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129-564: The first English translation by Robert David MacDonald was published as The Representative , by Methuen in Britain in 1963. In America a second translation by Richard Winston and Clara Winston was published as The Deputy by Grove in New York, 1964. A letter from Albert Schweitzer to Hochhuth's German publisher serves as the foreword to the US edition. A film version titled Amen. was made by

258-532: A Greater Germany beyond the frontiers of 1914 ". Contrary to Jackson's argument that the conspiracy began with the founding of the Nazi Party in 1920, the verdict dated the planning of aggression to the 1937 Hossbach Memorandum . The conspiracy charge caused significant dissent on the bench; Donnedieu de Vabres wanted to scrap it. Through a compromise proposed by the British judges, the charge of conspiracy

387-567: A Polish-French-British declaration on April 18, 1940, holding Germany responsible for the crimes, without an explicit promise of their prosecution. Such a promise was included in a declaration by the occupied countries in November 1941, gathered at a conference organized on Poland's initiative. Another conference, held in January 1942, saw the participation of observers from the USSR, US, China, and

516-580: A comparison between the Borgia Pope (Alexander VI) and Pius XII. Riccardo dons the yellow star and joins deportees to die at Auschwitz, where the rest of the act takes place. He is confronted by the Doctor, who is otherwise not named but closely resembles Josef Mengele . The Doctor is a nihilist to whom "Auschwitz refutes creator, creation and the creature. . . cursed is he who creates life. I cremate life." He takes Riccardo under his protection, hoping that

645-468: A crime against humanity—and the Soviet Union wanted to avoid giving an international court jurisdiction over a government's treatment of its own citizens. The charter upended the traditional view of international law by holding individuals, rather than states , responsible for breaches. The other three Allies' proposal to limit the definition of the crimes to acts committed by the defeated Axis

774-411: A deadlock between the judges; these acquittals surprised observers. Despite being accused of the same crimes, Sauckel was sentenced to death, while Speer was given a prison sentence because the judges considered that he could reform. Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals, called for a death sentence for Hess, and convicted all the organizations. Initially, it

903-647: A farm in Vermont in 1943, where they did their translation work. The couple's archival papers are housed at Brooklyn College. Their daughter Krishna Winston is also a translator. Both also wrote works of their own. Richard authored Charlemagne: From the Hammer to the Cross (1954) and Thomas Becket (1967), and Clara wrote the novels The Closest Kin There Is (1952), The Hours Together (1962), and Painting for

1032-412: A long tradition of tragic figures by showing himself partly redeemed with his dying declaration, a whispered "'in hora mortis meae voca me'" (Latin, and modally ambiguous: one could read subjunctive :"in the hour of my death may He call unto me" or imperative "in the hour of my death, call unto me!" In either case, Riccardo does not die entirely confident of salvation, which would lessen his status as

1161-666: A missing piece in the puzzle of communist propaganda and disinformation aimed at discrediting the Catholic Church and its Pontiff." English historian, Michael Burleigh , stated "Soviet attempts to smear Pius had actually commenced as soon as the Red Army crossed into Catholic Poland", noting that the Soviets "hired a militantly anti-religious propagandist, Mikhail Markovich Sheinmann " - "Hochhuth's play...drew heavily upon Sheinmann's lies and falsehoods..." Rowohlt Verlag sold

1290-615: A show trial prosecutor chosen for his skill as an orator. The Soviet judges and prosecutors were not permitted to make any major decisions without consulting a commission in Moscow led by Soviet politician Andrei Vyshinsky ; the resulting delays hampered the Soviet effort to set the agenda. The influence of the Soviet delegation was also constrained by limited English proficiency, lack of interpreters, and unfamiliarity with diplomacy and international institutions. Requests by Chaim Weizmann ,

1419-558: A thousand employees from the four countries' delegations in Nuremberg, of which about two thirds were from the United States. Besides legal professionals, there were many social-science researchers, psychologists, translators, and interpreters, and graphic designers , the last to make the many charts used during the trial. Each state appointed a prosecution team and two judges, one being a deputy without voting rights. Jackson

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1548-585: A tragedy (after reading "The Deputy" and "Soldiers," and corresponding with Hochhuth, Kaufmann recanted his position.) The play opens with a discussion between Gerstein and the Papal Nuncio of Berlin over whether Pope Pius XII should have abrogated the Reichskonkordat to protest the actions of the Nazi government of Germany. Father Riccardo Fontana, the priest protagonist, and Gerstein meet for

1677-622: A tragic hero. The play ends with a quotation from German ambassador Weizsäcker : Since further action on the Jewish problem is probably not to be expected here in Rome, it may be assumed that this question, so troublesome to German-Vatican relations, has been disposed of. The premiere of Rolf Hochhuth's "Christian tragedy" in West Berlin's " Theater am Kurfürstendamm " (temporary home of the " Freie Volksbühne Berlin ") on February 20, 1963 caused

1806-422: A vote. The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge against the accused, stating in its judgment that because "war is essentially an evil thing", "to initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of

1935-537: A way to try crimes against German citizens, such as the German Jews . A Soviet proposal for a charge of "crimes against civilians" was renamed "crimes against humanity" at Jackson's suggestion after previous uses of the term in the post-World War I Commission of Responsibilities and in failed efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide . The British proposal to define crimes against humanity

2064-515: A wide variety of crimes committed by the German occupiers as part of their destructive and unprovoked invasion. Rudenko tried to emphasize common ground with the other Allies while rejecting any similarity between Nazi and Soviet rule. The next week, the Soviet prosecution produced Friedrich Paulus —a German field marshal captured after the Battle of Stalingrad —as a witness and questioned him about

