Doenitz and Nuremburg

[kapitanprien]

(This is copied from my U-Boat Site, and I'm sure many will find it an interesting read...warning - it is LONG...)

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"U.S. Constitution - Article One, Section 9 - No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed..."

This book is very damning. I didn't seek it out, it found me actually. As I was working on my U-Boat Journal site, looking for a decent website on Doenitz, I happened to come across one. I was browsing through the site and found the link on the U.S. Naval officers defending Doenitz. That's how I found the title...I then went to Amazon.com and read more on it (and of course - sometime later came across all those excerpts which just made me question things even more). Below is some information from the book (that's in highlighted quotes). Due to the fact that I live in the U.S., what I will 'pull' from the book as far as correspondents, will be mainly from the U.S. (but will also put in quotes from countries such as Belgium, France, Switzerland - along with the Commonwealth nations). In addition, I will be focusing mainly on Doenitz, for obvious reasons. I am also choosing to post about this due to the educational view (and some would say 'societal view') on this matter - that it was "right" to have these trials. I would also like to say that there are correspondents in here of other ethnic descent - so this is not some 'racial thing' (crimes against humanity - ethnic cleansing) as some may quickly assume. In this book there are those who are of African descent who spoke out against the trials. So for those who want to turn this into some sort of 'racial issue' - I will tell you that you won't be able to. Also note that one of the editors is a member of the ACLU (at the time this book was published).

I am going to see if I can find more on these Harry Dexter White papers that were published in 1955, that is mentioned by one of the correspondents in this - quoted below, and see what they are all about. Should I be able to - I will add the information here on them. For some reason, the phrase, "Don't shoot the messenger." is going through my head as I type this. I know there will be those who will not like what they read, but there are the historical facts nonetheless.

"Anybody who was a victim of the iniquitous Nuremburg Trials has my deep sympathy. I am only surprised that so many reputable men in both our countries were found willing to take part in such a travesty of justice. Admiral Doenitz was a distinguished member of a fine profession, against which I had the honour to fight in World War I. Naturally would not expect me to treat the charges brought against the admiral otherwise than with suspicion. The Nuremburg Trials leave an indelible blot upon the reputations of all countries which took part in them. I have been studying the Harry Dexter White papers, published in 1955, by your government, where I found my views as to the origin of the trials confirmed." - Admiral Sir Barry Domville, R.N., K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G.

Book: Doenitz at Nuremburg: A Re-appraisal published by Institute for Historical Review (my copy is dated 1983)

Preface by Justice William L. Hart (Supreme Court of Ohio)
Edited by H.K. Thompson, Jr. and Henry Strutz

About the authors:

H.K. Thompson, Jr. - Yale graduate in naval science and history. Background in military and maritime law - he has been for nearly 30 years, a specialist and researcher on the war crimes trials. Member of Manuscript Society, American Philatelic Society, American Numismatic Association, The Civil War Round Table and the American Civil Liberties Union/ACLU.

Henry Strutz - M.A. from Brown University, a college teacher for over 20 years in English and foreign languages, and history. Taught at Columbua University, C.C.N.Y., Rutgers University, Yeshiva University, Skidmore College and elsewhere. Skilled translator and editor, qualified in five languages, he has made many different translations of manuscript collections for donation to archival collections of major American universities. Associate member of U.S. Naval Institute. His articles have appeared in scholarly journals and national magazines.

The editors state in their introduction, that the project from which the book stems was started by the co-editors in 1956, on the occasion of the release of Grand Admiral Doenitz from Spandau. They go on to state, "the purpose was a sampling of up-dated qualified opinion on the Nuremburg and related 'war crimes trials' of Axis personnel conducted by the Allies just after World War II, with emphasis on the trial of Doenitz. The initial results encouraged us to proceed further, which we have done, slowly and methodically, over a period of almost 20 years."

They mention there were those who continued to support the trials falling under several categories:

1) "A hard core who still maintained the legality of the proceedings, consisting in large measure of persons who had in some way participated in the 'trials'."


2) "Those who while admitting that the proceedings were illegal, felt that they were necessary as an instrument of political policy."


3) "Those who felt that the trials were an attempt to establish a new body of international law aimed at limiting future 'aggressive wars'; nevertheless many in this category were disturbed at the ex post facto application of this newly created 'law'." (I personally feel that this is the current 'justification' and rationalization for the Nuremburg trials.)


They state that in deciding which contributions to put in the book, it was necessary to read, evaluate and categorize many thousands of letters, briefs, and manuscripts, varying in length from a single sentence to 30 pages. The editors wanted to make sure that there was a decent cross section of the arguments - and the pages show it - all different ranks, nationalities, but not just military. There are also clerics, authors, lawyers, publishers, statesmen, diplomats, jurists and even theatrical personalities.

Included with the arguments, there are the photographs and a fascimilie of the author's signature. The photos were obtained with cooperation of the subjects. They do state a word of caution - that in extremely few cases has any one of the contributors seen the work of another. All the contributors expressed their own views in their own way and cannot be held responsible for another's view. Some addressed themselves only to Doenitz' case, "others only to the general question of Nuremburg, still others to a combination of the two."


Some views, due to technical and practical reasons, weren't used in the book. For example: "Dean Douglas Horton of the Harvard Divinity School expressed the view that our arguments were incontrovertible. General Walter Bedell Smith (Chief of Staff, A.E.F. in Europe, 1944-1945; Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1946-1949; Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1950-1953, and Under Secretary of the State, 1953-1954), commented that his indirect connection with the Nuremburg trials had been on his conscience for many years. Vice Admiral Emory Scott Land (Chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, 1938-1946, and head of the War Shipping Administration, 1942-1945) found himself in general agreement with the views of Admiral Gallery (see Prologue). Attorney Joseph N. Welch (counsel for the U.S. Army in the famous McCarthy hearings) expressed his disapproval of the Nuremburg trials, holding them to have been a mistake."


The editors state that all of the papers and research materials used (and unused) in connection with this book will be available in the H.K. Thompson Collections at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University.

They continue: "As the readers are no doubt aware, one of the great errors of the Nuremburg and related proceedings was to deny to the Axis personnel the defense of having complied with orders of duly constituted higher authority. This particular 'heritage' of Nuremburg has left us with a situation where any offical in any chain of command must evaluate orders received in terms of his own code of personal morals or ethics and the implied moral or ethical codes of others, rejecting those orders which he feels unsuitable....Applied in the military, the results can only be total chaos. ... President Dwight D. Eisenhower held (New York Times, May 13, 1954) that, 'The obedience of an officer must be absolute and is not subject to private moral scruples. The very being of an Army consists in the execution of the commands of the leaders and the laws of the Government without hesitation, the responsiblity for which rests alone upon the Commander-in-Chief...In the Army, as especially in State Service, the oath of allegiance obliges obedience to those in command and their orders. Not for one second would I ever suffer disobedience or insubordination.'"

From Rear Admiral John D. Hayes: "Many distinguished naval officers have given their blessing to this campaign, holding that the 'crime' for which Doenitz was convicted was, in reality, the effective professional direction of the wartime navy of his country, a 'criminal standard' under which any career military or naval officer could be convicted..."

Telford Taylor, U.S. chief counsel - one of the major proponents of the Nuremburg, Tokyo and related proceedings, states in his book: Nuremburg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy - Quadrangle Books, Inc., a New York Times Company, 1970 - "Karl Doenitz was only a commodore and a commander of the small U-Boat arm when the war began; the Tribunal found that he had neither been present at Hitler's conferences nor informed about his plans, and based on the conviction on the fact that Doenitz 'waged' an aggressive war because his submarines were 'fully prepared to wage war'. On that basis every commander of combat troops or ships would have been equally guilty, but the Tribunal's opinion showed no awareness of these far-reaching implications. Inferentially though not explicitly the judgement of Doenitz was repudated by a later Nuremburg court that acquitted on the same charge commanders of much higher rank than Doenitz on the ground that they were not at the 'policy level'..."

From my understanding - what Taylor is getting to with not being informed about Hitler's plans - was that, as has been stated in the page on 'The Nazi Label', that the policy of genocide/industrial mass murder was state secret. This is akin to my point of those calling all who fought for Germany criminals. You simply cannot put someone who is in this sort of position (and even on a greater point - someone further down in rank) in the same 'basket' with those who were willing planners of the Holocaust.

And this is just the very beginning of the book. I was using a blue highlighter to highlight passages, but decided to just give up as there is simply so much it would use up all the ink.

"Among the many inconsistencies and inequities which serve to invalidate the Nuremburg and related trials was their failure to deal with the subject of aerial bombardment. Instead, the Doenitz submarine service was singled out for condemnation, as if there were any substantial difference between a torpedo from below and a bomb from above; the matter of 'warning' might be about equal, but aerial bombs generally carried substantially heavier loads. Instead, the Tribunal realized that such Allied acts as the bombing of Dresden and the unleashing of the atomic bomb upon Japan would be, by the Tribunal's own definition, such as it was, 'war crimes' par excellence, and therefore must be swept under the Nuremburg rug. The defense which would have inevitably been offered in aerial bombardment cases, that such bombings, 'shortened the war', could have easily been overcome. It was clearly the incredibly stupid Allied policy of 'unconditional surrender' which prolonged the war and, 'stiffened the enemy resistance to the cost of uncounted American and Allied lives' (John O'Donnell in the N.Y. Daily News, Jan. 26, 1959). Justice Robert H. Jackson stated at the Nuremburg trials, '...if it [the Nuremburg proceeding] is to served any useful purpose, it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.' This was not done. 'Judges' do not sit in judgment on themselves, as Justice Jackson well knew.


"One might ask why, in view of the extent of U.S. involvement in the Nuremburg proceedings and the participation of U.S. prosecuting personnel, the basic unconstitutionality of the process did not cause a review in U.S. courts by writ of habeas corpus despite the provisions of Article 26 of the Charter annexed to the London Agreement providing that, 'The judgment of the Tribunal shall be final and not subject to review.' Article 26 was intended to get the political officialdom of the U.S., England, and France 'off the hook' at home because of the obvious legal repugnance of the Nuremburg proceedings. Counsel for various defendants in Nuremburg and related trials did indeed petition the U.S. Supreme Court, but these petitions were first dodged on the grounds of 'no original jurisdiction'. On December 20, 1948, the petitions were finally denied, the Supreme Court taking the interesting position that, 'We are satisfied that the Tribunal sentencing these prisoners is not a tribunal of the United States.' Then why, one might ask, were U.S. citizens and government officials serving as prosecutors and judges, and why has the U.S. government participated in and endorsed an alien tribunal which does not accord to defendants the same rights which American defendants would receive before U.S. courts at home?


"Finally, on June 5, 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court had to face the issues, defense counsel having secured a ruling from the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia holding that, 'if a person has a right to a writ of habeas corpus, he cannot be deprived of the privilege by an omission in a federal jurisdictional statute.' Stripped away by this ruling was all the hokus about the 'international' character of the Nuremburg and other such tribunals. Pressed to find a way out, the U.S. Supreme Court mustered its legal courage and insight with the final side-stepping ruling that, 'A non-resident enemy alien, especially one who has remained in the service of the enemy, does not even have qualified access to our courts.' That was how it resolved the legal issues. Justice Hugo L. Black, in his dissent, exposed the utter hypocrisy of the Supreme Court decision. Justic Black wrote: 'The Court cannot, and despite its rhetoric on the point does not deny that if they [the defendants] were imprisoned in the United States our courts would clearly have jurisdiction to hear their habeas corpus complaints. Does a prisoner's right to test the legality of a sentence then depend on where the government chooses to imprison him?...We ask only whether the Military Tribunal was legally constituted and whether it has jurisdiction to impose punishment for the conduct charged. Such limited habeas corpus review is the right of every citizen of the United States, civilian or soldier...Any contention that a similarly limited use of the habeas corpus for these prisoners would somehow give them a preferred position in the law cannot be taken seriously...'"


U.S. Supreme Court Justice Wm. O. Douglas: "...the Constitution follows the flag. It is no defense for him to say that he acts for the Allied Powers. He is an American citizen who is performing functions for our government. It is our Constitution which he supports and defends. If there is evasion or violation of its obligations, it is no defense that he acts for another nation. There is at present no group or confederation to which an official of this Nation owes a higher obligation than he owes to us. I assume that we have no authority to review the judgment of an international tribunal. But if as a result of unlawful action, one of our Generals holds a prisoner in his custody, the writ of habeas corpus can effect a release from that custody. It is the history function of the writ to examine into the cause of restraint of liberty."

