First international trial for war crimes at Nuremberg
From red@redstreamnet: https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1859289753159647628
On the loose theme that I’ve been following on recreation of history.
Did you know that the first international trial for war crimes at Nuremberg, which is often credited as a US invention, was, in fact, brought about by the Soviet Union?
US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill tried to convince Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to support their proposal to summarily execute 2,500 Nazis upon capture as a more “expedient” alternative to Stalin’s insistence on an international tribunal.
Until late 1944 and 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill were against the international trial Stalin had called for since 1942. Indeed, well before any other country, in 1943, captured Soviet military tribunals were trying Wehrmacht and SS officers for war crimes.
Roosevelt initially supported Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr’s proposal to apprehend Nazi war criminals and put them “to death forthwith by firing squads.” However, when the plan was leaked, public outrage pushed Roosevelt to abandon it.
Churchill eventually, but grudgingly, followed suit, acknowledging in a telegram to Roosevelt Stalin’s “ultra-respectable line” that “there must be no executions without trial; otherwise, the world would say we were afraid to try them.”
The US is wrongly credited with the idea of an international trial and the significant legal innovations for which the Nuremberg trials became famous.
Proposals by Soviet legal experts, particularly jurist Aron Tranin, formed the basis of the charges of “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” & “complicity” that were lodged against Nazis at Nuremberg and invalidated “I was just obeying orders” as a defense.
What the Soviets failed to succeed in, with regard to the Nuremberg Trials, was in putting on trial those who supported, funded, etc., the Nazis and other war criminals. Even if it was a Soviet idea, they did not get their way entirely. Can you imagine all the US businessmen… Read more »
The history of the 20th century has essentially been weaponized by the collective west who “won” WW2 and “defeated” the Soviets. Of course, it is all a delusion, and I suspect that one of the great things that will happen soon enough is that serious historians in the global majority… Read more »
One may see that it was only after the Red Armies had well-begun the liquidation of the European nazi armies that the “west” entered the European war in a major action. Considering that the “west” was supplying materials to the European nazi armies throughout the war, and secretly treating with… Read more »
In https://archive.org/details/mythreeyearswit00butc/page/n5/mode/2up iirc the author tells us that in England, about 1943, Ike expressed his opinion that, iirc, “every nazi officer above the rank of major (possibly including majors) should be shot. The statement was qualified by the caveat that it was not up to him (Ike) to decide, merely… Read more »
on smaller scale of political murders, the Anglo-Saxon method became refined even earlier with the assassination of Lincoln & “lone nut shooters.” Both FDR & Ike give the game away here – whether a hit or miss, the same summary fate is assigned to proxy nations fated “to not speak… Read more »