2193-636: Is the priest Bernhard Lichtenberg , provost of the cathedral of St. Hedwig in Berlin; he was imprisoned because he included Jews in his prayers and asked the Gestapo to share the fate of the Jews being sent to the east. Lichtenberg died on the transport to Dachau . A character in the play is Kurt Gerstein , an official at the "Institute of Hygiene" of the Waffen-SS, tried to inform the international public about

2322-585: The Balkans . Other generals were tried in the High Command Trial for plotting wars of aggression, issuing criminal orders , deporting civilians, using slave labor, and looting in the Soviet Union. These trials emphasized the crimes committed during the Holocaust. The trials heard 1,300 witnesses, entered more than 30,000 documents into evidence, and generated 132,855 pages of transcripts, with

2451-853: The Foreign Office . Also on trial were industrialists —in the Flick trial , the IG Farben trial , and the Krupp trial —for using forced labor, looting property from Nazi victims, and funding SS atrocities. Members of the SS were tried in the Pohl trial , which focused on members of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office that oversaw SS economic activity, including the Nazi concentration camps ;

2580-596: The General Governorate of Poland; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach ; Arthur Seyss-Inquart , Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands ; and Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the leader of Himmler's Reich Main Security Office . Observers of the trial found the defendants mediocre and contemptible. Although the list of defendants was finalized on 29 August, as late as October, Jackson demanded

2709-645: The Greek -born French filmmaker Costa-Gavras in 2002. The play was first performed at West Berlin's "Freie Volksbühne" (Free People's Theater) on February 20, 1963 under the direction of Erwin Piscator . Within the same year, the play was produced at additional theatres in West Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, Denmark, Finland and France. The play received its first English production in London by

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2838-527: The International Military Tribunal ( IMT ) tried 22 of the most important surviving leaders of Nazi Germany in the political, military, and economic spheres, as well as six German organizations. The purpose of the trial was not just to convict the defendants but also to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, offer a history lesson to the defeated Germans, and delegitimize the traditional German elite. The IMT verdict followed

2967-631: The Katyn massacre , which had in fact been committed by the NKVD . Although Western prosecutors never publicly rejected the Katyn charge for fear of casting doubt on the entire proceedings, they were skeptical. The defense presented evidence of Soviet responsibility, and Katyn was not mentioned in the verdict. Inspired by the films shown by the American prosecution, the Soviet Union commissioned three films for

3096-690: The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg . Located in the American occupation zone , Nuremberg was a symbolic location as the site of Nazi rallies . The Palace of Justice was relatively intact but needed to be renovated for the trial due to bomb damage ; it had an attached prison where the defendants could be held. On 8 August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. In early 1946, there were

3225-828: The Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in September 1963. It was directed by Clifford Williams with Alan Webb/ Eric Porter as Pius XII, Alec McCowen as Father Fontana, and Ian Richardson . A condensed version prepared by American poet Jerome Rothenberg opened on Broadway on February 26, 1964 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre with Emlyn Williams as Pius XII and Jeremy Brett as Father Fontana (replaced on May 24 by David Carradine ). The producer Herman Shumlin had offered to release any actors who were troubled by

3354-702: The RuSHA trial of Nazi racial policies ; and the Einsatzgruppen trial , in which members of the mobile killing squads were tried for the murder of more than one million people behind the Eastern Front. Luftwaffe general Erhard Milch was tried for using slave labor and deporting civilians. In the Hostages case , several generals were tried for executing thousands of hostages and prisoners of war, looting, using forced labor, and deporting civilians in

3483-643: The SS and the SD , and the General Staff and High Command of the German military (Wehrmacht). The aim was to have these organizations declared criminal, so that their members could be tried expeditiously for membership in a criminal organization. Senior American officials believed that convicting organizations was a good way of showing that not just the top German leaders were responsible for crimes, without condemning

3612-594: The Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church a direct reference was made by Bishop Josef Stangl to Hochhuth's play when he declared to the council: "If we speak in the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, as the deputies of the Lord, then our message must be [a clear] 'Yes, Yes! [or] 'No, no' - the truth, not tactics". His "moving address" made a significant contribution "to reversing

3741-738: The Soviet Union alone. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial (the Soviet Union) to summary executions (the United Kingdom). In mid-1945, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to convene a joint tribunal in Nuremberg , occupied Germany , with the Nuremberg Charter as its legal instrument. Between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946,

3870-541: The Western Front (France) and the Eastern Front (the Soviet Union). The United States delegation outlined the overall Nazi conspiracy and criminality of Nazi organizations. The British and American delegations decided to work jointly in drafting the charges of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. On 17 September, the various delegations met to discuss the indictment. The charge of conspiracy , absent from

3999-421: The liberation of Nazi concentration camps , shocked both the defendants and the judges, who adjourned the trial. Indiscriminate selection and disorganized presentation of documentary evidence without tying it to specific defendants hampered the American prosecutors' work on the conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity. The Americans summoned Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf , who testified about

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4128-460: The perceived singularity of the systematic murder of millions of Jews . The first step towards the trials of Nazi war criminals were initiatives taken by the governments-in-exile of countries occupied by Germany, especially Poland , which as early as December 1939 established agencies aimed at recording crimes committed by Germany in Poland for their later prosecution. These efforts resulted in

4257-654: The summary execution of Nazi leaders, citing the failure of trials after World War I and qualms about retroactive criminality . The form that retribution would take was left unresolved at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. On 2 May, at the San Francisco Conference , United States president Harry S. Truman announced the formation of an international military tribunal. On 8 May, Germany surrendered unconditionally , bringing an end to

4386-548: The systematic murder of Jews in eastern Europe , at times they blurred the fate of Jews with that of other Soviet nationalities. Although these aspects had already been covered by the American prosecution, Soviet prosecutors introduced new evidence from Extraordinary State Commission reports and interrogations of senior enemy officers. Lev Smirnov presented evidence on the Lidice massacre in Czechoslovakia, adding that