The Introduction goes on further... "The conduct of the American judges at Nuremburg was, to say the very least, of the most questionable propriety... the U.S. judges knowlingly permitted the Soviet prosecutor to admit false evidence against the defendants (page 70). Further, Justice Jackson hosted a party for visiting Andrei Vishkinsky (notorious Soviet prosecutor in the bloody Stalin purges), at which party the American judges joined in a toast by Vishinsky, 'To the German prisoners, may they all be hanged!' (page 71). By any ethical standards of any bar association in the western world, such 'judges' should have been disqualified and themselves charged. ...Section IV, paragraph (e) of the London Agreement of Aug. 8, 1945, provided that, 'A defendant shall have the right through himself or through his counsel to present evidence at the Trial in support of his defense, and to cross-examine any witness called by the Prosecution.'" Because the 'judges' accepted written depositions against the prisoners charged with capital crimes, they were denied this right of cross-examination.

American diplomat John Moors Cabot Ass't. Secretary of State in 1953 and Deputy Commandant of the National War College had "informed the editors of his concern that the professors of law today cite Nuremburg decisions as a basis for many extreme positions, and expressed his feeling that the legally obscene Nuremburg doctrines have no more permanant value as precedents than the Dred Scott decision has in modern America."

"War is a political weapon of sovereign powers. It has always existed in the history of mankind and, however much an idealistic condition of perpetual peace and harmony is to be desired and striven for, human nature and the state of the world today give every indication that war will continue to exist. It appears that Isaiah's day, when the nations shall not make war anymore, contingency of 'aggressive war' is the duty of all general staffs and to be prepared to conduct 'aggressive war' is the duty of all military commanders. Nothing else makes any sense."

From the Preface by Justice William L. Hart (Supreme Court of Ohio):

"During and following the trials, much criticism of them was expressed by the legal authorities and by the press. The substance of such criticism was that morally the trials were unfair because it instituted and carried out by the victors over the vanquished in a past war, and that the tribunal administered 'political justice' based on a desire for vengeance, thus sacrificing 'democratic' for 'totalitarian' concepts.


"Under the heading of 'Aggressor Nations,' the Chicago Tribune, under date of October 2, 1946, the next day after the sentences were imposed, carried an editorial which said: 'The truth of the matter is that no one of the victors was free of the guilt which its judges attributed to the vanquished.' Measured by the Code and standards applied in these trials, it is disturbing to contemplate how the officers of our American forces might have fared had they been tried for their conduct in letting loose the devastation which practically wiped out Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, the former two days before and the latter the next day after the adoption of the London Charter to which the United States was a party.


"In my judgement, the procedure by which the Nuremburg Tribunal was created and the criminal trials thereunder conducted, was completely fraught with illegality. May I briefly state my reasons for this judgement. In the first place, American authorities have invariably taken the postition that an individual forming a part of a nationally organized army or navy and acting under the authority of his government, cannot be held answerable as a private trespasser or criminal for acts committed under such authority. Such acts are considered acts of the state and not those of the individual.


"In connection with the famous McLeod Case (1840), Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, wrote the British Prime Minister as follows: 'That an individual forming part of a public force and acting under the authority of his government is not to be held answerable as a private trespasser or malefactor, is a principle of public law sanctioned by all civilized nations, and which the Government of the United States has no inclination to dispute.'


"From a legal standpoint, there is no answer to this criticism. It was completely justified. The fact is that there does not exist and never has existed any international court or tribunal having jurisdiction to try offenses such as those named in the London Charter.


"The designation and definition by the London Charter of the so-called crimes with which the defendants were charged, after such so-called offenses were committed, clearely violated the well-established rule against ex post facto legislation in criminal matters. The generally accepted doctrine is expressed in the adage: 'Nullem Crimen Sine Lege' - a person cannot be sentenced to punishment for a crime unless he had infringed a law in force at the time he committed the offense and unless that law prescribed the penalty. Courts in passing on this proposition had declared that: 'It is to be observed that this maxim is not a limitation of sovereignty, but is a general principle of justice adhered to by all civilized nations.'


"In my opinion, there was no legal justification for the trial, conviction or sentence of the so-called 'war criminals' by the Nuremburg Tribunal. We have set a bad precedent. It should not be followed in the future."

Prologue - excerpts from Rear Admiral Dan V. Gallery's book 'Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea':

"When the statesmen louse up their job so badly that they have to have the military men pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them, a lot of innocent bystanders are going to get hurt. When nations, by mutual consent, decide to ignore the commandment 'Thou shalt no kill,' it is very difficult for the military leaders to restrict the killing to just the right people.


"You might think that since our submarines fought the same way the Germans did, we would sweep the question of Prize Warfare under the rug after the war and say no more about violation of the laws of war at sea. Our naval officers were perfectly willing to do this, but our statesmen and lawyers were vindictive. When the war was over, they insisted on trying the German Admirals Raeder and Doenitz at Nuremburg as war criminals for permitting their submarines to do exactly what ours did. A justice of our Supreme Court prosecuted them and tried to hang them. To our eternal shame, we convicted the German admirals of violating the laws of war at sea and sentenced them to long terms of imprisonment: Raeder to life; and Doenitz to ten years.


"This kangaroo court at Nuremburg was officialy known as the 'International Military 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. Some military titles are listed on the staffs of the secretariat and prosecution counsel, but these belong to a lot of lawyers temporarily masquerading in uniform as military men.


"Nuremburg was, in fact, a lawyers' tribunal, although I can readily understand why the legal profession is ashamed to claim it, and deliberately stuck a false label on it.


"I'm glad our real military men had nothing to do with the travesty on justice that the lawyers and 'statesmen' conducted at Nuremburg. Raeder and Doenitz simply did their duty to their country in World War II, trying to straighten out the mess that their politicians got them into as all military men are sworn to do. Our politicians and lawyers set a rather stupid precedent when they tried these officers for carrying out the orders of their own misguided politicians.


"Actually the decision to court-martial the German military brass was on a par with the 'unconditional surrender' blunder, which prolonged rather than shortened the war. From now on, Nuremburg gives enemy military leaders good reason for fighting to the last bullet and dying in the trenches rather than trying to negotiate surrender of a hopelessly lost cause. There certainly is no use in surrendering if you know you will be hauled up before a kangaroo court and hanged, as most defendants were at Nuremburg.


"Even today, few people realize that the German Navy, in the last days of the war, evacuated several times as many refugees from East Prussia as the British Navy took out from Dunkirk. As soon as Doenitz got his people to safety in West Germany, he surrendered - but one of the charges on which our Supreme Court prosecutor tried to hang him was that he prolonged the war!


"Had the German people seen fit to try their own military leaders for losing the war, I might go along with that. Or if our statesmen had insisted on hanging the Nazi politicians and had felt that a mock trial was necessary before doing it, I could see the logic in that. But our politicians and lawyers were undermining their own authority when they convicted the German generals and admirals. After all, one thing the much maligned military brass must do, in a democracy as well as a dictatorship, is to swallow their convictions, if any, and do as they are told by the politicians...


"At Nuremburg, 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 committed the Katyn Forest massacre and produced an array of witnesses to swear at Nuremburg that the Germans had done it. Maybe crimes of such magnitude as those charged at Nuremburg should be left to the Last Judgement for punishment.


"The outstanding example of barefaced hypocrisy at Nuremburg was the trial of Admiral Doenitz. We tried him on three charges: (1) Conspiring to wage aggressive war; (2) Waging aggressive war; and (3) Violation of the laws of war at sea. Even the loaded court at Nuremburg acquitted him of the first charge, but convicted him of the other two. How in the name of common sense a military officer can wage any kind of war except an aggressive one without being a traitor to his country, I'll never know. I took an oath when I entered the U.S. Navy almost forty years ago, to defend the United States against all enemies - and there wasn't anything said about doing it in a non-aggressive manner...If the Nuremburg evidence had shown that Doenitz waged a non-aggressive war, the German people themselves would have been entitled to hang him.


"Doenitz's conviction on charge three - violation of the laws of war at sea - was an insult to our own submariners. Admiral Doenitz requested early in the trial that our own Admiral Nimitz be summoned as a witness in his defense to testify about how our subs operated in the Pacific. Our Supreme Court prosecutor had to hem and haw and back water fast when that hot potato was tossed at him. Admiral Nimitz (God bless him for the honest seafaring man that he was) finally submitted a sworn statement, answering questions put to him by Doenitz's counsel and said that our submarines in the Pacific waged unrestricted warfare the same as the Germans did in the Atlantic.


"Despite this, we convicted Admiral Doenitz on the charge of violating the laws of war at sea. If the old gentleman ever gets out of jail, I hope I never meet him. I would have trouble looking him in the eye. The only crime he committed was that of almost beating us in a bloody but 'legal' fight.


"Doenitz's conviction for violating the laws of war in carrying out the orders of his government, raises a serious question. We have just promulgated a Code of Conduct for our fighting men, designed to steel them against brainwashing if captured, and thus protect them from prosecution in our own courts for improper conduct while prisoners of war. Perhaps, to protect our soldiers from prosecution by tribunals like Nuremburg, we should amend the oath of allegiance that they take when they enter the service. After what we did to Doenitz, maybe we should add a proviso to the oath saying, 'Before carrying out the orders of your superior officers, I will check to insure that they are compatible with our international commitments, the Charter of the United Nations, etc., etc.'


"The only precedent set at Nuremburg in which I take any stock at all is that they didn't hang any admirals!


"The Nuremburg trials placed a solemn stamp of approval on a code of war at sea which we not only didn't follow ourselves in World War II, but which may embarrass us in the future. We are, at present, busily engaged in building atomic submarines designed to remain submerged for weeks at a times. It is absurd to think that these submarines will expose themselves on the surface to follow the archaic code of sailing ships, which we confirmed as being the law of war at sea for the atomic age when we threw Doenitz in jail.


"Lest there be any mistake about how I feel on this matter, I hasten to say I am not in favor of actually trying to follow Prize Rules with atomic submarines. I'm in favor of denouncing pacts which can't be followed in war time and of announcing what everybody knows anyway: that in case we are attacked, we will defend ourselves with every weapon in our arsenal."

[kapitanprien]

The authors have posted excerpts from ' The Law and Custom of the Sea', by H.A. Smith, D.C.L. (Oxon), Professor Emeritus of International Law in the University of London.

It is stated that "The position to which we have now come is that each belligerent decides for himself which of the rules it will suit him to observe and fastens upon his adversary the responsibility for his own illegalities." That sounds much like the 'psychological projection and denial' on the collective level.

"The prosecution charged him with responsibility for the German submarine warfare, particularly violation of the Protocol of 1936, which laid down that submarines, like surface ships, were forbidden to sink merchant vessels without making provision for the safety of those on board. Upon this point his main defense was founded upon the British Admiralty orders, which were described by the Tribunal in these words: - Shortly after the outbreak of war the British Admiralty, in accordance with its Handbook of Instructions of 1938 to the Merchant Navy, armed its merchant vessels, in many cases convoyed them with armed escort, gave orders to send position reports upon sighting submarines, thus integrating merchant vessels into the warning system of naval intelligence. On October 1, 1939, the British Admiralty announced British merchant ships had been ordered to ram U-boats if possible. In the actual circumstances of this case the Tribunal is not prepared to hold Doenitz guilty for his conduct of submarine warfare against British merchant ships.


"In other words, these ships had been so far assimilated to warships by the Admiralty orders that they were no longer entitled to the protection of the Protocol. But the Tribunal went on to say that this defense did not apply to the sinking of neutral ships in the 'operational zones' - The proclamation of operational zones and the sinking of neutral merchant vessels which enter those zones present a different question. This practice was employed in the war of 1914-1918 by Germany and adopted in retaliation by Great Britain. The Washington Conference of 1922, the London Naval Agreement of 1930, and the Protocol of 1936, were entered into with full knowledge that such zones had been employed in the first world war. Yet the Protocol made no exception for operational zones. The order of Doenitz to sink neutral ships without warning when found within these zones was, therefore, in the opinion of the Tribunal, a violation of the Protocol.


"The tribunal then went on to discuss the 'no rescue' orders, the defense on this point being that under the conditions of modern warfare rescue was in fact impossible without putting the submarine herself in peril. The Tribunal refused to accept this plea, but at the same time found itself bound to recognize some rather embarrassing facts on the other side: - In view of all the facts proved and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on May 8, 1940, according to which all vessels should be sink at sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Admiral Nimitz stating that unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war, the sentence of Doenitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare.


