THE WAR TRIALS FARCE
Netboy, Anthony
The War Trials Farce By ANTHONY NETBOY SOME time this Autumn—unless the farce is postponed—two dozen or more of the topflight Nazi political, military, and industrial leaders will be put on trial...
...It is a well-known fact that treaties are only as strong as the military might of the signatory nations...
...The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima leveled a city the size of Denver...
...Did not the Allied air fleets lay waste to Leipzig, Munich, Cologne, Berlin, and numerous other German cities which contained "hospitals and other privileged buildings," and which sometimes were undefended ?"Belligerents," says the manual, "cannot use poisoned and otherwise forbidden arms and ammunition...
...Hans Frank for brutalizing the Poles (of whom he was Protector), etc., etc...
...We shall wait and see . . . with our fingers crossed...
...The latest count is 53,000 killed, but since everyone who was' scratched or burned by the death rays unloosened by the explosion is expected to die, the toll may reach 150,000...
...The enemy would not forgive and forget, but would arrest and try them as war criminals, a thing never done before, no matter how ugly the war itself had been...
...2) the chiefs of staff and their underlings have broken the rules of civilized warfare...
...Modern war is certainly unlike a tennis match in which the contestants play hard during the game, then gather at the net to shake hands...
...Thus, Goering is to be tried for ordering the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam...
...Never before in modern times has treaty-breaking been regarded as a real crime...
...The top men are to be tried by the international tribunal, the lesser fry presumably in countries where their crimes were committed...
...Goering's order destroyed about four square miles of Rotterdam, killing a few thousand people...
...Altogether, 12 men were tried—two on German charges, four on British charges, five on French, and one on Belgian...
...When this comes to pass, it will be the first time in the history of modern warfare that the victors have undertaken to bring the leaders of the vanquished to trial...
...Who is more guilty of violating the rules of land warfare ? * * * TAKE the matter of "pillage and purposeless destruction...
...The War Trials Farce By ANTHONY NETBOY SOME time this Autumn—unless the farce is postponed—two dozen or more of the topflight Nazi political, military, and industrial leaders will be put on trial before an international tribunal, charged with various crimes growing out of the late global fracas...
...The coming war criminals trial can be understood fully only in psychiatric terms...
...It would be depressing to carry this analysis further...
...This is rather curious, because the wizard of German finance was not so long ago regarded in this country and England as a fine and honorable gentleman...
...and (3) businessmen and financiers of the enemy nations conspired with the politicos and the generals to violate these treaties and break these rules...
...on French charges, one of two years...
...Of course not...
...Some of the curious precepts laid down by the Rules of Land Warfare are: Belligerents must not use poisoned and otherwise forbidden arms and ammunition...
...But our side did not restrain itself...
...They looked the other way while Italian divisions streamed through the Suez Canal (controlled by England and France) and, armed with the best of modern weapons, including gas, quickly routed the half-naked soldiers of Haile Selassie...
...the Geneva Convention of 1929 regulating the treatment of prisoners of war, and the Red Cross Convention, also signed in Geneva in 1929, regarding the treatment of wounded and sick members of armies in the field...
...The Allies levelled to dust the priceless architectural monument of the Middle Ages, the Abbey of Monte Cassino, though proof has never been given that the Germans used it, as alleged, for artillery spotting...
...They saw no wrong in his activities, though he was working for Hitler...
...THE second premise, that the German commanders have broken the rules of civilized warfare, rests on the fictitious assumption that modern war can be conducted like a medieval joust...
...Ribbentrop for breaking the Paris Peace Pact (also called the Kellogg-Briand Pact) ; Krupp von Boh-len for supplying armaments to the Nazis...
...How else could they have won the war ? Let's get down to a few specific examples...
...Goering is accused of ordering the bombing of Rotterdam...
...The Nye investigation—if anyone still remembers this wonderful feat—amply proved that armament manufacture is perhaps the most internationalized of businesses...
...a captain was charged with maintaining such bad conditions at his prison camp that hundreds of men died...
...A terrible guilt complex is at work here, and the victorious governments are trying the leaders of the vanquished because their hands reek of blood, and their consciences, like Banquo's ghost, will not be laW to rest...