4515-610: The 1930s Moscow trials , in order to demonstrate the Nazi leaders' guilt and build a case for war reparations to rebuild the Soviet economy , which had been devastated by the war. The United States insisted on a trial that would be seen as legitimate as a means of reforming Germany and demonstrating the superiority of the Western system. The United States Department of War was drawing up plans for an international tribunal in late 1944 and early 1945. The British government still preferred

4644-454: The American prosecution submitted many documents at the beginning of the trial, the judges insisted that all of the evidence be read into the record, which slowed the trial. The structure of the charges also caused delays as the same evidence ended up being read out multiple times, when it was relevant to both conspiracy and the other charges. The International Military Tribunal began trial on 20 November 1945, after postponement requests from

4773-571: The British and Americans presented evidence against individual defendants. Besides the organizations mentioned in the indictment, American, and British prosecutors also mentioned the complicity of the German Foreign Office , army , and navy . From 17 January to 7 February 1946, France presented its charges and supporting evidence. In contrast to the other prosecution teams, the French prosecution delved into Germany's development in

4902-481: The British to take concrete steps in the area of prosecuting German crimes. The London-based United Nations War Crimes Commission —without Soviet participation—first met in October 1943 and became bogged down in the scope of its mandate, with Belgian jurist Marcel de Baer and Czech legal scholar Bohuslav Ečer arguing for a broader definition of war crimes that would include "the crime of war". On 1 November 1943,

5031-456: The Church if even only a few of its servants - like Lichtenberg - stand with the persecuted...The Pope's silence burdens the Church with a guilt for which we have to atone...Not Auschwitz is at stake now! The idea of the papacy must be preserved pure in eternity, even if it is briefly embodied by an Alexander VI , or a -'" Riccardo breaks off, but clearly he, and possibly Hochhuth, want to imply

5160-790: The English-speaking world, the play has since been revived by the Citizens Theatre , Glasgow in 1986 and at the Finborough Theatre , London, in August 2006. Rolf Hochhuth has referred to several historical models for the figures of his play. Among these persons are Pater Maximilian Kolbe (prisoner Nr. 16670 in Auschwitz ) who sacrificed himself for the Catholic family man Franciszek Gajowniczek . Another model

5289-582: The German annexation of Alsace–Lorraine , under the label of Germanization , which he argued was a crime against humanity. Unlike the British and American prosecution strategies, which focused on using German documents to make their cases, the French prosecutors took the perspective of the victims, submitting postwar police reports. Eleven witnesses, including victims of Nazi persecution, were called; resistance fighter and Auschwitz survivor Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier testified about crimes she had witnessed. The French charges of war crimes were accepted by

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5418-737: The German economy, such as Gustav Krupp (of the conglomerate Krupp AG ), former Reichsbank president Hjalmar Schacht , and economic planners Albert Speer and Walther Funk , along with Speer's subordinate and head of the forced labor program , Fritz Sauckel . While the British were skeptical of prosecuting economic leaders, the French had a strong interest in highlighting German economic imperialism. The military leaders were Hermann Göring —the most infamous surviving Nazi — Wilhelm Keitel , Alfred Jodl , Erich Raeder , and Karl Dönitz . Also on trial were propagandists Julius Streicher and Hans Fritzsche ; Rudolf Hess , Hitler's deputy who had flown to Britain in 1941; Hans Frank , governor-general of

5547-458: The German invaders had destroyed thousands of villages and murdered their inhabitants throughout eastern Europe. The Soviet prosecution emphasized the racist aspect of policies such as the deportation of millions of civilians to Germany for forced labor , the murder of children, systematic looting of occupied territories, and theft or destruction of cultural heritage . The Soviet prosecution also attempted to fabricate German responsibility for

5676-521: The German press. Sentences were debated at length by the judges. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to death (Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann). On 16 October, ten were hanged , with Göring killing himself the day before. Seven defendants (Hess, Funk, Raeder, Dönitz, Schirach, Speer, and Neurath) were sent to Spandau Prison to serve their sentences. All three acquittals (Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche) were based on

5805-404: The IMT. In all, 249 journalists were accredited to cover the IMT and 61,854 visitor tickets were issued. In France, the sentence for Rudolf Hess and acquittal of organizations were met with outrage from the media and especially from organizations for deportees and resistance fighters, as they were perceived as too lenient. In the United Kingdom, although a variety of responses were reported, it

5934-418: The Jews are rounded up for deportations "under the Pope's windows," Riccardo declares "doing nothing is as bad as taking part [...] God can forgive a hangman for such work, but not a priest, not the Pope!" and a German officer comments that the Pope has given "friendly audiences to thousands of members of the German army". Riccardo first voices his idea to follow the example of Bernhard Lichtenberg and to follow

6063-478: The Jews to the death camps in the East, and possibly to share in their fate. Pius, with a "cold, smiling face," "aristocratic coldness," and an "icy glint" in his eyes voices his concerns about the Vatican's financial assets and the Allied bombing of factories in Italy. Pius verbally reiterates his commitment to help the Jews but states that he must keep silent "'ad maioram mala vitanda " (to avoid greater evil). When angrily questioned by Riccardo, Pius pontificates on

6192-437: The KGB's disinformation department, created the outline for what was to become the play. Pacepa's story has not been corroborated; the national paper Frankfurter Allgemeine opined that Hochhuth who had been an unknown publisher's employee until 1963 "did not require any KGB assistance for his one-sided presentation of history". However, German historian Michael F. Feldkamp called Pacepa's account "wholly credible. It fits like