"The clumsiness and obscurity of this language perhaps indicate the embarrassment which the members of the Tribunal felt in dealing with the case of Doenitz, and it is not easy to ascertain from the rest of the judgement the precise facts upon which he was condemned."

Excerpts from 'Profiles in Courage' by President John F. Kennedy on Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio (1946):

"The Constitution of the United States was the gospel which guided the policy decisions of the Senator from Ohio. It was his source, his weapon and his salvation. And when the Constitution commanded no 'ex post facto laws', Bob Taft accepted this precept as permanently wise and universally applicable. 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 he was repelled by the picture of his country discarding those Constitutional precepts in order to punish a vanquished enemy...

"These conclusions are shared, I believe, by a substantial number of American citizens today. And they were share, at least privately, by a goodly number in 1946. But no politician of consequence would speak out...none, that is, but Senator Taft...The Nuremburg Trials were at no time before the Congress for consideration. They were not in any sense an issue in the campaign. To speak out unnecessarily would be politically costly and clearly futile. But Bob Taft spoke out.


"On October 6, 1946, Senator Taft appeared before a conference on our Anglo-American heritage, sponsored by Kenyon College in Ohio...tilting his address 'Equal Justice Under Law', Taft cast aside his general reluctance to embark upon startling novel and dramatic approaches. 'The trial of the vanquished by the victors', he told an attentive if somewhat astonished audience, 'cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice...About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice...In these trials we have accepted the Russian idea of the purpose of trials - government policy and not justice - with little relation to Anglo-Saxon heritage. By clothing policy in the forms of legal procedure, we may discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for years to come. In the last analysis, even at the end of a frightful war, we should view the future with more hope if even our enemies believed that we had treated them justly in our English-speaking concept of law, in the provision of relief and in the final disposal of territory...'"

The senator insisted that the trials were a "blot on American Constitutional history, and a serious departure from our Anglo-Saxon heritage of fair and equal treatment, a heritage which had rightly made this country respected throughout the world. 'We can't even teach our own people the sound principles of liberty and justice', he concluded."



"My views in the matter of the War Criminal Trials, especially that of Admiral Doenitz, no doubt coincide with those of most professional Army, Navy, and Air Force officers. War at sea was so swift in World War II, and more so now, that a submarine commander could not afford to jeopardize his mission (to destroy the enemy) or his ship. Often, the enemy consisted of several ships and aircraft. I have always felt that the 'War Crimes Trials' were the brain child fo Stalin and sold to the U.S. and Britain. Stalin would have preferred to execute them. It was all done in a spirit of revenge, similar to the 'Unconditional Surrender' ultimatim instigated by Mr. Morgenthau. The purpose of war is victory and the soldier, sailor and airman should not be penalized if he carries out the orders of his civilian authority in an honorable manner. I am glad that Admiral Doenitz will have the opportunity of knowing the sentiments of U.S. professional service officers." -

Commodore Carlos Augustus Bailey, U.S.N.
Commanded destroyers, World War II

"Admiral Doenitz and other leaders who were imprisoned should be recompensed for their treatment...We can never adequately compensate the leaders punished by imprisonment or death...There are no generally accepted principles in international law under which they could have been tried and punished...And there is no international criminal tribunal. What we did in this case was resort to private vengeance." -

Dr. John L. Gillin
Emetrius Professor of Criminology, University of Wisconsin
Author and expert on crime

"Please add my name to those on the list to be presented to Admiral Doenitz. I certainly find the Nuremburg Trials a fantastic desecration of the ideals of a Western Civilization, and appalling miscarriage of justice, especially toward professional military officers and civil servants, and, in many instances, a misuse of evidence for vicious ends, all of which will someday be exposed as a shocking travesty of high legal and moral principles." -

Henry M. Adams, Ph.D.
Professor of History, University of California
Military Police and Civil Affairs Officer in Italy, World War II
Executive Officer, Military Government Detachment, Saarland, 1945

"It goes without saying that the convening authorities of the War Crimes Tribunals had no jurisdiction over the places, persons, or alleged crimes involved in the War Crimes Trials at the times those crimes were alleged to have been committed. Those 'War Crimes Tribunals' had the same legal status as a Kangaroo Court and conducted those trials with the same regard for justice as could be expected of a Kangaroo Court. As regards the brutality aspect, just how can a campaign of 'mass slaughter', which legalized war is, can be conducted without someone getting killed and others getting hurt is not apparent...The violations of so-called 'humane warfare' by two opposing forces come close to balancing on the 'brutality' scoreboard. Naturally, people behind the lines only get one side of the atrocity picture and they do all the publicizing. From the armed services point of view, if the War Crimes Trials are to become a precedent to be followed in the future we had as well eliminate all natioinal armed services. If a serviceman cannot carry out the policies and orders of his own government and the senior officers placed over him without running the risk of being tried by an illegally constituted tribunal and hanged by a foreign government, he is not likely to risk his neck very far in support of his own government. The alternative would have to be International Armed Services and the elimination of all aspects of Nationalism, which appears to be exactly what the originators of the War Crimes Trials doctrine were striving for. Had the originators of the War Crimes Trials doctrine been in any degree motivated by justice and a desire to punish the perpetrators of extreme atrocities in time of war they would have at least made some attempt to bring to trial hundreds of Russian officials for perpetrating the most heinous atrocities ever inflicted upon civilized peoples against the Poles and Germans and no doubt against all other peoples who have at any time been under Russian control. The 'War Crimes Trials' can only be justified by Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, and New Dealist Doctrines." -

Rear Admiral Henry C. Flanagan, U.S.N.
Commander, Transport Divisions, Pacific, World War II

"The Nuremburg Charter under which Doenitz was tried created alleged crimes for which there is no precedent or justification in international law or usage. Applied impartially, it would have rendered officers of the Allies' Fighting Services liable to similar penalties, if their countries had been defeated. It would make officers responsible for actions committed by their subordinates without their knowledge or approval. It also rendered subordinates liable to severe penalties for obeying orders, though their own law enforced penalties for disobeying them. It is deplorable that civilized Governments should have revenged themselves on Officers, who in the light of history, merely did their duty." -

Vice Admiral Kenneth G.B. Dewar, C.B.E.
Commanded H.M.S. Royal Oak and Tiger


"I am grateful for the opportunity of being one of the many World War II veterans to pay homage to a truly great naval officer. During 1944, I commanded the Northeast Greenland Task Unit of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet I believe that one of the most remarkable and heroic feats in submarine history was the navigation of a German submarine under approximately 100 miles of pack ice, to surface in the shore lead and attack one of my ships, the Northland. I had completely discarded such a possibility in my estimate of the situation. We think of the trans-polar sub-ice navigation by the Nautilus and Skate as outstanding. Yet, in 1944, before the advent of the inertial system of navigation, atomic propulsion and other modern implements to endurance, this intrepid German Commander (supporting Operation Edelweiss) contended with the swift East Greenland current bearing icebergs as well as a moving carpet of sea ice across unsounded depths. I am sure Admiral Doenitz has received many compliments upon his professional achievements to which I humbly add my congratulations. Perhaps more to the point was my conversation at dinner in the cabin of the Eastwind (1944) with Ober Leutnant Karl Schmidt (German Naval Artillery) who agreed that only an outstanding leader would inspire submariners to deeds of daring. I mentioned at the time: 'I wish we had Admiral Doenitz on our side.' I think our policy of trying German leaders for 'war crimes' was stupid. We could have learned a lot from these men who kept Germany fighting almost six years when she was supposed to be bankrupt." -

Rear Admiral Charles W. Thomas, U.S. Coast Guard, M.S., A.M.
Commanded icebreakers Northwind and Eastwind
Commander, Greenland Patrol, U.S. Atlantic Fleet
Commander, Task Group, 43.6, U.S. Atlantic Fleet (Antarctic)
Administrator, Univ. of Washington scientific investigation of polar phenomena

"...late on 7 December 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington by dispatch directed the Commanders-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet and Asiatic Fleet, and the naval coastal frontiers to 'Execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against Japan...' In accordance with above orders it became general - and approved - practice to not attempt rescue of survivors of submarine attacks, unless such rescues could be made without prejudice to the execution of further warfare against Japan...The facts above stated were included in a deposition requested of me by Admiral Doenitz's defense attorneys, and were presumably used in his defense at the Nuremburg trials...It is my opinion that the American practice for unrestricted submarine warfare would be normal in future warfare." -

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, U.S.N.
Commanded 1st Battleship Divison, 1938-1939
Chief, Bureau of Navigation, 1939-1941
Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 1941-1945
Chief of Naval Operations, 1945-1947

"This is an impressive list of names of distinguished men and women which you have gathered for the presentation and support of your attack upon the 'war crimes trials'. I am, of course, honored by your invitation for me to join this gorup of eminent public figures, and am glad to accept your invitation and thus add my name to theirs...I would like to say that I regard the 'war crimes trials' as a crime." -

Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes
D.D. (Jewish Insitute for Religion), L.D., Hum. D.
Vice Pres., and Director, N.A.A.C.P.
Director, American Civil Liberties Union/ACLU

"...it can be said that a military commander carries out the orders of his superiors, and that these orders are presumably in consonance with the national policies of his government...a military commander should not have to answer for the political and military decisions of his political leaders. It does not appear that Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was guilty of anything more than carrying out directives which in the last analysis stemmed from Hitler. In this he acted as any loyal military man would have done. Therefore, his conviction at Nuremburg is, in my opinion, a grave injustice. Time brings many changes. Today Americans have an obvious friendship for the Germans and Japanese, and this friendship is reciprocated. It is interesting to speculate what the results would have been if it had been possible...to postpone the War Crimes Trials for ten years, even five. One thing is certain: calmness and objectivity would have been more evident and justice would have been better served." -

Vice Admiral Marion E. Murphy, U.S.N.
Chief of Staff, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet
Director, Guided Missle Program
Asst. Chief, Bureau of Ordinance


"That the barbaric ex post facto travesty of legality and morality represented by the Nuremburg Trials never represented the genuine attitude of even the heavily propagandized American public was made clear by protests like my own at the time of the outrage and subsequently. For myself, and I believe also for the majority of the American public, I apologize to Admiral Doenitz and the German People for what, done then in our name without our approval or consent, has resulted in such injury to everybody involved." -

Professor Dr. Herbert C. Sanborn
Historian and Author
Head of Dept., Philosophy and Psychology, Emetrius, Vanderbuilt University

"You place me in your debt for giving me this opportunity to express my opinion regarding the so-called 'war crimes trials'. This has been a subject which has troubled me no end and has caused me to give study and thought to the animus and basic injustice involved in these farcial excursions into international 'jurisprudence'. I include in this category the German, Japanese and Eichmann pseudo trials. There never has existed any basis in international law which could give any right or privilege to any nation or group of nations or peoples to bring to trial or to judge any person for waging war under orders from high command or otherwise. Many attempts have been made from time to time to 'humanize' war procedures and all have failed in the net result. It is obvious that the fundamental reasons for this continuing failure is that the belligerents in any war try to win with any and all means at their then command. War has always been one of the colossal mistakes which have plagued the human race throughout time. And yet we still talk of national honor which must be upheld at all costs even in mass murder and destruction. These ridiculous 'war crimes' trials are just another manifestation of man's incapabilities to live by reason, not by force." -

Brigadier General Eugene Sharp Bibb, U.S.A., LL.D.
Combat veteran of Mexican Punitive Expedition (1916), World War I and World War II
Lawyer (since 1912) and member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court
Radio commentator, lecturer, and author

"I have been boiling mad for years over the 'war crimes trials', which I think were despicable and contemptable, and smack more of ancient Rome's barbarism than of a so-called civilized country. Our country's hands are not free of blood and crime, in spite of our vaunted 'democracy' and 'noble aspirations', etc., etc. ad nauseam. Not only were the 'war crimes trials' one of the blackest spots on our recent black (and Red) history, but the bombing of the only two Christian cities in Japan in August 1945 via the atomic bomb calls to high heaven for retribution...To say that the trial of Admiral Karl Doenitz is a 'barefaced hypocrisy', as you state in your letter, is the understatement of all time. It is outrageous that a man serving his country in all honesty and patriotism should be considered a 'criminal' by a country which has its own share of criminals, and not honest and patriotic ones either..." -

