Justice case at Nuremberg - page 1

By Charles M. LaFollette Director, OMG. Wuerttemberg-Baden Part V ERE AT NUREMBERG the pre¬ cedent is first set that inter¬ national law recognizes persecution and extermination on political grounds as a crime against humanity. We next come to a consideration — of the war crime inherent in the pro¬ mulgation and enforcement of the Nacht- und Nebel-ErlaB (Night and Fog Decree). Seven defendants, Schle- gelberger, Klemm, Rothenberger,Lautz, Mettgenberger, Von Amman and Joel, were found guilty of war crimes by reasons of taking a consenting part in or being connected with the plan and enterprise of Hitler to carry out this program for deporting citizens of France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway for secret trials which were mockeries of justice, and internment in concentration camps in Germany. The crime lay in the se¬ crecy of the proceedings which vio¬ lated Sec. II, Article 23 h and Sec. Ill, Article 43 and 46 of the Hague Con¬ vention. At the outset we point out that assuming that the secrecy, detainment without trial and even after acquittal, and deportations could be upheld, which they cannot, it is also true that no reason short of "military neces¬ sity" could have justified the institu¬ tion of any trials in violation of the aforesaid conventions. The proof of "military necessity" had to come from the defendants under every rule of criminal procedure. Yet there is not only not one scin¬ tilla of proof of such necessity offered by the defendants but most if not all of them testified that they never made inquiry of the Wehrmacht or any per¬ son in the German government, as to whether the Nacht und Nebel (NN) prisoners whom they controlled and tried under the administration of the Ministry of Justice, had been taken into custody as the result of a deter¬ mination of "military necessity" by the German occupying auhorities. Therefore, in the face of the record once the individual defendants had been connected with this plan, by evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, This is the fifth and final article in the series of five articles presenting the detailed review of the Justice Case before the Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, as given by Charles M. LaFollette before an inter¬ zonal conference of jurists and lawyers in Munich early in June. Mr. LaFollette, who is now di¬ rector of the Office of Military Government for Wuerttemberg- Baden, was the prosecutor at the trial of 15 former members of the Nazi Ministry of Justice and high- placed jurists during the Nazi regime. their conviction became a legal ne¬ cessity, since they failed to avail themselves of the only conceivably possible defense. N THE ISSUE of military ne¬ cessity for the decree the court found: "There was no proof that the de¬ portation of the civilian population from occupied territories was neces- The defendants (lett) in the Justice Case "listen in" on testimony during their war crimes trial in Nuremberg (PIO OCCWC) AUGUST 24 1948 9 INFORMATION BULLETIN