|
6)Show Trials and The Value Of The Confessions From The Germans
| quote: | R: First, let us have a look at what is going on during interrogations in our socalled
“nations under law.” In this regard, I would like to refer to a news report
by the U.S. TV channel ABC on the manner in which innocent people can be
made to confess to the crime of murder through the use of perfectly ordinary
interrogation techniques, after which their confessions are deemed sufficiently
probative to secure a murder conviction. The real murderers were only caught
later, by accident, resulting in a scandal revealing the truth about certain common
methods of police interrogation:[935]
“Every year, thousands of criminals are convicted on the basis of confessions
obtained from police interrogations. Experts say law enforcement interrogation
techniques are so effective that they can break down the most
hardened criminal – and even people who are innocent of the crime they are
being accused of. Experts believe there have been hundreds of cases where
innocent men succumbed to interrogation and confessed to crimes they did
not commit.”
R: Rich Fallin, former police officer in Maryland, himself a specialist in interrogation,
says:
“You take someone who is vulnerable, like a grieving family member or
someone who isn’t used to being confronted by police. If interrogated long
enough, they’ll probably confess.”
R: The methods are quite simple: the interrogators confront the suspect with evidence,
such as horrible photos of the crime scene or the testimonies of other
witnesses, and simply suggest – mendaciously – that they can prove that he is
guilty. The interrogation lasts many hours, often without interruption. Food and
drinks are refused or restricted to very small portions, visits to the toilet are delayed
or refused. The interrogation room is deliberately designed to be uncomfortable
and is insufficiently heated. The interrogators take turns questioning
the suspect until late in the night. The suspect is persuaded that they’ve “got the
goods on him,” that his denials will only get him a stiffer sentence, so that confession
is the only way out. Under these conditions – exhaustion, fatigue, and
emotional stress – most suspects break down, whether they are guilty or innocent.
Due to a long series of unjust convictions based on this kind of extorted confession,
the state of Illinois, to set an example, instituted a moratorium on the execution
of death sentences in the year 2000.[936]
L: That is one good reason why lawyers tell you not to say anything without a
lawyer present, whenever you get arrested or receive a summons.
R: That is quite right, because everything you say will be used against you. Unfortunately,
many people are naïve enough to believe that the police are invariably
men of integrity. But that is not so. Police men in the crime squad deal with the
most reprehensible sorts of people on a daily basis and act accordingly.
[935] ABC, March 15, 2003: cf. the entire text: Manfred Köhler, “Forced Confessions: Why Innocent Defendants Admit their Guilt,” TR 1(4) (2003), pp. 465f.
[936] Cf. “Illinois suspends death penalty,” CNN, Jan. 13, 2000
(http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/....executions.02/). |
(End of quote from: Lectures p. 372-373)
Thousands of innocent people in jail because of the "effective" police interrogation technicues. So this is the situation today, at peace time.
How about right after the second World War?
| quote: | 3.3.1. Allied Post-War Trials
In order to assess the value of eyewitness testimony and confessions relating to the Holocaust, one must first examine the conditions prevailing in the Allied post-war trials in Nuremberg and elsewhere. For it is the verdicts handed down in these trials which recorded, in sketchy outlines, the accounts of the Holocaust given by eyewitness testimony and putative confessions. These Allied trials may be roughly divided into two types, namely those carried out by the respective occupying powers as these saw fit, and those carried out with at least initial co-operation between the victorious powers within the framework of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg.[25]
3.3.1.1. American Trials
Immediately after the end of the war the Americans placed all Germans who held leading positions in the Party, the state or the economy under "automatic arrest" without trial.[26] In this way hundreds of thousands ended up in prison camps consisting in the main only of fenced-in meadows. Shortly after the end of the war all German prisoners were stripped of their status as prisoners-of-war.[27] The Allies considered civilian internees to have no rights whatsoever; particularly in the American and French spheres of influence, these prisoners lived mostly in burrows in the ground, received insufficient food, were denied all medical assistance, and neither the International Red Cross nor other organizations nor even private individuals were allowed to help. In this way the prisoners in the American run camps died like flies by the hundreds of thousands.[28]
Military Government Ordinance No. 1 required every German, on pain of lifetime imprisonment, to give the Allies any and all information they required.[29] Thus German witnesses could be forced to give evidence by imprisoning them for years, subjecting them to hours of interrogation, or threatening to hand them over to the Russians.[30] A separate department, "Special Project", was responsible for obtaining incriminating evidence against reluctant witnesses. The material obtained in this way was used to bend the witnesses to the Allies’ will, since this information was used to threaten them with prosecution if they refused to give incriminating evidence against others.[31]
This fact alone shows that after the war every German was practically outlawed and became fair game for persecution, and found himself unexpectedly in a situation where he would give the Allies any information they sought – even if such information was false – rather than suffer the blows of arbitrary despotism looming over him at every turn.