Taylor Caldwell
(female) American novelist

"I have read Rear Admiral Dan Gallery's book, Twenty Million Tons Under The Sea and believe that he expresses the sentiments of the majority of U.S. Naval Officers in the Epilogue of his book, with regard to the Nuremburg trials. In this enlightened age, it is difficult to imagine how a professional naval officer in high command, could be tried by the conquerers of his country for: (1) conspiracy to wage aggressive war, (2) waging aggressive war and (3) violation of the laws of war at sea. Even politicians with but slight knowledge of submarine operations must know that the old laws of war (visit and search) were impossible conditions for submarines. Then why were the laws of war at sea not changed or the use of submarines outlawed?...It does not appear that unrestricted submarine warfare is any more brutal than the bombing of undefended cities from the air." -

Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf, U.S.N.
Commander, Battleship Division 2, Pacific Fleet, 1944

"The press accounts of your recent release evoke in me the feeling of shame for my country which I felt during the travesty on justice, known as the Nuremburg trials...I feel certain the vast majority of us were violently opposed to the proceedings, but were obliged to look on helplessly while honorable men who followed the honorable profession of arms in defense of their country, just as we did, were tried and found guilty of crimes that did not exist, by a prejudiced court composed of their enemies, under a code which no civilized country recognizes. The object of this letter, Sir, is to make my personal apologies to a distinguished and honorable man of war who has been crucified for the sin of fighting nobly for his country. We who fought honorably...salute you, Admiral Doenitz." -

Lieutenant General Pedro A. del Valle, U.S.M.C.
Commanding General, 1st Marine Division, World War II
Vice President, I.T.&T. Corp. of N.Y., 1948-1952

"...I definitely feel that German officers and others who owed allegiance to their country and to their government and who had taken an oath of office to protect the German Government against its enemies were guilty of no crime in directing the fighting forces of Germany when war became a reality. This is, I think, particularly true of Grand Admiral Doenitz and Grand Admiral Raeder and of the large majority of Admirals and Generals in the German military services. For them to have persued any other course would have amounted to flagarant treason against the German Government and the German People. Certainly any military man in any country is bound by his oath of office to fight for his country when that country becomes engaged in war. I consider that unrestricted submarine warfare is fully justifiable and that any German officer who engaged in such warfare was guilty of no crime." -

Vice Admiral Paul Hendren, U.S.N.
Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Philadelphia, 1940-1942
Commander, South Pacific Force, 1945-1946


"I have neither read nor followed the testimony concerned in the so-called 'War Crimes Trials' at Nuremburg because the entire procedure, in my opinion, became a nauseating farce through the participation of Soviet 'judges'. The presence of these minions of a barbarous and medieaval autocracy elevated this disgraceful episode to the stratosphere of hypocrisy." -

Hon. James H.R. Cromwell
U.S. Minister to Canada, 1940
U.S. Advisor to President Syngman Rhee, Korea, 1941-45

"By the time an officer reaches the rank of high command as in the case of Admiral Doenitz he expects to accept and accepts the risks inherent in having tremendous responsibilities without commensurate authority. The authority rests with his government. In other words he accepts risks as in his line of duty in performing actions prescribed by his government regardless of what they may be...The average layman does not comprehend nor can he be expected to comprehend, the philosophical attitude underlying the professional military officer's dedication to his country, whatever country this may be." -

Vice Admiral John B. Moss, U.S.N.
Naval aviator, 1925-1953
Assistance Chief, Bureau of Aeronautics

"I can state that I have felt from the very beginning, or the ending of World War II, that some of the actions of the Allied Powers with respect to many charged with 'war crimes' were determined by 'war passion' rather than reason. This especially applies to officers and men of the armed forces of our enemies in that war...I find it extremely difficult to agree with the course that was taken with respect to those officers and men of the field forces who simply carried out the orders of their responsible governments. If the commanders of our own armed forces should elect for themselves to decide whether the orders of our government were right or wrong, what assurance can our people have regarding their own freedom and security...our oath includes an unqualified statement to the effect that 'I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the officers appointed over me'. No mention is made of whether the orders are right or wrong, morally or spiritually, or whether they do or do not agree with international law. It leaves a man no choice..." -

Lieutenant General Reuben E. Jenkins, U.S.A.
Ass't. Chief of Staff, 6th Army Group, World War II
9th U.S. Corps, Korea
Ass't. Chief of Staff, G-3, U.S. Army

"Grand Admiral Doenitz did only what any naval officer in any Navy similarly assigned would have done; his duty...Admiral Doenitz carried out his orders. If that's a crime, then we're all guilty. But the real guilty ones are the British Admiralty, the French Department of the Marine, and the Navy Departments of all countries, including our own. They are the guilty ones, not the officers who obeyed their orders. Admiral Gallery's vigorous and contemptuous characterization of the 'so-called' War Crimes Trials is much too mild, too courteous. Who were the trial members? Were they competent to handle such important and such far-reaching questions? Shall we call them 'spades' or just damned old shovels? There are, unfortunately, many damned old shovels in this world." -

Commodore Julius F. Hellweg, U.S.N.
Commander, Destroyer Divison 4
Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Oklahoma

"I am glad to tell you that the war crimes trials of career officers are one of the many items upon which Admiral Gallery and I see eye to eye. They smell. I have always considered them as legalistic hocus-pocus to give semblance of respectability to barbarous vengeance inflicted upon opponents who have merely done their duty on the losing side of a war. A primitive ideal supposed to be in disrepute for some centuries. If accepted as a precedent, such trials can only discourage any sort of negotiated peace in future wars. They encourage the unprofitable idea that peace is possible only after at least one side is totally destroyed." -

Rear Admiral George van Deurs, U.S.N.
Commanding Officer, U.S.S. Philippine Sea, World War II

"The war crimes trials of military personnel for acts in line of duty set a highly undesirable and dangerous precedent which may plague us some day. Unrestricted submarine warfare, or any other measure which holds promise of success, will always be resorted to in an all-out war whenever there is a question of survival. Any other course would be unrealistic...Admiral Doenitz was unjustly tried and punished." -

Rear Admiral Felix X. Gygax, U.S.N.
Commander, Cruiser Division 3, World War II

"I think those [Nuremburg] trials were the greatest mistake our government could have made and predict that the precedent set will haunt this country for hundreds of years...I believe that wars are prolonged by observing rules of chivalry and that war should be put down on the weakest point of the enemy. Wars are caused by the politicians and civilians behind the front line, and if you can break their will to fight you can stop the war. The soldiers at the front do not cause wars and often do not know what it is all about. The will of the civilians in the cities is the most vulnerable objective and the next war is going to be waged against them, in spite of our howls about killing women or children or destroying civilization." -

Major General Howard C. Davidson, U.S.A.F.
Commander, 10th Air Force, India, World War II

"I deplore the 'War Guilt Trials!'

"To apprehend, arraign and try an individual for the wanton killing - murder, if you please - of prisoners of war, for example, is one thing. To do likewise to individuals who waged war in the uniform of their nation and under the orders or directives of their superiors, is another and quite different thing. I believe the former is fully justified. I believe the latter is unjustified and repugnant to the code of enlightened governments.

"Until such distant date, if this ever transpires, as nations can and will agree on a world political organization with judicial tribunals whose jurisdiction is acknowledged and whose judgments are accepted, I think trials in the second category described above, are steps backwards to the distant past when the fate of a defeated people was determined at the whim of the victor.

"I concur with the substance of your views as stated in your memorandum dealing specifically with the case of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, and you have my permission to include, not only this statement, but also the above." -

General Matthew B. Ridgway, U.S.A.
Commanded 82nd Infantry Division, 82 Airborne Division, and 18 Airborne Corps in Europe, World War II
Commander Mediterranean Theatre of Operations and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Mediterranean, 1945-1946
Commander-in-Chief, Caribbean Command, 1948-1949
Commander, 8 Army in Korea, 1950-1951
Commander-in-Chief, Far East and Supreme Commander, Allied Powers in Japan 1951-1952
Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, 1952-1953
Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, 1953-1955
Chairman, Board of Trustees, Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, 1955-1960


"The Nuremburg Trials took place in the emotional aftermath of the war. Their implications especially as regards the position of soldiers, sailors, airmen and civil servants in any future war were never considered, except perhaps by a few of the more thinking. To the politicians, of course, the expediences of the moment were paramount, and one cannot expect much more of these people. There were many of us, however, experienced in actual combat and subject to the pressures and disciplines of war, who wondered what would have been the position if we had been on the losing side, or in view of the precedent set by these trials, what might be our position in some future war.

"For there is little doubt that these trials were purely political shows, designed to appease the wrath of the masses who had suffered during the war, and that they had no courts' much on the level of the vigilante posse and its lynch law. Victors in past ages were perhaps more direct. They paraded the conquered and then executed or threw them to the lions in the circus. In the twentieth century the same procedure was covered over by legalistic forms but the result was the same, though less honest.

"However culpable the politicians might be who initiate and direct a war, and however just it might be that, in the case of defeat, a like nemisis befalls them, it is with the servants of the state that I am concerned; those who by oath are bound to serve as directed by their political masters, who in a democracy are ultimately the people.

"The case of Grand Admiral Doenitz therefore was one of paramount importance, and it would seem that his real 'crime' was that he assumed the mantle of Hitler when that fell unsought upon his shoulders, and then tried to salvage what he could of his country. One cannot seriously consider that war crimes were committed by him in the pursuance of unrestricted war at sea, for this was the tactic and strategy of all belligerents, and just as reprehensible as the bombing of civilian populations by both sides. The principle of a War Crime Tribunal, a witch hunt after a war by the winning side, is a most dangerous precedent and will certainly be used by any aggressive Communist state which wishes to remove, by these quasi-legal methods, those leading figures in a subdued country, who might succesfully oppose their occupation.

"The Western Nations should avoid this danger and restore the confidence of their servants by a declaration that these trials were a mistake, and would never be resorted to again. Otherwise, the morale, self-confidence, and efficiency of their servants will be severely strained in any future war, for they will be looking over their shoulders at a time when their thoughts should be solely on doing their duty as outlined by their masters, who should indeed bear the sole and full responsiblity for the actions of their servants." -

Brigadier Andrew Skeen, I.C.D., O.B.E., P.S.C.T., M.P.
Rhodesian soldier and statesman
Service with British Regular Army, 1926-1947
Director, Combined Operations India, 1944
Deputy Director, Prisoners of War Dept., London, 1945-1946
Member of Rhodesian Parliament, 1966-1974
Rhodesian High Commissioner (Ambassador) to England, 1965


"I will say that I consider the 'war crimes trials' to have been unwise, without support of law, and precedent-setting. If, in a future war, the United States is defeated, the Robert E. Lee or Douglas MacArthur of that day will probably be tried and hanged for doing his duty and carrying out legal orders of his government. I will state further that I do not approve of court-made laws, either now or in the past. Courts are created to judge under existing laws, not make new laws...Admiral Doenitz was a member of a group illegally tried because of hysteria and a desire to punish somebody." -

Major General Charles T. Harris, Jr., U.S.A.
Ass't. Chief of Ordinance, War Dept., 1938-1942
Commanding General, Aberdeen Proving Ground, 1942-1946

[kapitanprien]

"An officer, career or otherwise, regardless of grade, must carry out the orders of his superiors. In the case of senior commanders, this superior is the head of state. A career officer is obligated to obey these orders; if he fails to do so, or refuses, he is guilty of insubordination. Should he be punished for obeying the orders of his superiors by the courts of the victors? My reply is: Emphatically No... 'Unrestricted submarine warfare' is humane in contrast with the bombing by aircraft of populated areas. If bombing is justifiable, then 'unrestricted submarine warfare' is equally, if not more justifiable, as a legitimate means of defeating an enemy." -

Major General John B. Anderson, U.S.A.
Commanding General, 16 Corps, World War II

"I can fully accept the views of Admiral Gallery." -

Vice Admiral Claes Lindsstrom, Royal Swedish Navy
Chief of Submarines, 1930
Commanding Admiral, East Coast, 1937-1942

[To Grand Admiral Doenitz] "I am glad to be included among those privileged to salute you in this manner. Our profession is an uneasy one. And in carrying on the policies of our Governments we are frequently held responsible beyond the limits of our authority You have paid a high price for such confusion. You may take satisfaction from the fact that you demonstrated superior skill and ability in your chosen field. The events of the past in no way lessent the respect in which you will complete, happily I hope, the remainder of your life." -

Vice Admiral Gerald F. Bogan, U.S.N.
Commander Air Force, Atlantic Fleet
Commanded, U.S.S. Saratoga and various Aircraft Carrier Divisions, World War II



