5 ms·

Nuremberg: A Fair Trial? A Dangerous Precedent (1946)

49 points by vezzy-fnord 11y ago

krebby 11y ago
Anyone interested in this story might also be interested in Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (famous for its "banality of evil" thesis). She regarded his trial as nothing more than a show, a kangaroo court, meant to act as catharsis for the Jewish people and a world looking for a figurehead to blame.
woodpanel 11y ago
Maybe OT: I'm impressed by this piece of content! Impressed, because as a millennial, not paying-for-content content-consumer, I barely can find such in-depth texts, being sophisticated in finding the truth of the matter* and presenting it to the public. The author basically seems to have been given the space of todays cover-stories and the freedom of a columnist using it to swim against the current in a nation-wide publicized high-profile medium. This piece might have been scanned to be archived, but to be read and understood by modern consumers, it might have been better to convert it into a BuzzFeed-Style Top-10-List :-( * not implying that he's correct, but he's seems to be honest
- kwhitefoot 11y ago
  Most media don't carry articles like this anymore even if you do pay. The Atlantic is one of the few exceptions. Up to the 1970s even the gutter press in the UK would print long articles, not generally as temperate as this one of course, but still expecting the reader to spend more than thirty seconds reading it. Now it's mostly either soundbites or recycled (in some case within the same article) with no editing, not even a grammar check. But guess which media outlet gets the most page views, it's not The Atlantic of course but the UK Daily Mail.
JulianMorrison 11y ago
Nuremberg, even if was fair, is a bit of sleight of hand in terms of who wasn't in the dock. Firebombing Dresden? No charge. The Red Army raping its way to Berlin? Scot free. Japanese civilians incinerated in firebombing of cities and then two nuclear bombs for pure intimidation AFTER they made overtures to quit and with NO military target? Not even mentioned.
- cjensen 11y ago
  > Japanese civilians incinerated...AFTER they made overtures to quit That's nonsense. The fascist Japanese government hoped for a cessation of hostilities because it was their only chance to stay in power and perhaps to fight again. That's not "stopping" in a permanent sense. They had attacked the US unprovoked[1], and there was no rational basis to believe they wouldn't do so again in the future. The US didn't want to win the war, demobilize, and do it all again in a few more decades; they required a permanent peace. [1] Some will claim the US was provocative in its trade actions, but refusing to sell oil to fuel the continuing rape of China is not a reasonable definition of provocation.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >That's nonsense. The fascist Japanese government hoped for a cessation of hostilities because it was their only chance to stay in power and perhaps to fight again. If that's what you're taught in US school, maybe invest in some history books. Preferably European ones, so they don't spread patriotic BS.
    - cjensen 11y ago
      An ad-homenium attack on me? Wow. Are you seriously going to claim that Wikipedia is "patriotic BS"? "Although the directing powers, and the government as well, are convinced that our war strength still can deliver considerable blows to the enemy, we are unable to feel absolutely secure peace of mind ... Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians' mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender." -- Tōgō 1945 July 17 [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >An ad-homenium attack on me? Wow. No, a lament for the state of historical education in the US. To which I agree with people like Howard Zinn etc. >Wikipedia is "patriotic BS"? Wikipedia is whoever writes it. If you consider Wikipedia a scholarly source, then we don't have much to discuss. Second, It's well known that Japan didn't want an "unconditional surrender". It was a surrender nonetheless, of an exhausted nation, with some provisions mainly to have the emperor save face. Instead the US burn alive 200.000+ men, women and children, in order to test their new toys and send a message to Japan. (Note that even if any kind of surrender was off the table, using a nuclear bomb on a war, and on civilian targets nonetheless, is still Nazi-level war criminality).
kwhitefoot 11y ago
That was a great article. This paragraph in particular struck me as relevant now just a short time after the reopening of the youth camp on Utøya: ========== If the Nuremberg trial of the leading Nazis should never have been undertaken, it does not follow that we should not have punished these men. It would have been consistent with our philosophy and our law to have disposed of such of the defendants as were in the ordinary sense murderers by individual, routine, undramatic, military trials. This was the course proposed in the speeches of the Archbishop of York, Viscount Cecil, Lord Wright, and others in the great debate of March 20, 1945, in the House of Lords. In such trials the evidence and the legal issues would have a stark simplicity and the lesson would be inescapable. ========== This exactly what Norway did to Breivik, he was treated as the common murderer that he is. No new law, no new tribunal, no grandstanding by the accused or the accusers.
- oska 11y ago
  Great comment. I feel this principle should be applied to all ‘terrorists’. Try them under existing criminal law; no need to make new terrorist laws which only help promote their standing as ‘terrorists’ and, by extension, the causes they seek to promote. The whole terrorism thing is essentially a ‘game’ between the authorities and the self-perceived cause-warriors, with the general public being pulled in as collateral damage (both as direct victims and, more broadly, as the losers of individual and social freedoms). The people, acting in their own self-interest, should refuse to let this sick, manufactured drama continue and that means refusing both sides their roles (as ‘terrorists’ or ‘defenders from terrorism’).
  - NoCulturalFit 11y ago
    Not in my book. In my book any association with Muslim Brotherhood, Al Nusrah (Al Qaida) and ISIS is justification for their hanging. Especially ISIS. Ask any Iraqi who had relatives in Speicher. Your white guilt horse-shit used to peddle Greenwalds, Moore or Werlemans books and other crap doesn't work on us anymore. Are you Swedish by any chance?
    - 11y ago
ohsnap 11y ago
Nuremberg was important because it provided a symbolic mechanism for Axis to get a clean slate by sacrificing a few leaders. It was nothing more than theatre, and was intended as such. It was also extremely effective.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