In the American Occupation Zone, trials against various defendants were conducted under the United States’ or U.S. Army’s sovereignty in Dachau, Ludwigsburg, Darmstadt and Salzburg.[32] These trials fell roughly into three categories:
1) crimes in concentration camps (including the cases of euthanasia);
2) murders of bailed-out Allied plane crews;
3) the alleged war crime of Malmedy at the Ardennes Offensive.
Preparation for these trials included the interrogation of suspects and witnesses in various camps and prisons known as torture chambers today, such as Ebensee, Freising, Oberursel, Zuffenhausen and Schwäbisch Hall.[33] Rückerl (West Germany’s official top “Nazi hunter”) comments succinctly:
"Even the Americans themselves soon objected to the way in which some American military tribunals conducted their trials, particularly to the fact that what was repeatedly used as evidence in these trials were confessions of the accused which had been obtained in preliminary hearings, sometimes under the worst possible physical and psychological pressure."[34]
[...]
The manner in which the Americans extorted confessions from accused persons, or statements from reluctant witnesses subjected to automatic arrest both in the prisons for those awaiting trial as well as during the main hearing in Dachau, left clearly visible marks: the methods used were:
- skin burns
- destruction of the bed of the (finger-, i.e., toe-)nails with burning matches
- torn-out fingernails
- knocked-in teeth
- broken jaws
- crushed testicles
- wounds of all kinds due to beatings with clubs
- brass knuckles and kicks
- being locked up naked in cold, damp and dark rooms for several days
- imprisonment in hot rooms with nothing to drink
- mock trials
- mock convictions
- mock executions
- bogus clergymen, and many more.[41],[42]
According to Joachim Peiper, principal defendant in the Malmedy Trial, what was even worse than these so-called third-degree interrogation methods was the feeling of being completely at the mercy of others while being totally cut off from the outside world and one’s fellow prisoners. Another method the Americans used, which was often successful, was to play the prisoners off against each other with threats and promises in order to obtain false incriminating statements. This would help to break the prisoners’ resistance, which had its roots in the solidarity among them (second-degree interrogations).[43]
The protocols of these interrogations, which lasted for hours and even days, were cut-and-pasted into so-called affidavits by the prosecution; those parts which exonerated the accused were deleted, and contents were frequently distorted by re-wording.[44] Aside from these dubious affidavits, anything and everything was admissible as evidence, including, for example, un-notarized copies of documents as well as third-hand statements (hearsay).[45] In one case even the unfinished, unsigned affidavit of one accused whom all the abuse had driven to suicide was used as evidence![46] And Order SOP No. 4 promised that any accused who offered to give State’s evidence to incriminate others would be set free.[47] The effects of this regulation was demonstrated by Lautern, who described two cases in which the accused bought their freedom with false statements incriminating third parties.[48]
Up to the start of the trials the accused had no legal representation whatsoever, and even during the trials the defense attorneys rarely provided effective support, since these defense counsels (appointed by the Court) in many cases were themselves citizens of the victorious powers, usually with a poor command of the German language. They showed little interest in defending their clients and sometimes even acted blatantly as prosecutors, going so far as to threaten the defendants and to persuade them to make false confessions of guilt.[49] But even if, like American attorney W. M. Everett for example, they were willing to carry out their duties as defense counsels, the prosecution and the Court made this almost impossible for them: the defense was reluctantly given only partial access to pertinent documents, and conversations with the accused were not possible until just before and sometimes not even until after the trials had begun, and only ever under Allied supervision. Frequently it was not until just before the trial that the defense was informed of the charges, which tended to be sweeping and general in nature.[50] Motions to hear witnesses for the defense, or to contest evidence such as extorted statements, were usually refused.[51] And this was fully in accordance with the regulations of the American Occupation Power; Article 7 of Ordinance Number 7 of the Military Government for the American Zone states, with respect to the charter of certain military tribunals:
"The Tribunals shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence […] The tribunal shall afford the opposing party such opportunity to question the […] probative value of such evidence as in the opinion of the tribunal the ends of justice require."[52]
It was left to the Court to decide what was necessary. In other words, the protocol was purely arbitrary.