"My opinion has always been that the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials were acts of vengeance. War is a political and not a legal act, and if at the termination of a war, should it be considered that certain of the enemy's leaders are politically too dangerous to be left at large, then, as Napoleon was, they s hould be banished to some island. To bring them to trial under post facto law, concocted to convict them, is a piece of hideous hypocrisy and humbug. When in September 1870, the National Zeitung complained of the considerate treatment accorded to the captive French emperor, Bismarck by no means shared this view. 'Popular feeling, public opinion', he said, 'always takes that line. People insist that, in conflicts between States, the conquerer should sit in judgment upon the conquered, moral code in hand, and inflict punishment...This is an altogether unreasonable demand. Punishment and revenge have nothing to do with policy. Policy must not meddle with the calling of Nemisis, or aspire to exercise the judge's office...' Unfortunately for the world as a whole, the Western Allies could not produce a statesman of the caliber of Bismarck." -

Major General J.F.C. Fuller, C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O.
British military historian and author

"I sho uld be very glad to have my name appear with others who wish to show the respect with which they regard Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz. While I never knew Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz personally, as the Naval Officer who had complete charge of the submarine campaign waged against the German submarines in the 1st World War, I would like to say a few words. When the 2nd World War was started the German submarines were much below a figure which could be said to be adequate to meet the needs of the German sea forces required in the 2nd war. Therefore what submarines were available were assigned in the attack of the convoys proceeding along the northern coast of Norway, bound for Murmansk and finally to Russia itself. By this time Russia was regarded as the arch foe that Germany would be forced to face. It is this particular part of the German attack system for which I express great admiration. No longer was the attack made as it had been in the 1st World War, but a new feature in the attack system was used. This system of attack resembled more the attack of destroyers under a smoke screen used by our Navy. It embodied the 3 point attack system used by our destroyers and the abscence of a smoke screen to conceal the attacking forces was made up by attacks made at night in the darkest hours or when favorable weather obscured the attackers, and in this way differed from the attack system in use in the 1st World War. The success attendant on this new form of attack was phenomenal. All of the northern convoys suffered losses and one was almost completely destroyed.


"The Germans have been claimed to be cruel in their submarine warfare. Beyond what was deemed necessary for the country's good, the Germans were not as cruel as has been claimed. In the Pacific where a few of their raiders operated without opposition, they attacked freely a few ships. The ships captured may have been sunk or turned over for the raider's use but none of the passengers and crew were destroyed and were landed safely in southern ports. In contrast to this was the cruelty exercised by the Russians. During the Boxer Revolution in China I saw, in going up to Tientsin on the Peiho River, on one bank where the Russians went not a single thing was spared, men, women or children. On the other bank where the Japanese went up nothing was destroyed. The contrast was marked.


"For the reasons cited above I recognize in Grand Admrial Karl Doenitz the master technician that he was. I also recommend his system to the use of Americans in any sea warfare that might possibly develop..." -

Admiral William V. Pratt, U.S.N.
Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet, 1929
Naval Commentator for Newsweek, World War II

"I believe that it is impossible to declare military leaders war criminals, whatever their rank, who have simply defended their country and executed the orders received to assure that defense...I therefore believe with M. Pierre Etienne Flandin that submarine warfare is no more criminal than any other form of destruction of the enemy, which after all is the aim of the war itself. The condemnation of Admiral Doenitz does not seem just to me." -

General of the Army Maxime Weygand
Member of the French Academy
Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, 1931-1935, 1940
Minister of National Defense, 1940

"It has been a long time since I expressed my opinion on the illegal and regrettable trials at Nuremburg. In 1948 I translated, from the English, General J.F.C. Fuller's book, Armament and History. At the time I wrote a long preface in which I stated the following: 'In this vertical decline of morality, is it permitted to a soldier to point out that only the soldiers, in the last conflict, knew how to respect the laws of war...Even at the hardest moments, the armies in the field behaved correctly toward their adversaries, caring for the wounded, no matter who they were, humanely treating the prisoners...' And this is why one understands General Fuller when he writes, 'I energetically protest against the condemnation, as war criminals, of the conquered generals...In effect, there is no doubt that in ordering the destruction of large enemy cities, which represented an important part of the very basis of European culture and civilization, the Allied political leaders have incurred a dire responsibility before the bar of history.' My opinion has not changed today. Churchill and Roosevelt deserved as much as Hitler, and certainly a great deal more than Doenitz, to pass in judgment before the tribunal of human civilization. The bombings of Cologne, of Dresden and Aix-la-Chapelle were not only military stupidities, they were also evil acts.


"To get back to the case of German military leaders, their trials were a scandal, because if the conquered leaders are automatically brought to trial, where are we going? Who will want to command? And I should like to point out here the difference in attitude at Nuremburg of the American admirals and of the American generals. The American admirals were courageous. They defended their German counterparts and saved their lives. Why didn't the generals of the ground armies do as much? They behaved contemptibly, because I don't think that the German ground armies comitted any crimes...But this old story also proves that never since the times of barbarism has the moral level of humanity fallen so low, an ineluctable consequence of the de-christianization of the West, begun in the 18th century, and which will soon make us all slaves of Communist, materialist imperialism." -

General of the Army (Aviation) Lionel-Max Chassin
Ass't. Chief of Staff, French Army (for Air), 1943
Commandant, 31st Bombing Squadron, 1944
Chief of Staff for National Defense, 1944-1945
Commandant, Air Forces in Indo-China, 1951-1953
Commandant, French Territorial Air Defense, 1953-1956
Coordinator, European Air Defense, 1956-1957
Author, numerous works on military history

"You have again solicited my views on the legality and propriety of the War Crimes Trials which followed World War II. While I appreciate your invitation to comment I do not think I can add, either a new point of view or new arguments, to that widely discussed and unprecedented procedure. The ex post facto concept is of course illegal in our field of jurisprudence. It is my opinion that the procedures followed at Nuremburg and Tokyo were based on that concept. That those trials were international in character does not to me appear to legalize a deviation from our national law. For two years I served as Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Germany; I met and became friends of several former senior German naval officers. I cannot think of any single act of the Allied Powers that created more resentment among those officers than the conviction and imprisonment of former Grand Admiral Doenitz." -

Vice Admiral Howard E. Orem, U.S.N.
Director of International Affairs, Office of the C.N.O., 1949-1950
Commander, Amphibious Group 4, U.S. Atlantic Fleet, 1951-1952
Director of Research, Stevens Institute of Technology

"I am very glad to have the opportunity to express myself on the case of Grand Admiral Doenitz...There is no basis for holding that those honorable defendants such as Grand Admiral Doenitz were guilty of 'war crimes' or of a violation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. To say that a professional soldier or sailor who engages in war in accordance with his oath of office and in accordance with the laws of war in general acceptance at the time is guilty of 'war crimes' is not defensible in law, in precedent, or in the concepts of Christian morality...The charge against Admiral Doenitz is without foundation in military, civil or international law. His conduct as a naval officer is above reproach. His direction of the forces under his command was efficient and the operations of his submarines were no more unrestricted than those of our own. The trials of honorable professional military officers at Nuremburg appear, as time lends its perspective too the passions of war, more and more as a gross miscarriage of justice. More and more they appear as vengeance of the victor upon the surrendered vanquished...I shall take this opportunity to say that I regard [Grand Admiral Doenitz] as one of the ablest naval commanders in history. He served in the highest capacity with honor and distinction. He suffered the injustice and indignity of the Nuremburg Trials with forebearance and dignity. He is an example of the fact that greatness of character is as evident in defeat as in victory." -

Vice Admiral Harry Sanders, U.S.N.
Commander, Training Command, Pacific Fleet
Ass't. Chief of Naval Operations (Fleet Operations)
Commander, Mine Forces, Atlantic Fleet
Commander, Cruiser Division 1, Korean War

"I have always judged the Nurembur trials morally unfair and politically most dangerous. It is to be feared that even that puny attempt at moral discrimination will be found wanting in the next war, where death sentences will rain on those only who have not turned coat in time. Yesterday said: 'A soldier must obey.' Tomorrow will say: 'Obey...whom?'" -

Paul Morand
French author and diplomat
French Commissioner on the Danube, 1938
Ambassador to United Kingdom (1940), Romania (1943), and Switzerland (1944)
Author of more than 30 literary works

"The truth requires admission that the entire technique of war can have no other target than the mass of civilians. The so-called war crimes of the German U-Boats seem, nowadays, simple incidents compared with the colossal slaughter of Hiroshima or the terrifying consequences of a future nuclear war...the civilians of his [Doenitz] country suffered much by the air raids of the Allied Forces." -

General Constantine Ventiris, Royal Hellenic Army
Commander-in-Chief, Greek Army, 1944
Chief of Operations (1949), and aide to King Paul

"I served long in submarines before World War II and served in anti-submarine warfare continuously during the war in the Atlantic, having commanded three ships, two divisions, a squadron and a force. It ever seemed to me that the various treaties entered into by the great nations prior to World War II restricting the use of submarines were wholly unrealistic. If the signatories meant what they said, there was no need to build submarines. They never could have been operated under the law. As for Admiral Doenitz, none thought of him but as a brilliant commander of submarines. In brief, I believe that no legal fault can be found in Admiral Doenitz's conduct of the war. I believe that Admiral Doenitz carried out his orders as an officer. He may have made mistakes in judgment in the employment of his forces, but not legal or morally culpable errors. I know of no order on his part which violated the basic rulse of war." -

Rear Admiral Colby G. Rucker, U.S.N.
Commanded U.S.S. Owl and other ships, Atlantic, World War II
Commander, Escort Forces, Moroccan Sea Frontier
Salvaged U 505

"Admiral Doenitz was a great naval officer; our main regret should be that he was not on our side. He and a few thousand men in submarines came very nearly defeating the Allies through interdiction of sea lanes. He operated some 1,100 submarines, requiring crews of some 50,000 men. This is the equivalent of only about three division slices. I doubt if any other three divisions of men have ever achieved more in war than these did. Military effectiveness is no crime." -

Rear Admiral Raymond H. Bass, U.S.N.
Commanded submarines Plunger and Runner, 1943-1946
Commander, U.S. Submarine Squadron 10, 1952-1953
Commanded, U.S.S. Bremerton, 1956-1959
Ass't. to General Manager, The Bendix Corp.

"I can say that I expressed disapproval of the Nuremburg Trials at the time they occurred and I believe I was one of the few who expressed himself at the time (as did Senator Taft). I felt the same way about the Tokyo Trials. Both went way far beyond the condemnation of those who had violated the laws of war and humanity. I had done much in the Navy in preparing for war against both Germany and Japan. But I realize that our really chief enemy was our 'ally?' Soviet Russia, and I know that one of the Nuremburg judges, Soviet Russia, was dripping with the blood and guilt of the Katyn Massacre. By early 1946, I realized that we would have to rearm both Germany and Japan against the real enemy (at a time when the Tokyo Trials were still going on)." -

Admiral Charles M. Cooke, U.S.N.
Commander, 7th Fleet, 1945-1947
Commander, Naval Forces, Western Pacific, 1947-1948

"...I maintain that his [Grand Admiral Doenitz] sentence was unjust and that his punishment sets a dangerous precedent under which any military man might be tried for doing his duty in time of war. If his major crime was that of conducting unrestricted submarine warfare, then we are euqally culpable in the employment of our submarines against the Japanese in the Pacific. Furthermore, the stigma placed on unrestricted submarine warfare becomes insignificant when we consider the effect of one atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima; and, that military mission had the blessings of our head of state and many officials in our government." -

Rear Admiral D.S. Fahrney, U.S.N.
Father of guided missles; named them and designed and developed first succesful one in Sept., 1938
Head of Guided Missle Division, Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, 1940-1943 and 1945-1948
Commander, Naval Air Missle Test Center, Calif., 1948-1950

"The composition and the verdicts of The Nuremburg court have been severely criticized by the free world in general and in particular evaluations. These critiques have proved that what was at issue was not so much the application of basic principles of justice to punish crimes, but the vengeance of the victors over the vanquished. The definition of the crime and its punishment were fixed only after commission of the acts imputed. This alone radically contravenes the ancient principle of jurisprudence: 'Nulla poena sine lege, nullum crimen sine lege.' (No punishment without a law, no crime without a law). For centuries the basic legal principle that a crime could only be punished if punishment had been established in a valid law before the offense, has been the cornerstone of justice. The Resolution On Human Rights of the League of Nations was founded on this basic principle. Article 11 of this resolution states: 'No one may be punished for an act if at the time of this act a punishment for it was not pre-established in international law or in the laws of the country concerned. In addition, a penalty more severe than the one priorly established many not be imposed for the crime.


