Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46 • Hacker News Board

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#51

Post by jmyeet » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 1:31 AM UTC

The Nuremberg Trials weren't perfect. One notable example was Albert Speer, Hitler's Architect and part of his inner circle who got away with a 20 year sentence (before moving to London where he died years later) by claiming to not know anything about the Final Solution. He got away with this by basically being a "gentleman" without their being a smoking gun. It was a classic "he's one of us".

But Nuremberg was very successful in de-Nazifying the country. I mean there are neo-Nazi elements in Germany today but they're really fringe elements. If anything they're far less fringe in the United States now (fun fact: the United States had a lot of Nazi sympathizers eg the Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden).

This is where we went wrong with the Civil War: we failed to cull the slave-owning class when such attitudes needed to be snuffed out entirely. I mean Emancipation came with compensating the slave owners rather than the slaves themselves. Lincoln's assassination was really unfortunate here too just because of who his VP was: a Confederate sympathizer who, among other things, pardoned all the secessionists and rebels.

I really wonder if we'd snuffed out the slave owning class and compensated the former slaves where we'd be today. Slavery economics simply moved to the prison system and forced labor.Segregation persisted for another century and the echoes of all that still exist today.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#52

Post by billfruit » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #12

eschulz wrote: post #10

The Nuremberg Trials were fascinating. While I think many of the individuals leading the tribunal were trying to do a good job in the tradition of their respective nations' legal frameworks, the victorious allies could really not see eye to eye on what was a fair measure of retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, etc. So my take is that largely all legal norms were discarded or violated, and the tribunal had to reac…

Are there any good documentaries or books that dig into this without getting to academic?

The Final Reckoning: Nuremburg Diaries by Boris Polevoi provides a Soviet perspective.

Also it is full of courtroom art/sketches from the proceedings.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#53

Post by hackerlight » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 1:44 AM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #8

hackerlight wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wow we sure threw that one out the window with the covid 19 vaccine didn't we? I don't consent to breathing in the virus particles of someone who increased their chances of getting infected, or increased the viral load they carried around, because they refused the vaccine. Ultimately you need some way to balance people's rights whenever they are conflicting. Your right to refuse the vaccine vs my right to not die d…

How would you have breathed in my virus particles when I'm a remote employee 1,000 miles away from you?

It's not just about me, it's about protecting the rights of any people you interact with, such as shopkeepers. In my opinion, their right to not get Covid supersedes your right to avoid the vaccine. If you are totally hermetic, then sure, I think it would be wrong to force you to be vaccinated, but it's hard to design policy with such granular carveouts without it becoming a bureaucratic mess.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#54

Post by refurb » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:01 AM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #50

DirectorKrennic wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other interesting parts. > Everyone in the court was issued with headphones to allow them to hear the charges being read in their native language, but the accused showed little interest. They were probably already resigned to the idea that they would be executed and thought there was little point in trying to pay attention and defend themselves. Most of them wished they were already dead. > The British Government wan…

Is it actually ironic? Weren’t the soviets well-known for show trials? That is, were they arguing for a legal process or a legitimising one? I don’t know the reason for the British preference but I do feel there are arguments for it, e.g. if such a tribunal was expected to have predetermined results, why associate your legitimate legal system with it.

Not only that, there was agreement among the allies on which war criminals would be turned over to whom for punishment. So the USSR might have preferred a trial since those who committed the worst offenses in the USSR would be turned over to them instead of being shot by the British.

A good example are the Cossacks that fought on the side of the Axis. Although they were taken as POWs by the US and UK, they were put on trains and shipped back to the USSR to their eventual deaths.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#55

Post by refurb » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #33

IceHegel wrote: post #14

I highly recommend Human Smoke by Nicholas Baker (2008) for a book that puts WWII in a historical perspective different from the one we inherited.

Like what?

