Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression The following address, opening the American case under Count
I of the Indictment, was delivered by Justice Robert N. Jackson,
Chief of Counsel for the United States, before the Tribunal on 21
November 1945:
May it please Your Honors,
The privilege of opening the first trial in history for
crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave
responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and
punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so
devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being
ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four
great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury
stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their
captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the
most significant tributes that Power ever has paid to
Reason.
This tribunal, while it is novel and experimental, is not
the product of abstract speculations nor is it created to
vindicate legalistic theories. This inquest represents the practical
effort of four of the most mighty of nations, with the support of
seventeen more, to utilize International Law to meet the greatest menace of
our timesaggressive war. The common sense of mankind demands
that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little
people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power
and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave
no home in the world untouched. It is a cause of this
magnitude that the United Nations will lay before Your
Honors.
In the prisoners' dock sit twenty-odd broken men. Reproached
by the humiliation of those they have led almost as bitterly
as by the desolation of those they have attacked, their
personal capacity for evil is forever past. It is hard now
to perceive in these miserable men as captives the power by
which as Nazi leaders they once dominated much of the world
and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals, their fate
is of little consequence to the world.
What makes this inquest significant is that those prisoners
represent sinister influence that will lurk in the world
long after their bodies have returned to dust. They are
living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence,
and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols
of fierce nationalism and militarism, of intrigue and war-
making which have embroiled Europe generation after
generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its
[Page 115]
homes, and impoverishing its life. They have so identified
themselves with the philosophies they conceived and with the
forces they directed that any tenderness to them is a
victory and an encouragement to all the evils which are
attached to their names. Civilization can afford no
compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed
strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men
in whom those forces now precariously survive.
What these men stand for we will patiently and temperately
disclose. We will give you undeniable proofs of incredible
events. The catalogue of crimes will omit nothing that could
be conceived by.a pathological pride, cruelty, and lust for
power. These men created in Germany, under the
Fuehrerprinzip, a National Socialist despotism equalled only
by the dynasties of the ancient East. They took from the
German people all those dignities and freedoms that we hold
natural and inalienable rights in every human being. The
people were compensated by inflaming
and gratifying hatreds toward those who were marked as
"scape-goats." Against their opponents, including Jews,
Catholics, and free labor the Nazis directed such a campaign
of arrogance, brutality, and annihilation as the world has
not witnessed since the pre-Christian ages. They excited the
German ambition to be a "master race," which of course
implies serfdom for others. They led their people on a mad
amble for domination. They diverted social energies and
resources to the creation of what they thought to be an
invincible war machine. They overran their neighbors. To
sustain the"master race " in its war making, they enslaved
millions of human beings and brought them into Germany,
where these hapless creatures. now wander as "displaced
persons". At length bestiality and bad faith reached such
excess that they aroused the sleeping strength of imperiled
civilization. Its united efforts have ground the German war
machine to fragments. But the-struggle has left Europe a
liberated yet prostrate land where a
demoralized society struggles to survive. These are the
fruits of the sinister forces that sit with these defendants
in the prisoners' dock.
In justice to the nations and the men associated in this
prosecution, I must remind you of certain difficulties which
may leave their mark on this case. Never before in legal
history has an effort been made to bring within the scope of
a single litigation the developments of a decade, covering a
whole Continent, and involving a score of nations, countless
individuals, and innumerable events. Despite the magnitude
of the task, the world has demanded immediate action. This
demand has had to be met, though perhaps at the cost of
finished craftsmanship. In my country,
[Page 116]
established courts, following familiar procedures, applying
well thumbed precedents, and dealing with the legal
consequences of local and limited events seldom commence a
trial within a year of the event in litigation. Yet less
than eight months ago today the courtroom in which you sit
was an enemy fortress in the hands of German SS troops. Less
than eight months ago nearly all our witnesses and documents
were in enemy hands. The law had not been codified, no
procedure had been established, no Tribunal was in
existence, no usable courthouse stood here, none of the
hundreds of tons of official German documents had been
examined, no prosecuting staff had been assembled, nearly
all the present defendants were at large, and the four
prosecuting powers had not yet joined in common cause to try
them. I should be the last to deny that the case may well
suffer from incomplete researches and quite likely will not be the example of
professional work which any of the prosecuting nations would
normally wish to sponsor. It is, however, a completely
adequate case to the judgment we shall ask you to render,
and its full development we shall be obliged to leave to
historians.
Before I discuss particulars of evidence, some general
considerations which may affect the credit of this trial in
the eyes of the world should be candidly faced. There is a
dramatic disparity between the circumstances of the accusers
and of the accused that might discredit our work if we
should falter, in even minor matters, in being fair and
temperate.
Unfortunately, the nature of these crimes is such that both
prosecution and judgment must be by victor nations over
vanquished foes. The worldwide scope of the aggressions
carried out by these men has left but few real neutrals.
Either the victors must judge the vanquished or we must
leave the defeated to judge themselves. After the First
World War, we learned the futility of the latter course. The
former high station of these defendants, the notoriety of their acts,
and the adaptability of their conduct to provoke retaliation make it
hard to distinguish between the demand for a just and
measured retribution, and the unthinking cry for vengeance
which arises from the anguish of war. It is our task, so far
as humanly possible, to draw the line between the two. We
must never forget that the record on which we judge these
defendants today is the record on which history will judge
us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is
to put it to our own lips as well. We must summon such
detachment and intellectual integrity to our task that this
trial will commend itself to posterity as fulfilling
humanity's aspirations to do justice.
At the very outset, let us dispose of the contention that to
put
[Page 117]
these men to trial is to do them an injustice entitling them
to some special consideration. These defendants may be hard
pressed but they are not ill used. Let us see what
alternative they would have to being tried.
More than a majority of these prisoners surrendered to or
were tracked down by forces of the United States. Could they
expect us to make American custody a shelter for our enemies
against the just wrath of our Allies ? Did we spend American
lives to capture them only to save them from punishment?
Under the principles of the Moscow Declaration, those
suspected war criminals who are not to be tried
internationally must be turned over to individual
governments for trial at the scene of their outrages.
Many less responsible and less culpable American-held
prisoners have been and will be turned over to other United
Nations for local trial. If these defendants should succeed,
for any reason, in escaping the condemnation of this
Tribunal, or if they obstruct or abort this trial, those who
are American-held prisoners will be delivered up to our
continental Allies. For these defendants, however, we have
set up an International Tribunal and have undertaken the
burden of participating in a complicated effort to give them
fair and dispassionate hearings. That is the best known
protection to any man with a defense worthy of being heard.
The
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Volume
I Chapter V
Justice Jackson's Opening Address for the United States of America
(Part 1 of 17)