"Representatives of the Soviet Union took part in the Nuremburg proceedings...At the time of the creation of the International Military Tribunal, the whole world nevertheless knew that the Soviet Union had violated, in a most flagrant manner, a great many treaties and agreements it had concluded with other countries. As an Estonian, I must point out the many treaties the Soviet Union, unilaterally, broke with Estonia, that the Soviet Union had committed a terrible crime by murdering more than ten thousand Polish prisoners of war in the forest of Katyn. Tens of thousands of Estonians were murdered by the Soviet Union and many more deported to forced labor in Siberia under inhuman conditions. As for crimes against humanity, those governments which ordered the destruction of German cities, thereby destroying irreplacable cultural values and making burning torches out of women and children, should also have stood before the bar of justice. All the crimes imputed to the accused at Nuremburg had long previously been committed by the Soviet Union, but no democratic government accused them or demanded the condemnation of the criminals of the Kremlin. If one summarizes the historical record of Nuremburg, it must be declared that this court was founded on the hate of the victor for the vanquished, that this court was incompetent from the point of view of jurisdiction and justice, that its verdicts were not only illegal but also inhuman. From the point of view of jurisdiction, the Nuremburg court is also unique because no appreals could be filed against its verdicts, nor did the Allied Control Commission have the competency to mitigate the verdict rendered, which occurred in no single case." -
Hon. Jaan Lattik
Lutheran pastor and dean
Estonian statesman, diplomat, historian and author of 20 books
Minister of Education, 1925-1927
Foreign Minister, 1928-1931

"While we and others constantly prate about 'Law and Order', I fear that we do not always practice what we preach, for example the Berglong Case and the correspondence between Wilson and Lansing in the First World War...It seems to me a matter of whose ox is being gored. Self-righteousness seems to be of general practice, and our acts and others are justified on that ground, being somewhat sacrosanct. I am a strong believer in our Constitution and other articles of Government, but am frequently in disagreement with what those in charge thereof do under its alleged sanction. In the Nuremburg case, atavism seems to have taken hold of us and others and the same is true of the Eichmann trial. When one invokes necessity as a basis of law or one's acts, he surely justifies Hitler et al, from their viewpoint. Many people ignore what George Washington said in his Farewell Address, that Law is Force, and we still prate about law as being something that is self-enforced and stands aside from men and their acts...Anyhow, I do not support the violation of law as it is written. Illustrations are, of course, justified to present the question. I think that when a man acts on the orders of the legitimate government, he is absolved from liability, however reprehensible the orders may be. Otherwise, we resort to barbaric actions, whatever our excuse or explanation." -

Hon. George Washington Williams
Amercian attorney and jurist
Counsel to the Governor of the Virgin Islands, 1921-1924
Federal District judge, 1924-1930
Anti-trust prosecutor for the F.T.C., 1938-1950

The following is by American historian, Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes written as a review of F.J.P. Veale's book, 'Advance To Barbarism'.


"Mr. Veale traces the gradual civilizing of warfare from the days of Stone Age savagry, when all opponents were massacred, to the emergence of a code of civilized warfare following 1700. The essence of this was the immunity of non-combatants unless they happened to be in the line of fire. This code was briefly challenged by President Lincoln and his generals during the Civil War, but their deviation had little effect on Old World ideals and practices. Civilized warfare even endured throughout the course of the first World War, the only notable departure being the British blockade which resulted in the starvation of about 80,000 men, women and children.


"It was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the so-called stategic air forces during the second world war which culminated in the destruction of Dresden (a wholly non-military objective) in February 1945, that completely pulverized the code of civilized warfare and returned the treatment of military opponents and civilians to the level of the primary warfare that had prevailed among savages, the Assyrians, and the medieval Mongols. On the basis of the most authoritative British sources, Mr. Veale demonstrates clearly that it was the British and not the Nazis who introduced indiscriminate strategic bombing, despite the efforts of Hitler to avert this reversion to barbaric practices.


"The idea had its birth in 1936, when a 'brain wave' suggesting this innovation came to the newly formed British Bomber Command. The final decision to adop this procedure was the result of a 'Splendid Decision' of the Bomber Command in 1940, and the first wanton attack on civilian centers was made by a fleet of British bombers on May 11, 1940. Earlier bombing by both sides had been confined to legitimate military objectives. There are no final figures on the number of civilians killed as a result of the mass-bombing, but 2,000,000 would be a very restrained figure (estimate). Despite all this, some of the more destructive, although available, instruments of warfare were held back for fear of enemy retaliation. Such were poison gas and bacterial warfare.


"The war-crimes trials, thought by many to be an effort to restore warfare to its earlier civilized status, will inevitably have the opposite effect, as has already been demonstrated by the Korean War. They set the precedent that leaders defeated in a war will be liquidated or worse by the victors. This being so, neither side in the next war can afford to hold back any death-dealing methods which might avert a defeat. Atomic warfare, chemical warfare, bacterial warfare, and whatever may be devised in the meantime will all be thrown into the conflict. Indescriminate bombing assured military barbarism; the war-crimes trials inevitably linked military barbarism with judicial barbarism and insured the intensification of the former.


"The war-crimes trials are the theme of the Veale book which is closest to the interest of lawyers. Veal devastatingly exposes the whole web of judicial sham which created and administered these trials. He shows that the driving force behind them, from beginning to end, was the stark Russian program of slaughtering German leaders after the war, as Stalin had already murdered about 15,000 Polish officers in 1940 in the Katyn Forest and elsewhere. But Roosevelt, and especially Churchill, demanded mock trials before the executions, and Stalin graciously conceded their point, provided that the massacre was assured. The organization and procedure in the Nuremburg Trials made certain this result, and the same was true of the Tokyo Trials.


"Veale shows that these war-crimes were based upon a complete disregard of sound legal precedents, principles and procedures. The court had no real jurisdiction over the accused or their offenses; it invented ex post facto crimes; it permitted the accusers to act as prosecutors, judges, jury and executioners; and it admitted to the group of prosecutors those who had been guilty of crimes as numerous and atrocious as those with which the accused were charged. Hence, it is not surprising that these trials degraded international jurisprudence as never before in human experience. The essentials on this matter are brilliantly developed by Veale. The juristic reduction ad absurdum is presented in its quintessence in Veal's final definition of a war-crime"


'A war-crime is an act committed by a member of a vanquished state but not a vanquished state wholly or partially absolved from war guilt for political expediency, which in the opinion of the conquerers of that state is a war-crime, but which act is not an offense which has been so flagrantly and openly committed by the conquerers themselves that mention of it would cause them embarrassment.'

(I have to pause for a moment to put in a thought of my own here with regards to the statment...'that mention of it would cause them [the conquerers] embarrassment'. I can't help but to keep noticing that this sort of thing with quite a few of these statements, all keeps going back to the whole psychological 'projection and denial' - on the collective [as opposed to individual] level, that is. Some may laugh at all this "psycho-anylization" of this situation, but the 'projection and denial' is there nonetheless.)

"Pursuing his analysis further, Veal comes to the sound conclusion that the 'supreme international crimes is to be on the losing side in a war.' The practical consequences of this fact were quickly discerned and frankly stated by British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery in an address in Paris on June 9, 1948: 'The Nuremburg tirals have made the waging of an unsuccessful war a crime; the generals on the defeated side were tried and then hanged.'


"Some of the leading lawyers in the Nuremburg prosecution, such as Sir Hartley Shawcross, have sought to maintain that the war-crimes trials laid down a certain great and noble principles for all time which 'conferred incalculable benefits on mankind.' This contention was definitely refuted by Viscount Maugham, formerly Lord Chancellor of England, when he stated that 'the Nuremburg Tribunal never purproted to lay down principles for all mankind.' The noble principles were no more than a number of 'arbitrary decisions' laid down for application of defeated Nazis. The practical results of these 'arbitrary decisions' in assuring that the next world war will probably destroy human civilization have already been pointed out. Those internationalists who are now advocating a permanant world criminal court 'along Nuremburg lines' will do well to read the Veal book. If they do so, they my curb their determination to promot the suicide of humanity.


"Veal treats with vigor the ghastly injustice involved in sentencing men like Admiral Doenitz and Admiral Raeder to brutal imprisonment in the Spandau 'bastille.' Even the British history of the Second World War admits that Churchill and his associates had planned the invasion of Norway before the German proposal to do so had been arranged and acted upon. The horrors of those years of imprisonment of men like Admiral Doenitz were in some ways even more painful and vicious than the outright execution of the defendants. The vindictive episode will remain a permanant blot on the record of the Allies." -

Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D.
American historian, sociologist, penologist, educator and author
Editor, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, 1929-1940
Consultant, War Production Board and Smaller War Plants Corp., World War II
Professor at Columbia University, New School For Social Research, Temple University, University of Colorado, University of Indiana, and Washington State College, 1919-1955

"I think the Nuremburg trials are a black page in the history of the world...I discussed the legality of these trials with some of the lawyers and some fo the judges who particpated therein. They did not attempt to justify their action on any legal ground, but rested their position on the fact that in their opinion, the parties convicted were guilty. This action is contrary to the fundamental laws under which this country has lived for many hundreds of years, and I think cannot be justified by any line of reasoning. I think the Israeli trial of Adolph Eichmann is exactly in the same category as the Nuremburg trials. As a lawyer, it has always been my view that a crime must be defined before you can be guilty of committing it. That has not occurred in either of the trials I refer to herein." -

Edgar N. Eisenhower
American attorney
Brother of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

"You have my compliments on your project to re-expose the terrible blot on civilized warfare caused by the War Crimes Trials. From the beginning of this travesty on justice, I could not conceive of the mentality which would even censure an officer for doing his sworn duty and nothing more. To sentence such an officer to death on imprisonment was a reversion to barbarism. It is inconceivable that the United States would participate in it. As to Admiral Doenitz in particular, I have always admired and respected him, as I have Admiral Nimitz. He was not tried and convicted; he was crucified. I hope you will let him know that civilized Americans with even a spark of chivalry abhor his treatment and wish him well." -

Major General Jack W. Heard, U.S.A.
Commanded Flying Fields at Kelly (Texas)
Scott Field (Illinois), Payne Field (Missouri), 1917-1940
Commanding General, 13 Cavalry, Fort Knox
Commanding General, 5th Armored Division, 1942
Director, War Dept. Manpower Board, 1944

"I fought the Germans in 1914-1917, and was twice wounded, when I had the honor to serve in the Russian Imperial Army, originally in the Imperial Cavalry and temporarily (in 1915) in the Army Infantry. I fought also in the White Armies during the Civil War, and held the rank of Colonel. When I read about the Nuremburg Trials, especially about the case of Grand Admrial Doenitz, I took it as an insult to the whole military profession of the world. The modern pseudo-christian 'democracies' could learn moral lessons from a pagan Julius Ceasar or from the Mahometan Mongolian conquerers. These, in the dark ages of past, proved to be finer gentlemen and better jurists than some of those who now pretend to be such, for in our modern era of 'advanced culture,' generals had better win wars otherwise they are hanged. I studied international law (1902-1905) at the Imperial University of Moscow, and I also remember that the 'International Military Tribunal' at Nuremburg had no authorizatoin or precedent in international law. I am glad to know that Admiral Doenitz was finally released...but until now no official apologies for the Nuremburg mistrials have been presented to its victims." -

Serge S. Boutourline, Sr.
Colonel, Russian Imperial Army

"It was Admiral Doenitz who, from the beginning of the Second World War, opposed the carrying out of 'Operation Giselle', a lighting war stroke involving the occupation of Spain and Portugal, the Canary and Azores Islands, iin addition to Gibraltar, 'for destroying' as Hitler himself announced, 'this flank of the Anglo-Saxon offensive and to substantially smooth out the position of Germany in the Mediterranean'. It was then that Doenitz forced his opinion, that such an operation should not and must not be carried out without the consent of Spain. It cannot be foregotten that this isolated gesture of Karl Doenitz, alone among the men of the Third Reich, fits in a gentlemanly manner into the legal framework for regulating war, and marks him as entitled to the respect of those laws which are applied both to conquerers and the defeated.