6321-438: The London Conference. The French government tried to appoint staff who were not tainted by collaboration with the Vichy regime; some appointments, including Champetier de Ribes, were of those who had been in the French resistance . Expecting a show trial, the Soviet Union initially appointed as chief prosecutor Iona Nikitchenko , who had presided over the Moscow trials, but he was made a judge and replaced by Roman Rudenko ,

6450-480: The Nazi system, but Göring took the opposite approach, expecting to be executed but vindicated in the eyes of the German people. The charter did not recognize a tu quoque defense —asking for exoneration on the grounds that the Allies had committed the same crimes with which the defendants were charged. Although defense lawyers repeatedly equated the Nuremberg Laws to legislation found in other countries, Nazi concentration camps to Allied detention facilities, and

6579-406: The Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg , France , Yugoslavia , Greece , and the Soviet Union . German aggression was accompanied by immense brutality in occupied areas; war losses in the Soviet Union alone included 27 million dead , mostly civilians, which was one seventh of the prewar population. The legal reckoning was premised on the extraordinary nature of Nazi criminality, particularly

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6708-407: The Reich Cabinet, and the General Staff and High Command were not ruled to be criminal organizations. Although the Wehrmacht leadership was not considered an organization within the meaning of the charter, misrepresentation of the verdict as an exoneration was one of the foundations of the clean Wehrmacht myth . The trial had nevertheless resulted in the coverage of its systematic criminality in

6837-498: The Show (1969). Together, they also wrote Notre-Dame De Paris (1971). Nuremberg Trials This is an accepted version of this page The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries across Europe and atrocities against their citizens in World War II . Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in

6966-468: The Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States issued the Moscow Declaration , warning the Nazi leadership of the signatories' intent to "pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth...in order that justice may be done". The declaration stated that those high-ranking Nazis who had committed crimes in several countries would be dealt with jointly, while others would be tried where they had committed their crimes. Soviet jurist Aron Trainin developed

7095-433: The Soviet Union. On 31 August, closing arguments were presented. Over the course of the trial, crimes against humanity and especially against Jews (who were mentioned as victims of Nazi atrocities far more than any other group) came to upstage the aggressive war charge. In contrast to the opening prosecution statements, all eight closing statements highlighted the Holocaust; and the French and British prosecutors made this

7224-427: The Soviet prosecution, who wanted more time to prepare its case, were rejected. All defendants pleaded not guilty. Jackson made it clear that the trial's purpose extended beyond convicting the defendants. Prosecutors wanted to assemble irrefutable evidence of Nazi crimes, establish individual responsibility and the crime of aggression in international law, provide a history lesson to the defeated Germans, delegitimize

7353-464: The United Kingdom. It adopted a declaration promising to punish both direct perpetrators and their superiors, which later became the basis of the Nuremberg system. The Inter-Allied Commission on the Punishment of War Crimes was also established at that time. The United States and United Kingdom refused to endorse this proposal, citing the failure of war crimes prosecutions after World War I . Pressures, primarily from Poland and Czechoslovakia, led

7482-556: The United States Army's refusal to publish the trial record in German for fear it would undermine the fight against communism. The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vocal proponents of amnesty. The pardon of convicted war criminals also had cross-party support in West Germany , which was established in 1949. The Americans satisfied these wishes to bind West Germany to the Western Bloc , beginning early releases of Nuremberg Military Tribunal convicts in 1949. In 1951, High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of

7611-448: The United States against lower-level perpetrators, which focused more on the Holocaust. Controversial at the time for their retroactive criminalization of aggression, the trials' innovation of holding individuals responsible for violations of international law is considered "the true beginning of international criminal law ". Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many European countries , including Poland , Denmark , Norway ,

7740-424: The West German consensus on release began to erode, due to greater openness in political culture and new revelations of Nazi criminality, including the first trials of Nazi perpetrators in West German courts. The International Military Tribunal, and its charter, "marked the true beginning of international criminal law ". The trial has met a mixed reception ranging from glorification to condemnation. The reaction

7869-419: The action of the play) to the tradition of Sophocles and Shakespeare . Hochhuth sought to refute two notions. It had been fashionable to claim (with Nietzsche ) that "there can be no tragedy today" or, with Theodor W. Adorno , that "poetic art after Auschwitz is a barbarity", and Hochhuth does not believe modernity and tragedy incompatible. He also specifically noted it was a "Christian" tragedy in response to

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7998-403: The addition of new names, but this was rejected. Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia , as the Allies were unaware of his death; Krupp was too ill to stand trial; and Robert Ley had committed suicide before the start of the trial. Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to

8127-408: The charter, held together the wide array of charges and defendants and was used to charge the top Nazi leaders, as well as bureaucrats who had never killed anyone or perhaps even directly ordered killing. It was also an end run on the charter's limits on charging crimes committed before the beginning of World War II. Conspiracy charges were central to the cases against propagandists and industrialists:

8256-430: The church will help him escape the hangman after Germany loses the war. Gerstein appears at the camp in an unsanctioned attempt to rescue Riccardo. Unfortunately in the end they are found out, and Riccardo momentarily loses in faith and violates his vow not to take up arms in order to shoot the maleficent Doctor, but is himself gunned down before he can pull the trigger. Gerstein is taken into custody, and Riccardo follows in

8385-541: The church's anti-semitism" (see Nostra aetate ). It has been said that it was Bishop Alois Hudal who provided Rolf Hochhuth with the image of the "heartless, money-grasping pontiff". Hudal has been described as "the most notorious pro-Nazi bishop in the entire Catholic Church". He was appointed to a Pontifical commission where he assisted Nazi war criminals like Adolf Eichmann , Josef Mengele , Franz Stangl , Eduard Roschmann , and many others to escape justice. After he became "a little too public" with these activities he

