hermod wrote:Hektor wrote:Goering disputed the figures saying that there is no evidence for that. But indeed I think it was the film as well as some of the testimony that had a persuasive effect on the accused. And bear in mind the situation. That obviously wasn't a talk in some 'civil circumstances'.
On the other hand, couldn't they imagine the Allies would be capable of 'making people talk' what they wanted to hear?!
Virtually any policemen I spoke to told me that testimony (of accused) is at least problematic and often false. So do attorneys.
The accused Germans at the Nuremberg show trials were neither cops nor attorneys. Most of the people who are neither cops nor lawyers believe that an innocent man would never charge himself with nonexistent crimes. Most people don't know that there exists such a thing as false confessions and that false confessions happen quite often. Was even truer in the 1940s.
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Some of the accused at the main trial were indeed lawyers or had legal backgrounds.
Goering wasn't, but he was a fairly intelligent, educated and experienced individual.
They'd have heard about false confessions as well. But probably had no idea how prevalent this is.
And well, the accusations were so obnoxious view people could belief someone would make up such bullsh!t. Doing this would show worse character than doing it.
The Germans may actually be more gullible in this regard... Simply, because they commonly aren't skilled liars and often would admit later that they had told a lie. That is now for the 95% ordinary Germans. Those amoral, habitual criminals and bottom-feeders in German society are a different matter.
Indeed, I think German 'compliance with authority and rules' did play a major role in 'establishing the Holocaust and German guilt' in this. Those pushing the Reeducation Programs were not only top psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists they were also pretty knowledgeable about the pre-WW2 German culture, since a lot of them had grown up there during this period.
The cooperative accused during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial ticked all the boxes for folks that easily will perceive authority in others and comply with it. After all, this probably was how they landed in positions in Auschwitz to begin with.
Once they can get you making false statements, they can dance around with you in many directions. Ohlendorf's admission of 'having killed 90.000' should actually have triggered a response to ask for the mass-graves. But it didn't appear that Western Allied interrogators were to anxious to 'ask the Russians' about it.
Bear in mind what would happen if investigators got a confession by a Martin that he had killed Herbert. Do you really think that they would put Martin now on trial without trying to find out whether such Martin even exists, whether there is a corpse of him, whether there is other evidence linking Martin to such a crime, etc.?
Same applies, when John would 'testify' that Marin did kill a Herbert.
Now occasionally police investigators may try to frame a Martin with a crime. They still would make sure that other evidences would be present. Because just some testimony or 'documents' would ever fly in an *orderly* court. Judges would dismiss it, the prosecutors would ask about it, let alone the defense.
That is why the IMT was "not be bound by technical rules of evidence". And the verdicts became 'material evidence' in other trials. Like the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. Even if they didn't mention it. The assumption was made that the 'allegations were basically true'... "The Nazis did kill millions of Jews in Death Camps"... "Here is another Death Camp". Bear in mind what the charges were for those trials. Now what was the police investigation that established that the material part of the charges were even true? There was none. It was simply assumed to be true, what had to be proven first. Which it never was. That, my friends, is a deadly give away that we are dealing with a major fraud here.