"Concretely considering the ten-year sentence against Admiral Doenitz handed down by the so-called 'International Military Tribunal' convened at Nuremburg, the following adverse comment springs out: such a sentence not only lacks juridical basis, but also has no precedent in the history of cultured nations. Admiral Doenitz acted in the capacity of a professional military officer in the service of his country, just as other senior commanders would have done - and did - under similar circumstances. Admiral Doenitz maintained, in his activities, a standard of strict conformance with the obligations of a professional officer, carrying out the specific directives of his superiors in rank during World War II. He could by no means disobey, avoid, discuss or protest the orders received. His war activities were specificially confined to fighting the naval forces of the hostle countries, disabling or destroying their vessels, interrupting their supply routes, attacking their bases, and generally destroying their capacity to make war. Such was the task of Admiral Doenitz, which he fulfilled over all the seas on the map. And whenever his submariners encountered a hostle vessel, a tanker or supply ship, they acted, just as the Allies acted in establishing a blockade of Germany regardless of the fate of millions of civilians ruthlessly left to starve.


"The judgements and sentences of the so-called 'International Military Tribunal' have provided a lesson of deep meaning which the soldiers and statesmen of World War III will not forget. Future warriors will go into the fray with a fierce duty, since complete annihilation of the enemy will be the aim of the strife. Men of future wars will know that surrender is impossible because it means hanging or dishonor. All these men will carry with them the bitter memory of the massacres of Nuremburg and Tokyo." -

General Amadeo Rodriguez V., Army of the Republic of Columbia
Civil and Military Commander, The Amazons, 1932
Consul General of Columbia at Barcelona, 1955
Deputy to the Assembly of Cundinamarca
Member of the Legislature, and the Bolivarian Society

"Admiral Doenitz should not have been condemned for having waged unrestricted submarine warfare. No other kind is possible and, besides, that decision was the concern of the head of state." -

Lieutenant General V. Sottiaux, Royal Army of Belgium
Colonel of artillery in 1940
Prisoner of war, 1940-1945
Major General in charge of Military Conscription, 1946-1949

"In his brilliant and forthright dissenting judgment in the so-called Tokyo War Crimes Trial, Mr. Justice Radha Binod Pal of India observed that 'when time shall have softened passion and predjudice, when reason shall have stripped the mask from misrepresentation, then justice, holding evenly her scales, will require much of the past censure and praise to change place.' This observation applies, with equal validity, to professional military and naval officers, like Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, tried at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials on the novel and somewhat dubious charge of 'conspiring to wage', or waging, 'aggressive war'.


"With the benefit of hindsight and the dampening of post-war passions, few, if any, will now hesitate to concede that it was not justice but the heady wine of victory and the irrefutable logic of defeat which provided the blatantly contrived justification for the conviction and imposition of harsh sentences on professional officers, like Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, who had, in the line of duty, efficiently and effectively directed their Armed Forces. If the War had not been lost, they would have been hailed as national heroes and no Military Tribunal, set up by the victors, would have branded them as war criminals.


"Both the victor and the vanquished had been equally 'guilty' of unrestricted submarine warfare and of indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets. Grand Admrial Karl Doenitz did not, by any standard, commit the mass slaughter inherent in the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nazis set out to reverse the 'Diktat' of Versailles and to establish the supremacy of the 'Herrenvolk' but Doenitz was by no means part of the inner political hierarchy around the Fuehrer. The professional soldier has a strong sense of obedience to the established political authority. This is particularly so among the Germans.

(Bit of an interruption - "The Nazis set out to reverse the 'Diktat' of Versailles and to establish the supremacy of the 'Herrenvolk' but Doenitz was by no means part of the inner political hierarchy around the Fuehrer." - That says it all right there. Some may think that I have some 'agenda' [revisionism, Nazi apologist, etc.] because of my staunch defense of the U-Bootwaffe, but there it is coming from yet another. 'It' - being that you cannot put Doenitz or the U-Boat crewmen in the same basket as those who planned and established the concentration-death camps because they had no knowledge of the plans to exterminate 'undesirables'.)

"A generally acceptable definition of 'aggression' has yet to be found and often it is difficult to draw a line between aggression and self-defense. So long as the concept of the nation-state lasts - and it will be some generations before the concept of world citizenship and of obedience to a higher international law takes root - the professional soldier will fight for his country, right or wrong, and give allegiance to his Government till death.


"The Nazi phenomenon arose from the desire of the German nation to avenge the defeat of 1918 and to find a place in the sun for the most dynamic of European nations. It was a continuation of the struggle between the 'have-nots' and the 'haves' of the great European Powers who, over a period of two centuries or more, established their political intrigue and unprovoked aggression - and, in some cases, genocide - had no part in the building up of their far-flung empires.


"Scientific progress has outstripped the development of human values. We are living in the Atomic Age and the Conquest of Space. Time and distance have been annihilated. Any future War - atomic, thermonuclear, chemical, bacteriological, or ecological - unless effectively curbed by the World Community would be tantamount to human suicide. Old traditional values have been eroded, and humanity is floating rudderless to destruction. The time has come for a return to the eternal path of basic human values. A cosmopolitan culture in which there is no racial arrogance, no domination of one people over another, and from which want and poverty have been eliminated, is the need of the hour. As the great philosopher-statesman, Radhakrishman put it: 'We cannot allow ourselves to be destroyed by forces which we have the knowledge to create but not the wisdom to control.' The problem is not one of punishing the defeated enemy for war crimes, but that of eliminating war as an instrument of national, racial or regional aggrandizement." -

Hon. Major General Khub Chand
Indian statesman and diplomat
Acting High Commissioner for India in Pakistan, 1950-1952
Ambassador to Italy and Albania, 1957-1960
High Commissioner in Ghana and Sierra Leone, Commissioner in Nigeria and Ambassador to Liberia, Guinea, and Mali, 1960-1962
Ambassador to Sweden and Finland, 1962-1966
Ambassador to Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait; High Commissioner in Cyprus, 1966-1967
Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, 1967-1970
Vice-President, Indian Council of World Affairs, 1974

"No matter how many reasons of a moral or legal nature, might which be advanced in justification of the punishment of the war criminals (reasons such as international reaction against them, the political conditions created in conquered and occupied countries, the precedent for the judging of future criminals, the voluntary submission on the part of the victors to the rule of justice, and various other reasons propounded by defenders of the judgement of Nuremburg), it is certainly the case that neither those reasons nor any others are sufficient to offset, much less destroy, the legal and moral arguments in opposition to the system of Nuremburg and Tokyo. In my opinion, this system not only infringed against justice and Christian civilization, but also committed a serious error, the root of which is to be found even more in the characteristics and procedures than the constitution of the International Military Tribunal. In fact, the International Tribunal of Nuremburg lacked all the guarantees of independence and impartiality inherent in every legal Tribunal, since it was formed exclusively by judges of the victorious countries, one of those judges being the representative of the Soviet Union, which had committed in Poland the same aggression, in the same year, and with identical imperialist intentions as the accused Germany, her actual ally at the time of carrying out the aggression. And not only this, but many other acts of which the conquered were accused, had also been committed by the conquerers. One also tends to overlook the internal situation in Germany, which was fighting for her very existence, and the absolute control which Hitler exercised over the high officals, the armed forces, and the people, which made it impossible for anybody to oppose his desires or disobey his orders.


"Concretely, in the case of Admiral Doenitz, all these arguments against the judgement of Nuremburg acquire a more sharply defined character. Admiral Doenitz was sentenced on October 1, 1946 to ten years imprisonment for a finding of guilty under Article 6 of the Statutes of the Tribunal, crimes against peace and war-crimes. The first of these charges included the preparation and conduct of aggressive war. Doenitz, nevertheless, was considered innocent of planning or starting the war, since the Tribunal judged that he was an officer of the line who had restricted himself to carrying out his professional duties. On the other hand, he was found guilty of the second charge, that of carrying out the war of aggression. His condemnation was also based on the fact that in October 1939 Doenitz had made a few theoretical proposals concerning submarine bases in Norway, and that upon succeeding Hitler in the Chancellory of the Reich, had ordered continuation of the fight against the Soviet Union. [Editors' Note: As Admiral Doenitz testified, this was necessary to enable operational units of the German Armed Forces to effect the rescue of hordes of refugees fleeing Russian occupied areas.] But the most serious accusation made against Admiral Doenitz was having waged unrestricted submarine warfare, violating the London Protocol of 1936. The tribunal decided that the Protocol was decisive, and declared that if the submarine commandant could not take care of the rescuing of personnel of the merchant ship, it ought to not sink it either, and ought to let it pass in front of its periscope without causing it harm. If the conclusion had ended here, the trial would have had as a practical consequence the declarations of illegality of the use of submarine arms in the destruction of merchant shipping. But they formulated new considerations which implied the exhoneration of penal responsibility by virtue of the famous trial argument, 'Tu Quoque' ('you too').


"In view of all the facts proved and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty of May 8, 1940, in which it was announced that in the Skaagerak all ships sailing at night would be sunk, and bearing in mind the statements of the North American Admiral Nimitz to the Nuremburg Tribunal in which he declared that the Pacific Ocean the U.S. had waged unrestricted submarine warfare, the condemnation of Nuremburg could hardly be based on the fact that Admiral Doenitz had violated prevailing international law for submarine warfare. The German Admiral was declared guilty by the Nuremburg Tribunal for having violated the Protocol of 1936, but he was not sentenced for the said cause in consideration of the fact that submarines, especially the British and North American, had acted in a similar manner. Admiral Doenitz was condemned for other reasons already cited. What results from this? Even if the Tu Quoque argument was rigorously excluded from the debates, or at least was not accepted as exempting by the sentencing tribunal, there can be no doubt that it had such an extraordinary influence over the said tribunal that it may allow us to reach the conclusion that, 'A crime ceases to be punishable when the victorious parties are liable for the same acts as the conquered.'


"But it is clear that in not sentencing Admiral Doenitz for the sole fact that he was previously considered as culpable under criminal law and its having been thus for reasons of extreme generality and vagueness, and without a previous legal declaration of punability, the injustice of the sentence stands out all the more. And the ink was not even dry on the signatures confirming the sentence when the most total disauthorization was formulated by the Assembly of the United Nations itself which, in the Declaration of the Rights of Man of Dec. 10, 1948, held that no person can be judged witihout there being in effect all the guarantees necessary for his defense, and that there cannot be imposed on anyone a greater penalty than that applicable at the time the penal offense was committed. There can be no doubt, in the light of thse declarations, that the sentences of Nuremberg, openly violated the Rights of Man as proclaimed by the Assembly of the United Nations. The accused were not judged by an impartial authority, or was a previously existing penal law applied to them, or were there provided to them the necessary guarantees for their defense.


"The sentences of Nuremburg will not serve to even prevent, in a future war, other cruelties or excessive violence. As Field Marshal Montgomery has said, the judgments at Nuremburg have made a crime of defeat, and in the future wars the defeated admirals and generals will first be judged and afterwards hanged by the victors. Does this mean that international conscience and morality are to remain indifferent to atrocities and violent acts which may be unnecessary in a war, and in short, to actual crimes? No! All that we want - those of us who find the judgments of Nuremburg a series of injustices and mistakes, as much of a judicial as a moral nature - is that the authors of such crimes, when they may in fact exist, be judged with impartiality and with every kind of guarantees. Men, above their national obligations, have others of a human and international nature, the infraction of which implicitly carries a responsibility. But as an illustrious Spanish jurist has said, this responsibility is limited by the doctrine of obedience owned, or of force majeur, so deeply rooted in Spanish tradition and based on natural law, superior to both national and international law." -

Hon. Raimundo Fernandez-Cuesta y Merelo
Spanish jurist, statesman and diplomat
Minister of the Navy, Inspector General of the Legal Corps, 1957-
Minister of Agriculture (1938-1939), Minister of Justice (1945-1951)
President of the Council of State (1945)
Ambassador to Brazil (1939-1942) and Italy
Member of the National Council, and the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation
Author, Maritime Law and Legislation

[kapitanprien]

"It should be noted at the outset that international law is a highly controversial subject, and one in which disputes can rarely be settled. Since the international community possesses neither a legislative authority nor a system of courts of general and compulsory jurisdiction, international 'law' is something less than law in the domestic sense of the term. The rules of this so-called law can only be inferred from the practice of nations, which varies considerably. Differences of opinion on the subject are thus frequent. However, it is my impression that, prior to the first world war, certain principles were generally agreed upoin by the more important powers and the great majority of authoritative writers.