It is an interesting matter to determine how the incriminating statements, especially those made by former inmates of the concentration camps, are to be evaluated. The prosecution used a special technique to obtain these statements – so-called "stage shows" or "revues".[53] For this purpose the prosecution gathered up former concentration camp inmates and put them into an auditorium. The accused were placed on a well-lit stage while the former inmates sat in the darkened room and could bring any and all conceivable accusations against the accused, accompanied at times by furious yelling and the most vile curses. In those cases where, contrary to expectation, no charges were made against an accused, or when those accusations that were made seemed insufficient, the prosecution helped matters along by persuading and sometimes even threatening the witnesses.[54] If this shameful tactic still did not suffice to obtain incriminating statements, the prosecution nevertheless did not shy away from a trial; exonerating statements were simply destroyed by the prosecution.[55] These stage-shows continued until an American officer donned an SS uniform and appeared on the stage before the howling witnesses, who promptly incriminated him as a concentration camp thug.[56]
Defense witnesses from the concentration camps were withheld, threatened, sometimes even arrested and abused by the prosecution.[57] Many former concentration camp inmates threatened their one-time fellow sufferers with reprisals against their families or even with incriminating statements and indictments against them if they failed to give sufficiently incriminating testimony or statements against third parties. Even threats of murder are documented to have been made against fellow prisoners.[58] The VVN (Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes = Organization of Persons Persecuted by the Nazi Regime),[59] the organization that decided which former inmates living in the starving Germany of those days would receive food rations, housing authorization etc., used its power to pressure many former fellow prisoners into not taking the stand as defense witnesses. It even expressly forbade the former fellow prisoners to give exonerating testimony.[60]
Those witnesses who were willing to give incriminating evidence were conspicuous by virtue of their frequent appearance, sometimes in groups, at various trials where they could expect to receive considerable compensation, both financial and in goods. In many cases these "professional witnesses", who openly coordinated their testimony amongst themselves, were criminal ex-convicts who had been promised exemption from punishment in return for their cooperation.[61] Judges G. Simpson and E. L. van Roden, whom the U. S. Army had appointed as investigating commission, are said to have used the term "scum of humanity" in this context.[62] Even when such or other witnesses were found to have perjured themselves, they were never prosecuted.[63] On the contrary: only if a witness told the Court of the methods with which his testimony had come about, and thus rescinded his statements – only then did the prosecution take steps against him.[64]
In principle, the trials in Dachau were all the same, regardless of whether they dealt with crimes in the concentration camps, with murders of airmen, or with the Malmedy Case. F. Oscar correctly points out[65] that torture was worse in the Malmedy Case due to the dearth of ‘witnesses’, while the superfluity of ‘witnesses’ in the concentration camp cases resulted in "stage shows" instead. In the euthanasia and physicians cases the method of choice was the confiscation of exonerating documents and the suppression of exculpatory statements.[66] Freda Utley stated[67] that the concentration camp cases were even worse than the Malmedy Case, which was already unparalleled.[68]
What must one think of historians who, like Thomas A. Schwartz, claimed as late as 1990 and in Germany’s foremost periodical on contemporary history, that the American trials had been conducted in accordance with the stipulations of the Geneva Convention; that the main problem with these trials had merely been the lack of opportunity for appeal and the uncertain future treatment of the convicted; that the cases of Ilse Koch63 and Malmedy were the only ones of particular significance; and that the committee appointed by the U.S. Senate had exonerated the American occupation authorities from the more serious charges?[69] One must think that Schwartz was either extremely ignorant or extremely perverse!
3.3.1.2. British Trials
In the first post-war years the British, on the whole, acted no differently than the Americans. According to Aschenauer, the main features of the American post-war trials also characterized those British trials taking place in Werl,[70] where leading officers of the Wehrmacht as well as concentration camp guards from Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and Natzweiler were tried.[71] One fundamental difference, however, was that no investigating commissions were introduced during or after these trials, so that the internal proceedings of, for example, the British interrogation camps and prisons – most notably Minden,[72] Bad Nenndorf[73] and Hameln – remained sub-surface.
From two examples, however, it becomes clear that interrogation methods of second and third degree were the rule there as well. The first example is the torture of the former Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höß, in the prison of Minden. This torture was not only mentioned by Höß himself in his autobiography,[74] but has also been confirmed by one of his torturers[75] who, rather as an aside, also mentioned the torture of Hans Frank in Minden.[76] And further, in his testimony before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), Oswald Pohl reported that similar methods were used in Bad Nenndorf and that this was how his own affidavit had been obtained.[77] The example of Höß is especially important since his statement was used at the IMT as the confession of a perpetrator, to prove the mass murder of the Jews (see 3.3.1.5). In 2001, Patricia Meehan revealed some ugly features of the network of secret "Direct Interrogation Centres" the British had set up in their occupational zone of Germany. Those centers are indeed best characterized as torture chambers to receive ‘evidence’ for the upcoming trials.[78]
3.3.1.3. French Trials
We know comparatively little about the French trials of the camp staff of the concentration camps Neue Bremme and Natzweiler.[79] However, judging from the French conduct towards German civilians under "automatic arrest"[80] as well as towards the population of the occupied territories[81] – which was just as bad as, if not worse than, the conduct of the Americans – one may conclude that the French were equal to the Americans in every way.
