- Hannover
"It was clear from the outset that a death sentence would be pronounced against me, as I have always regarded the trial as a purely political act by the victors, but I wanted to see this trial through for my people's sake and I did at least expect that I should not be denied a soldier's death. Before God, my country, and my conscience I feel myself free of the blame that an enemy tribunal has attached to me."
Reichsmarschall Herman Göring
David Irving, Göring: A Biography, (New York: William Morrow and Co.,1989) p.506.
"This kangaroo court at Nuremburg was officially known as the 'InternationalMilitary Tribunal.' That name is a libel on the military profession. The tribunal was not a military one in any sense. The only military men among the judges were the Russians.... At Nuremberg, mankind and our present civilization were on trial, with men whose own hands were bloody sitting on the judges' seats. One of the judges came from the country which committedthe Katyn Forest massacre and produced an array of witnesses to swear atNuremberg that the Germans had done it."
Rear Admiral, U.S.N. Dan V. Gallery
Thompson, and Strutz ed., pp.XXI-XXII.
"I may, and do, say that I have always regarded the Nuremberg prosecutions as a step backward in international law, and a precedent that will prove embarrassing, if not disastrous, in the future."
Honorable Justice Learned Hand
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p. 1.
"The Nuremberg Trials... had been popular throughout the world and particularly in the United States. Equally popular was the sentence already announced by the high tribunal: death. But what kind of trial was this? ...The Constitution was not a collection of loosely given political promises subject to broad interpretation. It was not a list of pleasing platitudes to be set lightly aside when expediency required it. It was the foundation of the American system of law and justice and [Robert Taft] was repelled by the picture of his country discarding those Constitutional precepts in order to punish a vanquished enemy."
U.S. President, John F. Kennedy
John Kennedy, Profiles in Courage p.189-190.
"I could never accept the Nuremberg Trials as representing a fair and just procedure."
Dr. Igor I. Sikorsky
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.3.
"I have always regarded the Nuremberg Trials as a travesty upon justice andthe farce was made even more noisome with Russia partipating as one of thejudges."
Charles Callan Tansill, Ph.D.
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p. 47.
"My conclusion is that the entire program of War Crimes Trials, either by International Courts, the members of which comprise those of the victorious nations, or by Military Courts of a single victor nation is basically without legal or moral authority... The fact remains that the victor nations in WorldWar II, while still at fever heat of hatred for an enemy nation, found patriots of the enemy nation guilty for doing their patriotic duty. This is patently unlawful and immoral.
One of the most shameful incidents connected with the War Crimes Trials prosecutions has to do with the investigations and the preparation of the cases for trial. The records of trials which our Commission examined disclosed that a great majority of the official investigators, employed by the United States Government to secure evidence and to locate defendants, were persons with a preconceived dislike for these enemy aliens, and their conduct was such that they resorted to a number of illegal, unfair, and cruel methods and duress to secure confessions of guilt and to secure accusations by defendants against other defendants. In fact, in the Malmedy case, the only evidence before the court, upon which the convictions and sentences were based, consisted of the statements and testimony of the defendants themselves. The testimony of one defendant against another was secured by subterfuge, false promises of immunity, and by mock trials and threats."
Honorable Edward Leroy Van Roden, President Judge
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p. 67.
The Tribunal claimed in theory the right -- it certainly had the power --to declare any act a war-crime. But it interpreted Article 6 of the Charter creating it, as excluding from its consideration any act committed by the victorious powers. As a consequence any act proved to have been committedby the victorious powers could not be declared by the Tribunal a war-crime. For this reason, the indiscriminate bombing of civilians which had indisputably been initiated by Great Britain was excluded from consideration as a war crime by the Tribunal."
F.J.P. Veale, English jurist and author
Thompson, and Strutz ed., p.146.