The last Nazi from Nuremberg

[sabo]

Yeah, they were thinking about letting Hess out back in the 80's, maybe they probably should have, he was just one of Hitlers stooges and didn't play a major part in any of the the horrific things that happened from 42 on.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Good posts Adler. I tend to see Nuremberg more as a continuation of the kind of thinking that produced the "War Guilt Clause" in the Paris peace treaties following WWI than a specific response to "the Holocaust". The Holocaust itself is a rather artificial sectional grouping in a larger variety of genocidal activities conducted by different peoples during the War; not just the German killed Jews in such numbers (i.e. the Romanians did too virtually independent of the Germans), and millions of people other than Jews were killed.

Having said that, many people had different motives during those trials, from the ambitious jurists wishing to establish precedent in a new international legal order, through those seeking revenge against Germany's leaders, to those who may have wished to prevent genocide reoccurring.

But we should remember before crying too many tears that Nuremberg was pretty easy punishment for the defeated German leaders; even ignoring their genocidal rampage, a hanging or long prison sentence was easy compared with the punishment suffered by millions of lesser Germans, let alone other defeated leaders in different parts of history.

 

[Adler17]

I did never say it wasn't a step in the right direction. But to make Nürnberg as the precedent is wrong because of the many severe flaws of the trial. Again don't get me wrong people like Kaltenbrunner and Göring deserved to be executed. However the trials were not fair ones though. That's why no German government did recognize these trials until now. It is a pity that the Allies went only half a step but then remained still on a victor's justice. The main point, the Holocaust, was only a sidenote. Today this is mostly forgotten or ignored. The same can be said for the Tokyo trials, too. Only that there I don't have so much knowledge.

Adler

 

[Hornblower]

I thought that Speer died after Hess.
I just read his book and at the risk of being labelled a sympathiser I don't think that he should have been put in the same league as those at Nuremberg. He was an architect with the sort of organisational skills that proved extremely valuable to the German war effort when he became the armaments minister. There were many like him that escaped prosecution and became valuable figures in both East and West Germany after the war.

 

[Nylan]

War Crimes trials did not work out quite as well as they should have, as we've already established. Take Arnold Strippel for example.

Stipulations got a lot of people off free.

 

[rilnator]

That's why no German government did recognize these trials until now.
Adler

Interesting. What a perfect breeding ground for deniers such as yourself.

 

[rilnator]

I thought that Speer died after Hess.
I just read his book and at the risk of being labelled a sympathiser I don't think that he should have been put in the same league as those at Nuremberg. He was an architect with the sort of organisational skills that proved extremely valuable to the German war effort when he became the armaments minister. There were many like him that escaped prosecution and became valuable figures in both East and West Germany after the war.

I read a book of his as well and found him to be just like all the other Nazi big wigs in trying to outdo each other in pleasing their Fuhrer.

He was aware of the slaves the Germans used to get his remarkable production figures. He didn't mention this in his autobiography though.

 

[Hornblower]

He was aware of the slaves the Germans used to get his remarkable production figures. He didn't mention this in his autobiography though.

Yes I believe that in his entire autobiography he had one tiny throwaway paragraph about the slave labour. Strange that throughout the entire book he explained how he went to great pains to put the German Industry on a war footing whilst still managing to satisfy the manpower needs of the Wehrmacht and yet he claimed almost total ignorance of how his manpower needs were being satisfied.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I thought that Speer died after Hess.
I just read his book and at the risk of being labelled a sympathiser I don't think that he should have been put in the same league as those at Nuremberg. He was an architect with the sort of organisational skills that proved extremely valuable to the German war effort when he became the armaments minister. There were many like him that escaped prosecution and became valuable figures in both East and West Germany after the war.

DO NOT base your opinion on Speer on his book alone. I made that mistake too once. Make no mistake, Speer seems like a perfectly likable person, and I certainly enjoyed his books, and I'm glad he didn't get the death penalty simply because of the wealth of information he provided, but Speer absolutely belonged in prison. Maybe not at Nuremberg, but 20 years was leniant for what he did.
He was responsible for the use of slave labor. He did see the conditions at Nordhausen. But his biggest crime of all he managed to hide for years because it was exactly where no one would look.
Everyone assumed that Speer's worst crime must have been as Minister of Armaments and Munitions, after all, he just was an architect before that!
But Jochim Fest, who edited Speer's book, found out that he had blood on his hands from the beginning. As Hauptbau Inspector, he personally oversaw deportations for the rearangement of Berlin. Amongst his role was not only to kick out people who were in the way of that stupid road he wanted to build, but to find homes for the people he evicted. He did it by evicting Jews from all over Berlin, and insuring their deportation. While he obviously would not have known the extent of the camps at this time, its still a disgusting, vile act.

I definately recommend Fest's book on Speer. Its a nice concise Biography of Speer, and is alot better then anything else out there. Ironically, the only other Biographers of Speer set out to prove Speer was evil (The Life and Lies of Albert Speer), failed miserably and did more to his credit, and the man just wanting to write the truth as it is, ended up finding out the real skeletons in the closet.

 

[Hornblower]

I shall try to find Fest's book as I would like to read an objective opinion on what I believe to be an interesting man caught up in interesting times. What is the title?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Speer: The Final Verdict.

 

[Naskra]

Helmut Poppendick, d. 1994

 

[Kafka2]

Extract from Speer's final statement at Nuremberg.

I said before that a certain incident in England caused me to think of the reports of the earlier trials. The reason was that the people around me during my imprisonment acted towards me in a peculiar and incomprehensible way, in a way which led me to conclude that these people somehow were acting in an abnormal state of mind. Some of them--these persons and people around me were changed from time to time. Some of the new ones who came to me in place of those who had been changed had strange eyes. They were glassy and like eyes in a dream. This symptom, however, lasted only a few days and then they made a completely normal impression. They could no longer be distinguished from normal human beings. Not only I alone noticed these strange eyes, but also the physician who attended me at the time, 15r. Johnston, a British Army doctor, a Scotsman.

In the spring of 1942 1 had a visitor, a visitor who quite obviously tried to provoke me and acted towards me in a strange way. This visitor also had these strange eyes. Afterwards, Dr. Johnston asked me what I thought of this visitor. He told me--I told him I had the impression that for some reason or other he was not completely normal mentally, whereupon Dr. Johnston did not protest, as I had expected, but agreed with me and asked me whether I had not noticed those strange eyes, these eyes with a dreamy look. Dr. Johnston did not suspect that he himself had exactly the same eyes when he came to me.

370

31 Aug. 46

The essential point, however, is that in one of the reports of the time, which must still be in the press files on the proceedings--this was in Paris, about the Moscow trial--it said that the defendants had had strange eyes. They had had glazed and dreamy eyes! I have already said that I am convinced that the governments here concerned knew nothing of these happenings. Therefore it would not be in the interest of the British Government either if my statements about what I experienced during my imprisonment were denied publicity in any way, for that would give the impression that something was actually supposed to be concealed here, and that the British Government had actually had a finger in the pie.

****oo. ****oo.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Speer always had something of a Paranoid streak in him. He really believed to his dying day that when he was in a SS-hospital, Himmler was trying to medically assassinate him, but simply never managed to do it. Imagine, the man who killed 12 million can't kill a dangerously ill man, in a hospital that he controls.