8514-417: The concept of crimes against peace (waging aggressive war ) which would later be central to the proceedings at Nuremberg. Trainin's ideas were reprinted in the West and widely adopted. Of all the Allies , the Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. The Soviet Union wanted to hold a trial with a predetermined outcome similar to

8643-432: The conference, it was debated whether wars of aggression were prohibited in existing customary international law ; regardless, before the charter was adopted there was no law providing for criminal responsibility for aggression. Despite misgivings from other Allies, American negotiator and Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson threatened the United States' withdrawal if aggression was not prosecuted because it had been

8772-436: The conspiracy charge "invited apologetic interpretations: narratives of absolute, totalitarian dictatorship, run by society's lunatic fringe, of which the Germans had been the first victims rather than agents, collaborators, and fellow travellers ". In contrast, the evidence presented on the Holocaust convinced some observers that Germans must have been aware of this crime while it was ongoing. On 21 November, Jackson gave

8901-427: The controversy surrounding the play. However, all of the actors remained with the production. The play ran for 316 performances. Herman Shumlin received the 1964 Tony Award as the "Best Producer (Dramatic)" for his Broadway production of The Deputy . Author Rolf Hochhuth had originally prohibited a production of his play in Eastern European theatres out of apprehension that Eastern European governments could exploit

9030-464: The court's jurisdiction because the prosecution had not proven a connection to aggressive war. Four organizations were ruled to be criminal: the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the SS, the Gestapo, and the SD, although some lower ranks and subgroups were excluded. The verdict only allowed for individual criminal responsibility if willing membership and knowledge of the criminal purpose could be proved, complicating denazification efforts. The SA,

9159-405: The court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused; but this motion was rejected. The defense lawyers saw themselves as acting on behalf of their clients, but also the German nation. Initially, the Americans had planned to try fourteen organizations and their leaders, but this was narrowed to six: the Reich Cabinet , the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party , the Gestapo , the SA ,

9288-450: The defendants had surrendered to the United States or United Kingdom. The defendants, who were largely unrepentant, included former cabinet ministers: Franz von Papen (who had brought Hitler to power ); Joachim von Ribbentrop ( foreign minister ), Konstantin von Neurath ( foreign minister ). Wilhelm Frick ( interior minister ), and Alfred Rosenberg (minister for the occupied eastern territories). Also prosecuted were leaders of

9417-514: The defense's 83 , not including 19 defendants who testified on their own behalf. The prosecution examined 110,000 captured German documents and entered 4,600 into evidence, along with 30 kilometres (19 mi) of film and 25,000 photographs. The charter allowed the admissibility of any evidence deemed to have probative value, including depositions . Because of the loose evidentiary rules, photographs, charts, maps, and films played an important role in making incredible crimes believable. After

9546-581: The depiction of the Pope as indifferent to the Holocaust "lacks credible substantiation". The encyclopedia notes "though Pius's wartime public condemnations of racism and genocide were cloaked in generalities, he did not turn a blind eye to the suffering but chose to use diplomacy to aid the persecuted. It is impossible to know if a more forthright condemnation of the Holocaust would have proved more effective in saving lives, though it probably would have better assured his reputation." Michael Phayer notes that during

9675-567: The deportation of Jews to the expulsion of Germans , the judges rejected their arguments. Alfred Seidl  [ de ] repeatedly tried to disclose the secret protocols of the German–Soviet pact; although he was eventually successful, it was legally irrelevant and the judges rejected his attempt to bring up the Treaty of Versailles . Six defendants were charged with the German invasion of Norway , and their lawyers argued that this invasion

9804-437: The entire German people. Over the summer, all of the national delegations struggled to gather evidence for the upcoming trial. The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors. This strategy increased the credibility of their case, since survivor testimony was considered less reliable and more vulnerable to accusations of bias, but reduced public interest in

9933-616: The extermination camps. After the Second World War he produced the "Gerstein Report" that was used at the Nuremberg Trials . In subtitling his play ein christliches trauerspiel, Hochhuth links his unusual, pseudo-journalistic approach (complete with stage directions well in excess even of Shaw's which tell us not only how a character looks and acts but what his or her life is like today - that is, in 1963, 21 years after

10062-521: The first time. A number of German aristocrats, industrialists, and government officials (including Adolf Eichmann ) spend an evening in an underground bowling alley. Despite the commonplace setting the scene is rather macabre: conversations alternate between lighthearted pleasantries and equally dismissive discussions of the treatment of Jews. An icy Catholic industrialist—played by the same actor as Pius—defends his use of slave labor . The final scene ends with Riccardo meeting Gerstein at his apartment; at

10191-441: The former were charged with providing the ideological justification for war and other crimes, while the latter were accused of enabling Germany's war effort. The charge, a brainchild of War Department lawyer Murray C. Bernays , and perhaps inspired by his previous work prosecuting securities fraud , was spearheaded by the United States and less popular with the other delegations, particularly France. The problem of translating

10320-662: The geopolitical importance of a strong Germany vis-a-vis the Soviet threat. Ultimately, Riccardo shames the Pope into dictating a statement for public release; however, its wording is so vague that all are confident it will be ignored by the Germans. Riccardo views this as akin to the Crusades , a sin that forever stains Mother Church, and feels called on to prove to God that the Church is indeed worthy of his trust: " 'If God once promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if only ten just men dwelt in it...maybe...God will still forgive

10449-421: The impression of apologizing without assuming personal guilt or naming any victims other than the German people. On 2 September, the court recessed; and the judges retreated into seclusion to decide the verdict and sentences, which had been under discussion since June. The verdict was drafted by British deputy judge Norman Birkett . All eight judges participated in the deliberations, but the deputies could not cast

10578-522: The indictment and evidence into the three official languages of the tribunal—English, French, and Russian—as well as German was severe due to the scale of the task and difficulty of recruiting interpreters, especially in the Soviet Union. Vyshinsky demanded extensive corrections to the charges of crimes against peace, especially regarding the role of the German–Soviet pact in starting World War II. Jackson also separated out an overall conspiracy charge from

10707-685: The individual guilt of each defendant. None of the defendants tried to assert that the Nazis' crimes had not occurred. Some defendants denied involvement in certain crimes or implausibly claimed ignorance of them, especially the Final Solution. A few defense lawyers inverted the arguments of the prosecution to assert that the Germans' authoritarian mindset and obedience to the state exonerated them from any personal guilt. Most rejected that Germany had deviated from Western civilization, arguing that few Germans could have supported Hitler because Germany

10836-458: The judgments totaling 3,828 pages. Of 177 defendants, 142 were convicted and 25 sentenced to death; the severity of sentencing was related to the defendant's proximity to mass murder. Legal historian Kevin Jon Heller argues that the trials' greatest achievement was "their inestimable contribution to the form and substance of international criminal law", which had been left underdeveloped by

10965-489: The largest and most heated theatre controversy in postwar Germany. The theatre production led to international diplomatic complications. Further productions of Hochhuth's play brought about conflicts and turmoil in several European cities. Hannah Arendt also discusses the play (and public reaction to it) in her 1964 essay "The Deputy: Guilt by Silence?". In the assessment of the Encyclopædia Britannica ,

11094-415: The largest delegation, it would take on the bulk of the prosecutorial effort. At Jackson's recommendation, the United States appointed judges Francis Biddle and John Parker . The British chief prosecutor was Hartley Shawcross , Attorney General for England and Wales , assisted by his predecessor David Maxwell Fyfe . Although the chief British judge, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence ( Lord Justice of Appeal ),

11223-630: The late 1930s, working with the many German exiles in New York. The Winstons translated over 150 books as well as many other works, and they received a number of awards for their translations. In 1978, they won the American Book Award for Uwe George 's In the Deserts of This Earth . In 1972 then won the PEN Translation Prize for their translation of Letters of Thomas Mann . Their best known translations included

11352-506: The latter's urging, he agrees to trade clothes and documents with a Jew, Jacobson, Gerstein has been hiding in order to help him escape. Act II repeatedly attempts to drive home the point that Hitler feared Pius more than any of his contemporaries and that Pius's commercial interests preclude him from condemning Hitler. One of the Cardinals argues that the Nazis are the last bulwark that remains against Soviet domination of Europe. As

11481-557: The main charge, as opposed to that of aggression. All prosecutors except the Americans mentioned the concept of genocide , which had been recently invented by the Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin . British prosecutor Shawcross quoted from witness testimony about a murdered Jewish family from Dubno , Ukraine. During the closing statements, most defendants disappointed the judges by their lies and denial. Speer managed to give

11610-518: The murder of 80,000 people by those under his command, and SS general Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski , who admitted that German anti-partisan warfare was little more than a cover for the mass murder of Jews. The British prosecution covered the charge of crimes against peace, which was largely redundant to the American conspiracy case. On 4 December, Shawcross gave the opening speech, much of which had been written by Cambridge professor Hersch Lauterpacht . Unlike Jackson, Shawcross attempted to minimize

11739-411: The murder of tens of thousands of Jews from Vilna . The Soviet prosecution case was generally well received and presented compelling evidence about the suffering of the Soviet people and the Soviet contributions to victory. From March to July 1946, the defense presented its counterarguments. Before the prosecution finished, it was clear that their general case was proven, but it remained to determine

11868-609: The nineteenth century, arguing that it had diverged from the West due to pan-Germanism and imperialism. They argued that Nazi ideology, which derived from these earlier ideas, was the mens rea —criminal intent—of the crimes on trial. The French prosecutors, more than their British or American counterparts, emphasized the complicity of many Germans; they barely mentioned the charge of aggressive war and instead focused on forced labor, economic plunder, and massacres. Prosecutor Edgar Faure grouped together various German policies, such as

11997-601: The novelty of the aggression charges, elaborating its precursors in the conventions of Hague and Geneva , the League of Nations Covenant , the Locarno Treaty , and the Kellogg–Briand Pact . The British took four days to make their case, with Maxwell Fyfe detailing treaties broken by Germany. In mid-December the Americans switched to presenting the case against the indicted organizations, while in January both

12126-413: The opening speech for the prosecution. He described the fact that the defeated Nazis received a trial as "one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason". Focusing on aggressive war, which he described as the root of the other crimes, Jackson promoted an intentionalist view of the Nazi state and its overall criminal conspiracy. The speech was favorably received by the prosecution,

12255-623: The other three charges, aiming that the American prosecution would cover the overall Nazi conspiracy while the other delegations would flesh out the details of Nazi crimes. The division of labor, and the haste with which the indictment was prepared, resulted in duplication, imprecise language, and lack of attribution of specific charges to individual defendants. Some of the most prominent Nazis— Adolf Hitler , Heinrich Himmler , and Joseph Goebbels —had committed suicide and therefore could not be tried. The prosecutors wanted to try representative leaders of German politics, economy, and military. Most of

12384-824: The play as anti-Catholic is not to read it at all." The play was first produced in Eastern Europe almost three years after its premiere at the National Theatre in Belgrade in Yugoslavia in January 1966 and at the National Theatre in Bratislava in Czechoslovakia on February 12, 1966. The first production in East Germany took place on February 20, 1966 at Greifswald Theatre. The Deputy has been produced in more than 80 cities worldwide since. In