...But is this the whole story ? If the accused are allowed a fair trial, and if their counsels are permitted to introduce all the evidence at their disposal, they can turn the accusation around and show that the Allies also broke the rules of civilized warfare...
...a minor German general was accused of ordering the massacre of war prisoners...
...kill the wounded, mistreat prisoners of war, fire on undefended localities, bombard hospitals and other privileged buildings, use privileged buildings for military purposes, poison wells and streams, engage in pillage and purposeless destruction, etc...
...The Nazis being brought to book are said to be responsible, according to the Moscow Declaration of Nov...
...To revive the Pact of Paris at this late date can only be interpreted as meaning that the Allies are hard put to find so-called legal bases for their moral crusade against the German war criminals...
...All this reasoning can lead to but one conclusion...
...Let us examine each of these accusations...
...If Krupp is guilty of inciting the Nazis to war, so are the many American concerns who traded industrial secrets with Krupp, I. G. Farbenindustrie, and others...
...If this does not plainly spell "atomic bomb," then language has no meaning...
...There the matter was dropped...
...and so forth...
...1, 1943, "for the atrocities, massacres, and coldblooded mass executions . . . perpetrated by Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they overran...
...Generals JodI and von Keitel for leading the Nazi war machine...
...Will the forthcoming ballyhooed trials accomplish much more than the Leipzig tribunal in view of the powerful political and military repercussions that may result...
...As for pillage, the Germans raised it to levels never before known in modern warfare...
...Mussolini flagrantly broke the Pact of Paris in 1935 when he made war against Ethiopia...
...Witness the loot the boys are bringing home from Germany—violins, cameras, silver, small household goods, etc.—not to speak of those things they consumed or destroyed while billeted there...
...But his conquest of Ethiopia was ultimately accepted by the big powers as fitting and proper, and in line with imperialistic ethics...
...Guderian is reported to have said in effect, after his surrender, "Now that the war is over, the generals of both sides ought to sit down and discuss their strategy and their mistakes...
...If so, they have discovered that the rules were changed during the contest...
...Did the self-righteous nations—England, France, and the United States —bring him to book...
...So the Allies went ahead with the trials of a few small fry before a German court at Leipzig in 1921...
...What a paltry business...
...The indictments are based on the alleged violation of so-called international laws...
...After every war, scapegoats are needed...
...Schacht is also coming up for trial as a war criminal...
...AS for the third premise, that German industrialists and financiers are guilty of conspiring with the politicos to violate international treaties, the shoe also fits on the other foot...
...Arthur Seyss-Inquart for enslaving the people of Holland (of which he was Protector...
...The bulk of these acts, says the august manual, can be prosecuted as "murder in violation of the laws and customs of war.'' Unquestionably, the Allied tribunal will rely heavily on the code of civilized warfare, to which Germany had subscribed, in seeking to convict MessrsrtJoering, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Ley, Kaltenbrunner, el al, of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Poland, Russia, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and other occupied lands...
...This may have been the kind of wishful thinking the German General Staff indulged in when the war began...
...In 1920 the Allies were determined to bring the Kaiser to the bar of justice, but little Holland refused to extradite this royal woodchopper...
...These gentlemen gave orders that probably broke every rule in the manual, and then .some...
...THE'indictments are based on three premises: (1) the war was started by Germany in violation of a solemn international treaty...
...The American Army issues to its men a quaint little manual (FM-27-10) called Rules of Land Warfare which summarizes the laws and customs of war as laid down in the Hague Convention of 1899, revised and extended in 1907...
...The sentences imposed included : on German charges, two of four years...
...Mussolini was given a gentle tap on the knuckles in the form of very ineffective sanctions on oil shipments to Italy...
...Schacht, if he likes, could tell the world which British and American industrialists and financiers helped to finance the rise of Hitler, thus placing the blame for the Nazi upsurge squarely on the shoulders of some of his enemies, who incited Germany to make war on Russia...
...AU-BOAT commander was charged with torpedoing a British hospital ship...
...on British charges, two of 6 months and one of 10 months...
Vol. 9 • September 1945 • No. 38