3.3.1.4. Soviet-Russian Trials
The trials in the Soviet Occupation Zone can be considered as part of the continuation of the war crimes tribunals that had been held in the Soviet Union ever since the outbreak of hostilities in 1941. In 1950, an official report confirmed that these war crimes trials were a violation of international law.[82] Maurach reports that the preliminary hearings were characterized by continuous, i.e., non-stop interrogations, physical abuse of all kinds, distorted protocols, playing prisoners off against each other, forced denunciation of others, etc; and the main hearings by summary mass trials before special courts governed by arbitrary rules of procedure.[83] There is a general consensus of opinion regarding these procedures, and even the Federal German Ministry of Justice has commented to this effect.[84] In a recent publication by a renowned Russian historian and based on original Russian archives, these early German expert reports were confirmed.[85] The same goes for comparable trials held by the Soviet satellite states in the first few years following the war. Buszko, for example, reports that in Poland, just as with the IMT, a special court was set up whose verdicts were incontestable.[86] Further, the Federal Ministry of Justice has described the early trials in the German Democratic Republic as arbitrary trials[87] whose darkest chapter, the so-called Waldheim Trials, was recently set out in detail by Eisert.[88]
3.3.1.5. The International Military Tribunal and its Successor Tribunals
The actual International Military Tribunal consisted of prosecutors and judges from the four Allies Powers – hardly an objective tribunal.
[...]
Three articles pertaining to the rights of the Court are particularly significant. Article 18, for example, determined that the Court should
"confine the Trial strictly to an expeditious hearing of the issues raised by the charges [sic]"
and that it could refuse any and all questions and explanations it deemed unnecessary or irrelevant. Article 19 states verbatim:
"The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and nontechnical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value."
And Article 21 – the effect of this article still today gives the cloak of respectability to anti-scientific legal conclusions:
"The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof […]"
According to the London Agreement, these "facts of common knowledge" included anything which any office or commission from any Allied nation claimed in documents, files, reports and protocols. Thus, all ‘evidence’ produced in the trials discussed in 3.3.1.1 to 3.3.1.4 was deemed to be a matter of fact needing no further substantiation. The IMT categorized the SS and the Waffen-SS, for example, as criminal organizations primarily on the basis of the ‘evidence’ produced in the Dachau Trials.[91]
In the time leading up to the trial, the Soviets bluntly stated that they wished to execute the accused without a trial or at most after a summary show-trial, since their guilt was self-evident anyhow.[92] While some voices were raised in agreement on the side of the western Allies,[93] the understanding that only a ‘real’ trial could be effective did predominate.[94]
[...]
The newspaper Neues Österreich shed new light on the quality of this type of media reporting when it commented on witness testimony in an NSG trial in the following way, which unfortunately is typical for our media:
"Whatever the accused cannot disprove did obviously take place, as incredible as it may sound."[330]
In other words, the public consents to the practice that in NSG trials it is not the guilt of the accused that must be proven, but rather that the accused must prove his innocence of any and all conceivable accusations, in the tradition of the Inquisition of medieval times.
[25] A remarkable study about the Nuremberg Trials was presented by M. Weber, JHR 12(2) (1992) pp. 167-213 (online: ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p167_Webera.html).
[26] R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Quadrangle Books, Chicago 1961, p. 691; M. Lautern, Das letzte Wort über Nürnberg, Dürer, Buenos Aires 1950, p. 18; cf. the accounts of personal experience by J. Gheorge, Automatic Arrest, Druffel, Leoni 1956; J. Hiess, Glasenbach, Welsermühl, Wels 1956; L. Rendulic, Glasenbach – Nürnberg – Landsberg, Stocker, Graz 1953; M. Brech, W. Laska, H. von der Heide, JHR 10(2) (1990) pp. 161-185 (online: vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/10/2/Brech161-166.html and following).
[27] D. Irving, Der Nürnberger Prozeß, 2nd ed., Heyne, Munich 1979, p. 26; R. Tiemann, Der Malmedy-Prozeß, Munin, