Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 1: Trials, Jews and Nazis
general significance are a series held by the British; of these, only the Belsen case
and the Zyklon B case interests us to any extent. The Poles, Russians, French,
Dutch, and Italians have all held trials of no significance except to the victims.
The Bonn Government has held some trials of slight interest, for example the
“Auschwitz trial” of 1963-1965, reported on by Langbein, by Laternser, and by
Naumann.
The manner, in which the IMT and the NMT were constituted, can be set forth
with sufficient completeness for our purposes. Since the autumn of 1943, there
had been in existence a United Nations War Crimes Commission, headquartered
in London. However, the Commission never really did anything except realize, at
one point, that if anything was to be done, it would be done by the individual Allied
governments.
The first serious moves started in the United States. In August 1944, the Joint
Chiefs of Staff considered a proposed program for dealing with war crimes. The
proposal had been approved by the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army. On
October 1, 1944, the Joint Chiefs approved this proposal and, at about the same
time and in accordance with directives of the Secretary of War, a “War Crimes
Branch” was established in the Department of the Judge Advocate General. The
War Crimes Branch, headed by Brigadier General John M. Weir with Colonel
Melvin Purvis as his assistant, was responsible for handling all war crimes matters
for the State, War, and Navy Departments.
The proposal that had been approved by the Joint Chiefs did not survive for
very long, for its character had been rather traditional, in that it contemplated, basically,
the trial of persons who had broken the accepted laws of war in the field.
Thus, offenses committed before the war or acts by enemy authorities against
their own nationals were not considered to be under Allied jurisdiction. Thus, for
example, all measures against German Jews were considered outside the jurisdiction
of the planned war crimes trials. The concept of war crimes was, at this point,
strongly under the influence of the principle, never questioned, that a belligerent
may try enemy soldiers for the same sorts of offenses for which he may try his
own soldiers.
The Secretary of War, Stimson, had a conference with President Roosevelt on
November 21, 1944, at which Roosevelt made it clear that he had in mind a much
broader idea of war crimes and that the proposals approved by the Joint Chiefs
were completely unsatisfactory.
Accordingly, in January 1945, Roosevelt designated Judge Samuel Rosenman
as his personal representative in discussions on war crimes problems. A meeting
of January 18, among Stimson, Rosenman, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and
others resulted in general agreement on very much expanded conceptions of war
crimes to be tried. 33
Biddle was later to sit as a judge at the IMT, although, for Roosevelt’s use at
the Yalta conference, he had written in January 1945 that “the chief German leaders
are well known and the proof of their guilt will not offer great difficulties.”
33
Taylor (Aug. 15, 1949), 1-3; New York Times (Feb. 1, 1945), 4.
37