"It questions the commonly held belief that the Allies wanted to avoid the war at all costs but were forced into action by Adolf Hitler's aggression. It consists largely of official government transcripts, newspaper articles, and other documents from the time, with Baker only occasionally interjecting commentary. Baker cites documents that suggest that the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom were provoking Germany and Japan into war and had ulterior motives for participating."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Smoke

The reviews are less than stellar: "Historian Noel Malcolm described it as a "strangely childish book"[3] and journalist William Grimes in The New York Times as a "self-important, hand-wringing, moral mess of a book."[4] Christopher Hitchens accused Baker of ahistoricism and wrote that numerous passages in the book served as a reminder of how "fatuous the pacifist position can sound, or indeed can be."

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#56

Post by cyberax » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #49

cyberax wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> employer was mandating it. You can quit your job if you want to stay infectious. There's absolutely nothing controversial in requiring vaccinations as a condition for employment.

Amazing what you can accomplish by threatening someone’s livelihood in the middle of a pandemic. No coercion at all, right?

If you want to endanger others, why not?

What next, road speed limits as a tool of oppression?

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#57

Post by refurb » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:08 AM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #51

The Nuremberg Trials weren't perfect. One notable example was Albert Speer, Hitler's Architect and part of his inner circle who got away with a 20 year sentence (before moving to London where he died years later) by claiming to not know anything about the Final Solution. He got away with this by basically being a "gentleman" without their being a smoking gun. It was a classic "he's one of us". But Nuremberg was very…

But Nuremberg was very successful in de-Nazifying the country.

Denazification was an entirely different process. The Nuremberg trials were for the very top leaders (and only a handful). The apparatus of the Nazi government never went to trial, they went through a Denazification process that was abandoned pretty quickly.

There are numerous examples of relatively high level Nazi's being a part of the new German government. The best example is Reinhard Gehlen who led the build up of West Germanys entire intelligence agency. Numerous Nazi officers ended up in high ranking positions in the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) and in high ranking political positions.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#58

Post by pyuser583 » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:15 AM UTC

amsully wrote: post #26

The last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials passed away on April 7, 2023 at the age of 103. It was Ben Ferencz' first case after he learned of the Eastern fronts 'Nazi death squad' (Einsatzgruppen). All other tribunal prosecutors were committed to other cases when he described the atrocities to his superior, so he took the case on himself. It both validates the top comment of allies not seeing eye to eye, b…

He was a prosecutor for the “American Trials at Nuremberg” which is a different thing.

The Nuremberg trials were international. Judges came from all occupying powers.

When they were done, America rented out the courthouse and used it for America-only trials.

The initial trials were for top-tier Nazis. The subsequent trials were for mid-tier Nazis who committed especially heinous crimes.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#59

Post by pyuser583 » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:17 AM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #4

I recently reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which was written a long, long time ago. But the author had paid his dues by reading all this, when it was a lot harder to get at than it is now.

In the version I read, he starts it off taking about how the Nazi archives are currently sitting in storage in New York. He advocates mimeographing them before returning them to the (West) Germans.

Re: Archive of the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46

#60

Post by doctor_eval » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #55

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

"It questions the commonly held belief that the Allies wanted to avoid the war at all costs but were forced into action by Adolf Hitler's aggression. It consists largely of official government transcripts, newspaper articles, and other documents from the time, with Baker only occasionally interjecting commentary. Baker cites documents that suggest that the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom were prov…

I honestly thought it was well known that the US in particular wanted a war with Japan but domestic politics prevented outright aggression.

Instead, IIRC, the US blockaded oil deliveries to Japan to the extent that the Japanese economy was within a month or so of collapsing. The Japanese - who had been invading other asian countries - were left with little choice but to attack the US to stop the blockades.

My understanding is that the US goal was to avoid Japanese hegemony in Asia. Certainly, the idea that the Japanese attack was a “surprise” was a convenient myth. The form of the attack, maybe, but not the expectation.

I don’t have references handy. This is just from memory.