12513-520: The play for a striking anti-Catholic interpretation. This possibility troubled Hochhuth to such an extent that he later wrote "In choosing a Jesuit for my tragic hero I strove to condemn the sin and not the sinner - that is, not the Church but its silence - and to exemplify, after a Kierkegaardian fashion, the enormous difficulty of living up to the Catholic creed and the immense nobility of spirit of those who are capable even of coming close. To read

12642-473: The preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Paulus incriminated his former associates, pointing to Keitel, Jodl, and Göring as the defendants most responsible for the war. More so than other delegations, Soviet prosecutors showed the gruesome details of German atrocities, especially the death by starvation of 3 million Soviet prisoners of war and several hundred thousand residents of Leningrad . Although Soviet prosecutors dealt most extensively with

12771-616: The president of the World Zionist Organization , as well as the Provisional Government of National Unity in Poland, for an active role in the trial justified by their representation of victims of Nazi crimes were rejected. The Soviet Union invited prosecutors from its allies, including Poland, Czechoslovakia , and Yugoslavia ; Denmark and Norway also sent a delegation. Although the Polish delegation

12900-664: The proceedings. The American prosecution drew on reports of the Office of Strategic Services , an American intelligence agency, and information provided by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the American Jewish Committee , while the French prosecution presented many documents that it had obtained from the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation . The prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to

13029-413: The prosecution in declaring the crime of plotting and waging aggressive war "the supreme international crime" because "it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". Most of the defendants were also charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity , and the systematic murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust was significant to the trial. Twelve further trials were conducted by

13158-471: The prosecution's case. Over the course of the trial, Western judges allowed the defendants additional leeway to denounce the Soviet Union, which was ultimately revealed to be a co-conspirator in the outbreak of World War II. In the context of the brewing Cold War —for example, in 1946 Winston Churchill delivered the Iron Curtain speech —the trial became a means of condemning not only Germany but also

13287-531: The rationale for American entry into World War II . However, Jackson conceded on defining crimes against peace; the other three Allies were opposed because it would undermine the freedom of action of the United Nations Security Council . War crimes already existed in international law as criminal violations of the laws and customs of war , but these did not apply to a government's treatment of its own citizens. Legal experts sought

13416-474: The sentences and the last three prisoners, all convicted at the Einsatzgruppen trial, were released in 1958. The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. The IMT defendants required Soviet permission for release; Speer was not successful in obtaining early release, and Hess remained in prison until his death in 1987. By the late 1950s,

13545-564: The traditional German elite, and allow the Allies to distance themselves from appeasement . Jackson maintained that while the United States did "not seek to convict the whole German people of crime", neither did the trial "serve to absolve the whole German people except 21 men in the dock". Nevertheless, defense lawyers (although not most of the defendants) often argued that the prosecution was trying to promote German collective guilt and forcefully countered this strawman . According to Priemel,

13674-428: The trial procedure and attempted to discredit the entire proceedings. In order to appease them, the defendants were allowed a free hand with their witnesses and a great deal of irrelevant testimony was heard. The defendants' witnesses sometimes managed to exculpate them, but other witnesses—including Rudolf Höss , the former commandant of Auschwitz, and Hans Bernd Gisevius , a member of the German resistance —bolstered

13803-568: The trial was procedurally fair. The judges were aware that both the Allies and the Axis had planned or committed acts of aggression, writing the verdict carefully to avoid discrediting either the Allied governments or the tribunal. The judges ruled that there had been a premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, whose goals were "the disruption of the European order" and "the creation of

13932-600: The trial: The German Fascist Destruction of the Cultural Treasures of the Peoples of the USSR , Atrocities Committed by the German Fascist Invaders in the USSR , and The German Fascist Destruction of Soviet Cities , using footage from Soviet filmmakers as well as shots from German newsreels. The second film included footage of the liberation of Majdanek and the liberation of Auschwitz and

14061-578: The trials illegitimate victor's justice and an imposition of collective guilt, which they rejected—instead considering themselves victims of the war. As the Cold War began, the rapidly changing political environment began to affect the effectiveness of the trials. The educational purpose of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals was a failure, in part because of the resistance to war crimes trials in German society, but also because of

14190-468: The tribunal, except for the execution of hostages. Due to the narrow definition of crimes against humanity in the charter, the only part of the Germanization charges accepted by the judges was the deportation of Jews from France and other parts of Western Europe. On 8 February, the Soviet prosecution opened its case with a speech by Rudenko that covered all four prosecution charges, highlighting

14319-505: The tribunal, the audience, historians, and even the defendants. Much of the American case focused on the development of the Nazi conspiracy before the outbreak of war. The American prosecution became derailed during attempts to provide evidence on the first act of aggression, against Austria . On 29 November, the prosecution was unprepared to continue presenting on the invasion of Czechoslovakia , and instead screened Nazi Concentration and Prison Camps . The film, compiled from footage of

14448-472: The view that tragedy was incompatible with Christianity, which was voiced by Tolstoy (in his conversations with Gorkiy) and elaborated 8 years before Hochhuth's play in a much-publicized article by Laurence Michel which claimed that "Christian tragedy" was a contradiction in terms and again a book by Walter Kaufmann (philosopher) from the following year. In linking "The Deputy" to both views, Hochhuth sought to overturn both presuppositions about what constituted

14577-543: The war in Europe . At the London Conference, held from 26 June to 2 August 1945, representatives of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States negotiated the form that the trial would take. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all. The offenses that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace, crimes against humanity , and war crimes. At

14706-490: The whole". The work of the judges was made more difficult due to the broadness of the crimes listed in the Nuremberg Charter. The judges did not attempt to define the crime of aggression and did not mention the retroactivity of the charges in the verdict. Despite the lingering doubts of some of the judges, the official interpretation of the IMT held that all of the charges had a solid basis in customary international law and that

