CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

 

23. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

While driving through Germany’s federal motorway Autobahn, I came across a famous signboard at an intersection: Nuremberg. I suggested to my friend at the wheels to take a small detour and visit that place. Images of court room scenes soon filled my mind from whatever I had read about that famous trial of war crimes at Nuremberg.

Sarcastically dismissing the elaborate trial as a farce, Hermann Goering, once Nazi Germany’s second in command and Hitler’s intended successor, had declared: The victor will always be the judge, and the vanquished the accused.

Four charges were leveled against the Nazi army commanders, officials and others indicted for the holocaust. Crimes against peace, defined as participation in the planning and waging of a war of aggression in violation of numerous international treaties, war crimes, defined as violations of the internationally agreed upon rules for waging war, and crimes against humanity, namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war. The fourth charge was conspiracy to commit such crimes.

The trials began on November 20, 1945 at Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice. The Chief Prosecutor was Justice Robert Jackson of America. In the dock were army commanders under Hitler and other pillars of the Nazi establishment, including political leaders and other functionaries, who bullied and terrified the world. The most notable among them was Goering, the highest ranking Nazi official caught alive after the war.

Goering was no ordinary soldier. He was a daring fighter pilot who created history for Germany during the First World War. For his legendary feats Goering was decorated with several medals. As head of the Nazi war machine during the Second World War he had terrified rival nations with his blitzkrieg. But his delay in bombing Britain earned for him the displeasure of Hitler and his subsequent expulsion from the party. He was enjoying his retired life in his private estate when the winds of fortune started blowing against Germany. He surrendered before the invading American forces because of his fear that the Nazi secret police might target him for elimination.

In prison Goering always displayed a rare self-assurance and stamp of his indomitable personality. Though devoid of any luxuries of life, he made use of his prison time to reduce his weight and he faced the trial as an energetic but defiant soldier, showing the world that his commanding power was as sharp as ever. It was Goering who instilled self-confidence in the pallid, ashen-faced and toothless generals who faced the trial along with him.

He resolutely refuted all the charges. One of his main contentions could not be corroborated till today. The contention that he was totally in the dark about the horrendous acts of persecution meted out to the six million Jews killed in the concentration camps and gas chambers. What he had to say was that as one went up higher and higher it was more difficult to see what was happening down below. Goering’s friends also took the same defense. They were not aware of the cruel acts and crimes committed down below.

Who were these partners? The topmost leader of the Great War could not be brought to justice. In a bunker in Berlin, Hitler took his own life, shooting himself with a revolver. Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda chief capable of making a dog out of a goat, administered posion to his six children and then asked a soldier to shoot him and his wife. Head of the Gestapo Himmler took cyanide when caught as he was fleeing incognito to Bavaria. Twenty one leading functionaries of Nazi Germany were ultimately caught by the allided forces. They included Rudolf Hess. This loyal deputy of Hitler pretended amnesia during the trial. Though at first it was thought he was lying, British doctors who examined him corroborated his contention. The people and the media also believed this. Then came the shocker. Hess admitted in the court that his claim was only a trick and that he was capable of testifying before the court. This statement was of no use as from the next moment onwards he showed symptoms of insanity. No one could understand his mind.

Nazi youth leader Baldur von Schirach remained in hiding for quite some time, but finally surrendered. He had a change of heart after his surrender. He wrote to his wife that he wanted to own up his mistake in making the youth believe in Hitler. He wanted to atone for this. ‘Let them hang me after that. ’

The fiendish style of Nazi operations was exposed in the court room. Throwing thousands of Jews, both dead or alive, into huge heaps of emaciated bodies and then setting fire to them, lining up women at the edge of a pit, disrobing them and then shooting them to death.... Even the perpetrators of these crimes at times did not have the strength of mind to witness them. Hans Fresh, an assistant to Nazi propaganda Chief Goebbels admitted to the ghastly nature of the crimes and said no power in this world or in heavens was capable of removing his country’s stigma for having perpetrated such crimes. He too had said those in higher echelons were not aware of what was happening on the ground.

No one was willing to accept the contentions of the accused. Goering, who claimed that he, was unaware of the crimes; himself was responsible for the setting up of Gestapo and evolution of the concentration camps. It was again Goering who ordered a deliberate attempt to provoke Jews so as to create tension. After attacking Jewish households and destroying their property, the blame was put on the Jews themselves and a fine of 1,000 million German mark was imposed on them. Goering was also accused of smuggling out art works valued at over two million pounds from the European cities which came under German control.

The only person who remained unperturbed in the dock was Goering. The performance of Hitler’s Foreign Minister Ribbontrop was pitiable. Herman Hess fully cooperated with the court while Carlton Bruner, who spearheaded the genocide, resorted to ridiculous canards.

The most pitiable was the case of Jalmer Schack, Nazi financial advisor and finance manager. He did not have any other role in the war crimes. When he realised that the Nazi policies were getting warped, he gradually drifted away from it. He even complained to Hitler against the persecution of the Jews. He had to pay a heavy price for his differences with Hitler, because he himself was put in a concentration camp. It was from here that he was arrested and put on trial.

The Nuremberg trial lasted 218 days. The total expenditure was about four million dollars. Truck-loads of documents were made use of during the trial. Ultimately the court gave its verdict. Death sentence for Goering. But before he was hanged, Goering ended his life by consuming a cyanide capsule he was carrying all along. Schack was released. Hess and Admiral Eric Rader got life terms. Albertespiere got 20 years.

Different people reacted differently to the verdicts. But there is one question that remains unanswered till today.

What the Nazis did to the Jews was indeed a vicious and diabolical crime against humanity. But when America dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of the war, killing thousands of innocent people, were they not committing an equally diabolical and heinous war crime?

No one would accept impartiality in regard to devastations of wars. Goering had said the victors were the judges and the vanquished the accused. In the case of Saddam Hussain also impartial people may ask the question: When the war itself is a crime, is the victor morally empowered to award punishment to the vanquished?