49 points by vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Anyone interested in this story might also be interested in Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (famous for its "banality of evil" thesis). She regarded his trial as nothing more than a show, a kangaroo court, meant to act as catharsis for the Jewish people and a world looking for a figurehead to blame.

woodpanel 11y ago

Maybe OT: I'm impressed by this piece of content! Impressed, because as a millennial, not paying-for-content content-consumer, I barely can find such in-depth texts, being sophisticated in finding the truth of the matter* and presenting it to the public. The author basically seems to have been given the space of todays cover-stories and the freedom of a columnist using it to swim against the current in a nation-wide publicized high-profile medium. This piece might have been scanned to be archived, but to be read and understood by modern consumers, it might have been better to convert it into a BuzzFeed-Style Top-10-List :-( * not implying that he's correct, but he's seems to be honest

kwhitefoot 11y ago
Most media don't carry articles like this anymore even if you do pay. The Atlantic is one of the few exceptions. Up to the 1970s even the gutter press in the UK would print long articles, not generally as temperate as this one of course, but still expecting the reader to spend more than thirty seconds reading it. Now it's mostly either soundbites or recycled (in some case within the same article) with no editing, not even a grammar check. But guess which media outlet gets the most page views, it's not The Atlantic of course but the UK Daily Mail.

JulianMorrison 11y ago

Nuremberg, even if was fair, is a bit of sleight of hand in terms of who wasn't in the dock. Firebombing Dresden? No charge. The Red Army raping its way to Berlin? Scot free. Japanese civilians incinerated in firebombing of cities and then two nuclear bombs for pure intimidation AFTER they made overtures to quit and with NO military target? Not even mentioned.

cjensen 11y ago
> Japanese civilians incinerated...AFTER they made overtures to quit That's nonsense. The fascist Japanese government hoped for a cessation of hostilities because it was their only chance to stay in power and perhaps to fight again. That's not "stopping" in a permanent sense. They had attacked the US unprovoked[1], and there was no rational basis to believe they wouldn't do so again in the future. The US didn't want to win the war, demobilize, and do it all again in a few more decades; they required a permanent peace. [1] Some will claim the US was provocative in its trade actions, but refusing to sell oil to fuel the continuing rape of China is not a reasonable definition of provocation.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >That's nonsense. The fascist Japanese government hoped for a cessation of hostilities because it was their only chance to stay in power and perhaps to fight again. If that's what you're taught in US school, maybe invest in some history books. Preferably European ones, so they don't spread patriotic BS.
  - cjensen 11y ago
    An ad-homenium attack on me? Wow. Are you seriously going to claim that Wikipedia is "patriotic BS"? "Although the directing powers, and the government as well, are convinced that our war strength still can deliver considerable blows to the enemy, we are unable to feel absolutely secure peace of mind ... Please bear particularly in mind, however, that we are not seeking the Russians' mediation for anything like an unconditional surrender." -- Tōgō 1945 July 17 [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >An ad-homenium attack on me? Wow. No, a lament for the state of historical education in the US. To which I agree with people like Howard Zinn etc. >Wikipedia is "patriotic BS"? Wikipedia is whoever writes it. If you consider Wikipedia a scholarly source, then we don't have much to discuss. Second, It's well known that Japan didn't want an "unconditional surrender". It was a surrender nonetheless, of an exhausted nation, with some provisions mainly to have the emperor save face. Instead the US burn alive 200.000+ men, women and children, in order to test their new toys and send a message to Japan. (Note that even if any kind of surrender was off the table, using a nuclear bomb on a war, and on civilian targets nonetheless, is still Nazi-level war criminality).

kwhitefoot 11y ago

That was a great article. This paragraph in particular struck me as relevant now just a short time after the reopening of the youth camp on Utøya: ========== If the Nuremberg trial of the leading Nazis should never have been undertaken, it does not follow that we should not have punished these men. It would have been consistent with our philosophy and our law to have disposed of such of the defendants as were in the ordinary sense murderers by individual, routine, undramatic, military trials. This was the course proposed in the speeches of the Archbishop of York, Viscount Cecil, Lord Wright, and others in the great debate of March 20, 1945, in the House of Lords. In such trials the evidence and the legal issues would have a stark simplicity and the lesson would be inescapable. ========== This exactly what Norway did to Breivik, he was treated as the common murderer that he is. No new law, no new tribunal, no grandstanding by the accused or the accusers.

oska 11y ago
Great comment. I feel this principle should be applied to all ‘terrorists’. Try them under existing criminal law; no need to make new terrorist laws which only help promote their standing as ‘terrorists’ and, by extension, the causes they seek to promote. The whole terrorism thing is essentially a ‘game’ between the authorities and the self-perceived cause-warriors, with the general public being pulled in as collateral damage (both as direct victims and, more broadly, as the losers of individual and social freedoms). The people, acting in their own self-interest, should refuse to let this sick, manufactured drama continue and that means refusing both sides their roles (as ‘terrorists’ or ‘defenders from terrorism’).
- NoCulturalFit 11y ago
  Not in my book. In my book any association with Muslim Brotherhood, Al Nusrah (Al Qaida) and ISIS is justification for their hanging. Especially ISIS. Ask any Iraqi who had relatives in Speicher. Your white guilt horse-shit used to peddle Greenwalds, Moore or Werlemans books and other crap doesn't work on us anymore. Are you Swedish by any chance?
  - 11y ago

ohsnap 11y ago

Nuremberg was important because it provided a symbolic mechanism for Axis to get a clean slate by sacrificing a few leaders. It was nothing more than theatre, and was intended as such. It was also extremely effective.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]