"First, international law governed sovereign states. It neither gave rights nor imposed duties on the individual citizen. The highest obligation of the individual was to his own state, and his highest duty was obedience to the public authority of that state. Secondly, the individual was not held legally responsible for political decisions of his government in the international sphere. This was true even in regard to the high political officers who actually made the decisions. It was doubly true as regards the private citizen and likewise doubly true as to the personnel, both commissioned and enlisted, who carried out any military operations which might result from such political decisions. Thirdly, war as such was not contrary to international law. On the contrary, it was a recognized institution, and an elaborate body of rules to regulate its conduct had grown up, based upon usage and specific treaties. A given state might undertake by treaty not to engage in war against other given states, and such treaties were often made (and often violated). As far as the individual was concerned his own government's judgment of the binding force of such treaties in given situations was conclusive, and it was never dreamed that he might expose himself to criminal liability under any circumstances by obeying orders from those lawfully in military or political authority over him. It was likewise never dreamed that military personnel carrying out explicit orders relating to the conduct of military operations would be subject to the judgment, years later, of a tribunal (composed of officials of the late enemy state and hostile in attitude), as to the necessity and propriety of such orders.


"Due to the unprecedented scale of the first world war, and the extent to which it affected the lives of entire populations, a great deal of emotional tensioin and hostility was built up. This in turn resulted in pressure on the victorious governments to wreak vengeance on the individual rulers, statesmen and soldiers of the defeated nations, without regard to previously recognized rules of international law. At the time, circumstances prevented this program of revenge from being carried out. In the period between the two world wars, most informed opinion regarded this as fortunate, and dismissed the proposals to 'Hang the Kaiser' and their like as regrettable excesses resulting from war hysteria.


"History repeated itself after the second world war. In fact, the demand for revenge was far greater, due to the even greater scale of the war in part, but due more to the politically revolutionary character which the struggle took in many areas. There was undeniably a breakdown in the observance of traditional ruels of warfare, particularly with regard to civilian populations. It was thought immediately after the end fo the hostilities that the measures complained of had been largely resorted to by the Axis powers, but subsequent information indicates that certain of our principal allies were guilty of equal or worse excesses. Also, it is doubtless true that new weapons and tactics made observance of the traditional rules difficult, especially where air or submarine warfare was concerned.


"The circumstances that had prevented proceedings against individual soldiers and statesmen of the defeated countries were absent at the conclusion of the second world war. The major allied powers yielded to the pressure of certain of their citizens and instituted a program of proceedings patterned after criminal trials. In order to justify such proceedings, they evolved many new theories of 'law'. The soundness of such theories from the technical viewpoint of the lawyer was doubtful, and the wisdom of the program from the standpoint of the statesmen appeared even more doubtful. Considerable criticism from responsible opinion was heard at the time, and the events of the subsequent years have tended to confirm this criticism.


"The Nuremburg trials, which were the best known and may be taken as typical, grouped the alleged crimes of the defendants into four categories: (a) Waging agressive war, (b) Conspiracy to wage aggressive war, (c) Crimes against humanity, and (d) Violations of the laws of war. The first two are closely related, differing as to technicalities of proof. They both assume that there is such a thing as 'aggressive' war which can legally be distinguished from other kinds of war. Of the four categories, only the last had any substance under international law as it had generally been understood prior to the time of the trials.


"Prosecutions for violations of the laws of war represented the major exception to the principle that an individual would not be held legally responsible for consequences of military operations in which he was engaged. Such prosecutions can be justified for the reason that all major powers had accepted in principle the existence of such rules, and most had subscribed to multilateral treaties such as the Geneva Convention setting them out in detail. The rules could, as a result, be regarded as a portion of the domestic law of the countries concerned. An officer or soldier violating them, or ordering his subordinates to violate them, could thus be considered to have violated the laws of his own country.


"The prosecutions were carried out, and various persons were condemned to death or imprisonment. They have duly suffered the infliction of the penalties adjudged. Emotions have somewhat cooled on the issue in the intervening period. It remains to consider whether the precedent is a sound and desireable one. It is the viewpoint of th ewriter that the answer should be 'no'. The grounds for this view are numerous.


"First, the precedent cannot do other than gravely handicap the process of ending any war and the restoration of international peace and friendship. Formerly, a government engaged in a losing war had every motive to make peace on terms at the earliest possible moment. Under the new rules, however, the strongest possible motive exists for continuing the war to the bitter end. Substantial numbers of the population may find themselves subject to trial and branded as criminals by the occupying forces. (Entire organizations, it should be remembered, were condemned at Nuremburg.) The officers of government who must actually make the decisions, being the likeliest candidates for the noose, are those with the strongest reasons for continuing the struggle.


"Secondly, it is impossible as a practical matter to secure an impartial tribunal. Nationals of the victorious powers cannot and will not do other than reflect the positions of their own governments as to the true version of facts and as to the proper law. It is also impossible to avoid the effect of ex post facto law. Since the proceedings can be depended on to lack these basic elements of any civilized system of criminal law, it is unlikely that the vanquished nations or even the fair-minded elements of the victor nations will come to accept them as representing justice.


"Thirdly, it places an impossible burden on the government and on the higher military officers of a warring state. It is their duty to do all in their power to win. It is also their duty to obey their lawful superiors. They are rightly subject to punishment for failure in this respect. To impose on them liability for carrying out an order which an enemy tribunal may later adjuge unlawful is to punish them for doing what may and probably will appear at the time to be the duty they have sworn to do.


"Finally, to engage in measures which, however cloaked in legality, are in fact no more than vengeance and reprisal is to promote the breakdown of the rules which have in recent centuries governed the conduct of warfare among civilized states, and to reinstate the law of the jungle. As a practical matter, the late war crimes trials will be taken by those involved in warfare as establishing only the principle that many of those on the losing side will suffer death or imprisonment. That leads to the thought that one had better not lose, which in turn leads to the conclusion that any method of warfare is justifiable if it brings victory. One must dissent from the view that this is progress.


"The conclusion drawn is, that the result of the program for the trial of 'war criminals' was not to advance the cause of civilization or the elimination of warfare among nations, but instead to increase the probability of unlimited warfare and to raise problems of a sort not yet fully apparent." -

Lieutenant General A. D. Bruce, U.S.A., L.L.D.
Chancellor of the University of Houston
Organized, built, and commanded Tank Destroyer Center, 1941
Commanding General, 77th Division, Pacific, World War II
First Governor of Hokkaido, Japan
Deputy Commander, 4th Army, 1947
Commandant, Armed Forces Staff College

"I thought the trials in general bordered upon international lunacy. I thought it particularly unfortunate, inappropriate, ill-conceived and dupably injudicious that the United States should have been cast in the leading role as prosecutors and implementators of the trials of German participants or principals. Once in that role, whether we were euchred into it or eagerly seized it, I think it was most incumbent upon us to insist that justice be tempered by precedent, by reason and by a careful consideration of the impact, the implications the setting of such an example, the establishment of such a pattern, would have upon the military and political leaders of nations defeated in future wars. We may one day be such a nation. 'The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.' I thought the trial of bonafide wearers of the uniform of any branch of the Armed Forces in either Japan or Germany, and particularly that of Admiral Doenitz, was an outrage of the first magnitude.


"One matter that has time and again been highlighted, publicized and dramatized in the most luridly horrible manner possible, as an example of the unmitigated, utterly inhuman and heinous atrociousness of the Germans in general and Hitler in particular, has centered around the treatment of prisoners at Buchenwald and other concentration camps. Of course the plight of these prisoners was terrible when the Americans got there, but what could one have expected in a country in so exhausted and chaotic a state as was Germany at the time? There undoubtably were some, perhaps many, sadistic acts in German concentration camps. I dare say, however, that comparable acts would occur under comparable conditions in America. The point I should like to make, but never had heard even suggested, is that for years those prisoners must have received a considerable measure of humane treatment while it was possible, otherwise they would have been dead long before the collapse of Germany. I've seen people look woefully emaciated and approximately as debilitated as the Buchenwald inmates after a relatively short period of deprivation of food and other means of sustenance. I have in mind shipwreck and mine disaster survivors. The same is true of individuals stricken with such rapidly exhausting diseases such as cholera or other severe forms of dysentery. Indeed, under certain circumstances, the human body will waste away with amazing rapidity even when specific and vigorous effort is being made to prevent it.


"I think that with the downfall of Japan and Germany went the two most powerful and consequential bulwarks against Communism in the world, and once more I would remind those whom it may concern that Samson held no monopoly on self-destruction by toppling a temple upon himself. This sobering thought I would like to credit to Rear Admiral Clarence Brown, my deputy chief of the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. In his preface to the first textbook on Atomic Medicine (written by Charles F. Behrens, Captain - later Rear Admiral, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy), Admiral Brown wrote: 'The cloud which rose above Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not dissipate; it hangs like a pall on the minds and councils of men - it permeates all the sancta of the mighty as well as the ecclesiastic cloisters of the Christian and pagan worlds.' Finally, I should like to cite Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, Danish philospher and theologian, who asserted that life must be lived forward but only backward can it be understood.'" -

Rear Admiral H. Lamont Pugh, Medical Corps, U.S.N.
Surgeon General of the Navy and Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, 1951-1955
Commanding Officer, National Naval Medical Center, 1955-1956
Author of many books and articles, scientific and popular, including his autobiography, Navy Surgeon (Lippincott, 1959)


"There are no war crimes. The crime is the war! This was already obvious after World War I when the Netherlands, where the former Kaiser Wilhelm II had taken refuge, refused to surrrender him to the Allies. During this war, while the Allies were contending that they were defending civilization, Lloy George had proclaimed that the Kaiser would be shown through the United Kingdom in an iron cage! Later, the Supreme Court of Leipzig acquitted the German chiefs who had been singled out as war criminals. The only evident crimes during a war are those committed against civilians...


"The fundamental aim of the Soviets, at the end of the last war [World War II], was to single out war criminals. They knew they were deepening the cleavage between the Occidental powers that the war had separated. This led to the Nuremburg trials...there were no war criminals among the mass of German generals and admirals. They were responsible only for having lost the war. Vae Victis. The only real justification of a war is to be the winner! If the Japanese had onw the war, under the same principle they would have attempted to hang those in America who were responsible for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
"The exaggerations of the Nuremburg Tribunal were proved by the prosecution of Gustav Krupp, whose sole responsiblity was to have manufactured war weapons. How can one justify today the life imprisonment of Rudolf Hess, who sought to put an end to the war? And the execution of Field Marshal Keitel, who signed the Armistice of May 1945? The ten-year imprisonment of Grand Admiral Doenitz was a flagrant injustice. And the present effort of Keith Thompson and many other fair Americans to get the historical record straight in the troubled world of today, compels my personal esteem and admiration. I think this feeling should be shared by all those who still believe in 'historic' justice." -

Roger Peyrefitte
French author of more than 22 books
In French diplomatic service, 1931-1940, 1943-1945, 1962-

"To Grand Admiral Doenitz:
Please permit me to add my congratulations to the thousands you are receiving as you returned to freedom, a freedom from which you were so unlawfully separated. You deserve congratulations, not only for your outstanding accomplishments when on active duty, but for the courage and character you displayed during your unjust trial and imprisonment.


"While my loyalty to my country is deep-rooted, complete and unalterable, the Nuremburg trials stand, in my opinion, as a blot on the escutcheon of our nation. Nothing we can do today can remove it. Those trials violated the very basic principles of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence - principles which have stood and been our guide since the beginning of time in our Anglo-Saxon heritage. The same forces that organized and executed the Nuremburg trials would, if they had the power today, try and imprison every patriotic leader in America.
"Events of recent years demonstrate clearly that there can be no stability in Central Europe without a strong Germany. Germany has been strong in the past because the individual Nordic German is strong. World Peace demands that Germany may again close the front door of Russia into Europe while a re-constituted Japan may, I hope, close the back door." -

Major General George Van Horn Moseley, U.S.A.
Commanding General, 4th Corps Area
Commanding General, 3rd Army
Deputy Chief of Staff to General Douglas MacArthur

Well that covers it for the excerpts from the book. There are many more contributors to be had...

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To read more on the Morgenthau Plan and Harry Dexter White:

Morgenthau Plan: books.google.com/books?id=6rZHuqGq4osC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Morgenthau+Plan&source=bl&ots=Q1Egm1nf_4&sig=TRntxzFfWA8hUzboD1cy7L1Vkjk&hl=en&ei=eh5DTPXLE4L-8Ab4-eHFBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Harry Dexter White: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White

Morgenthau: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgenthau,_Jr.