Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 1: Trials, Jews and Nazis
could try Germans for crimes twenty, thirty, forty years old.
We’ll be too busy with the current crop of war criminals, though, to have
much time to look into ancient wrongdoings.”
In London, Jackson negotiated with the Allies on the trials, and his interim report
of June 6 became the basis for the “London Agreement” of August 8, signed
by the U.S., Britain, Russia, and France. An “indictment” was filed against twenty
four individuals and six organizations (the SS, the General Staff, etc.) on October
18, and the trial opened at Nuremberg on November 20, 1945. Three of the listed
defendants did not stand trial. Martin Bormann was never found, Robert Ley
committed suicide before the trial, and Gustav Krupp was too ill and too old to
stand trial. An attempt was made by the prosecution to substitute Krupp’s son as
defendant, but this was too much even for that court, so the trial of Alfred Krupp
had to wait until the NMT.
In passing we should note that Justice Jackson, in addition to being the American
chief prosecutor at the trial, was also in a formal sense the leading personality
in the London negotiations relative to the formulation of the legal system, under
which he was to operate at the trial. A rare opportunity for a prosecutor, and
probably an utterly unprecedented one in respect to proceedings that civilized
people have seriously considered to be trials.
Equally unique features of the final charter of the IMT were that its jurisdiction
was not restricted to acts taken in connection with the war but extended over
the entire life of the Nazi Party, that the defense of superior orders was inapplicable,
and that defendants could be compelled by the prosecution to testify.
The War Crimes Branch that had been set up in 1944 did not cease to operate,
because in connection with the IMT trial Jackson had “enlisted the cooperation
and participation of the War Crimes Branch of the Judge Advocate General’s Department.”
Moreover, in the early months of the IMT trial (and perhaps also later),
the ordinary prosecution staff, exclusive of Jackson, was “on the payroll of the
Judge Advocate General.” 36
A significant role for the Judge Advocate General’s department (JAG) was
most natural under the circumstances because the JAG was the legal agency of the
Army, and the basic American administrative machinery in Germany immediately
after the war was that of the U.S. Army. The traditional role of the JAG had been
the administration of military justice: courts-martial and related matters. However,
during World War II the operations of the JAG had spread to all phases of military
activity where legal matters arose; it even got involved in litigations relative
to war production contracts. The Judge Advocate General, Major General Myron
C. Cramer, had given a speech in May 1945, in which he declared that the pursuit
and arraignment of Nazis was to tax to the utmost the capacity of the War Crimes
Branch and become a major activity of the JAG, whose resources he pledged to
Jackson. While it is not specified exactly what the War Crimes Branch did in connection
with the IMT, it is most likely that it effectively supervised the American
(hence major) role in the screening and selection of prosecution and defense law-
36
Taylor (Apr. 1949), 248-255; Select Committee, 1536.
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