidly followed the Nuremberg proceedings by radio and newspaper, the defendants themselves were shocked by the evidence presented to substantiate the extermination charge. Above all, the testimony of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf H. Contrary to what is often claimed or insinuated, however, the Nuremberg Tribunal defendants declared that they did not know of any extermination program during the war. The former Reichsmarschall solemnly assured Fritzsche that the accusation was not true. The Allied evidence for the charge, he insisted, was inaccurate or incomplete and totally contradicted everything he knew about the matter. Responding to a direct question about this matter, he said: /9. I can only say, fully conscious of my responsibility, that I never heard, either by hint or by written or spoken words, of an extermination of Jews .. I never had any private information on the extermination of the Jews. On my word, as sure as I am sitting here, I heard all these things for the first time after the end of the war. Hans Frank, the wartime governor of German- ruled Poland, testified that during the war he had heard only rumors and foreign reports of mass killings of Jews. He asked other officials, including Hitler, about these stories and was repeatedly assured that they were false. During the course of the trial, Frank was overcome by a deep sense of Christian repentance. His psychological state was such that if he had known about an extermination program, he would have said so. At one point during the proceedings, Frank was asked by his attorney, . I never built a Jewish extermination camp or helped to bring one into existence. But if Adolf Hitler personally shifted this terrible responsibility onto his people, than it also applies to me. After all, we carried on this struggle against Jewry for years .. And therefore I have the duty to answer your question in this sense and in this context with yes. A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will not be erased. The Sentencing and Execution of Nazi War Criminals, 1. The Sentencing and Executionof Nazi War Criminals, 1. In November 1. 94. Nuremberg courtroom on trial for their lives. The group represented the . Specific charges included the murder of over 6 million Jews, pursuing an aggressive war, the brutality of the concentration camps and the use of slave labor. The judges represented the major victors in the war in Europe - Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States. The defendants all proclaimed their innocence, many declaring that they were just following orders or questioning the authority of the court to pass judgment. Eighteen of the defendants were found guilty while three were acquitted. Eleven of the guilty were sentenced to death by hanging, the remainder received prison sentences ranging from 1. Gilbert was a prison psychologist assigned the responsibility of monitoring the behavior of the defendants while they stood trial. He became intimately familiar with all the defendants and was present when each was escorted from the courtroom to their prison cell after hearing their verdict. Here are a few of his observations: (Click the name of each defendant for more information.)Goering came down first and strode into his cell, his face pale and frozen, his eyes popping. His hands were trembling in spite of his attempt to be nonchalant. His eyes were moist and he was panting, fighting back an emotional breakdown. He asked me in an unsteady voice to leave him alone for a while. But there wasn't any of the old confident bravado in his voice. Goering seems to realize, at last, that there is nothing funny about death, when you're the one who is going to die. As the guard unlocked his handcuffs, he asked why he had been handcuffed and Goering had not. I said it was probably an oversight with the first prisoner. Now I won't be able to write my beautiful memoirs. He wheeled around and snapped to attention at the far end of the cell, his fists clenched and arms rigid, horror in his eyes. I don't blame you for standing at a distance from a man sentenced to death by hanging. I understand that perfectly. But I am still the same as before. I am glad that I have had the chance to defend myself and to think things over in the last few months.'. Doenitz didn't know quite how to take it. After he had been unhandcuffed and faced me in his cell, he hesitated a few seconds, as if he could not get the words out. His face was spotted red with vascular tension. The death part - all right, somebody has to stand for the responsibility. But that - ' His mouth quivered and his voice choked for the first time. Well; that's fair enough. They couldn't have given me a lighter sentence, considering the facts, and I can't complain. I said the sentences must be severe, and I admitted my share of the guilt, so it would be ridiculous if I complained about the punishment.'.
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