14835-498: The works of Thomas Mann , Franz Kafka , Hannah Arendt , Albert Speer , Hermann Hesse , and Rolf Hochhuth , among others. In Richard's 1980 obituary in The New York Times , Clara described translation an interpretative art which relies on intuition. They could be "devoutly faithful" to some writers, but "helped [...] along" writers whom they considered less skilled, using their own discretion. The Winstons moved to

14964-679: The worldwide rights for a film adaptation for 300,000 Deutsche Mark in April 1963 to the French producer Georges de Beauregard and his production company "Rome Paris Films". The Deputy was eventually made as the film Amen. by the Greek -born French filmmaker Costa-Gavras in 2002. Richard and Clara Winston Richard Winston (1917 – December 22, 1979) and Clara Brussel Winston (1921 – November 7, 1983), were prominent American translators of German works into English. Richard and Clara were both born in New York and went to Brooklyn College . Richard and Clara began translating together in

15093-564: The worst offenders were not prosecuted, for logistical or financial reasons. One set of trials focused on the actions of German professionals: the Doctors' trial focused on human experimentation and euthanasia murders , the Judges' trial on the role of the judiciary in Nazi crimes , and the Ministries trial on the culpability of bureaucrats of German government ministries, especially

15222-719: Was a civilized country. The defendants tried to blame their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 1,200 times during the trial—more than the top five defendants combined. Other absent and dead men, including Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich , Adolf Eichmann , and Bormann, were also blamed. To counter claims that conservative defendants had enabled the Nazi rise to power , defense lawyers blamed the Social Democratic Party of Germany , trade unions, and other countries that maintained diplomatic relations with Germany. In contrast, most defendants avoided incriminating each other. Most defendants argued their own insignificance within

15351-484: Was appointed the United States' chief prosecutor, whom historian Kim Christian Priemel describes as "a versatile politician and a remarkable orator, if not a great legal thinker". The United States prosecution believed that Nazism was the product of a German deviation from the West (the Sonderweg thesis) and sought to correct this deviation with a trial that would serve both retributive and educational purposes. As

15480-468: Was considered even more disturbing than the American concentration camp film. Soviet witnesses included several survivors of German crimes, including two civilians who lived through the siege of Leningrad, a peasant whose village was destroyed in anti-partisan warfare, a Red Army doctor who endured several prisoner-of-war camps and two Holocaust survivors— Samuel Rajzman , a survivor of Treblinka extermination camp , and poet Abraham Sutzkever , who described

15609-495: Was difficult to sustain interest in a long trial. Where the prosecution was disappointed by some of the verdicts, the defense could take satisfaction. Many Germans at the time of the trials focused on finding food and shelter. Despite this, a majority read press reports about the trial. In a 1946 poll, 78 percent of Germans assessed the trial as fair, but four years later that had fallen to 38 percent, with 30 percent considering it unfair. As time went on, more Germans considered

15738-488: Was largely accepted, with the final wording being "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population". The final version of the charter limited the tribunal's jurisdiction over crimes against humanity to those committed as part of a war of aggression. Both the United States—concerned that its " Jim Crow " system of racial segregation not be labeled

15867-489: Was narrowed to a conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge; all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. All 22 defendants were charged with crimes against peace, and 12 were convicted. The war crimes and crimes against humanity charges held up the best, with only two defendants charged on those grounds being acquitted. The judges determined that crimes against humanity concerning German Jews before 1939 were not under

15996-412: Was not empowered to intervene in the proceedings, it submitted evidence and an indictment, succeeding at drawing some attention to crimes committed against Polish Jews and non-Jews. The work of drafting the indictment was divided up by the national delegations. The British worked on aggressive war; the other delegations were assigned the task of covering crimes against humanity and war crimes committed on

16125-703: Was planned to hold a second international tribunal for German industrialists, but this was never held because of differences between the Allies. Twelve military trials were convened solely by the United States in the same courtroom that had hosted the International Military Tribunal. Pursuant to Law No. 10 adopted by the Allied Control Council , United States forces arrested almost 100,000 Germans as war criminals. The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. Many of

16254-424: Was rejected by Jackson. Instead, the charter limited the jurisdiction of the court to Germany's actions. Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming sovereign immunity , and the plea of acting under superior orders was left for the judges to decide. The trial was held under modified common law . The negotiators decided that the tribunal's permanent seat would be in Berlin, while the trial would be held at

16383-587: Was sidelined by Pope Pius and, according to Hansjakob Stelhe, "took his revenge" by providing Hochhuth with his portrait of Pius. In 2007 a high ranking intelligence officer and defector from the Eastern Bloc, Ion Mihai Pacepa , stated that in February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev authorized a covert plan (known as Seat 12 ) to discredit the Vatican, with Pope Pius XII as the prime target. As part of that plan Pacepa alleged that General Ivan Agayants , chief of

16512-499: Was the nominal president of the tribunal, in practice Biddle exercised more authority. The French prosecutor, François de Menthon , had just overseen trials of the leaders of Vichy France ; he resigned in January 1946 and was replaced by Auguste Champetier de Ribes . The French judges were Henri Donnedieu de Vabres , a professor of criminal law, and deputy Robert Falco , a judge of the Cour de Cassation who had represented France at

16641-632: Was undertaken to prevent a British invasion of that country ; a cover-up prevented the defense from capitalizing on this argument. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz testified that the United States Navy had also used unrestricted submarine warfare against Japan in the Pacific ; Dönitz's counsel successfully argued that this meant that it could not be a crime. The judges barred most evidence on Allied misdeeds from being heard in court. Many defense lawyers complained about various aspects of

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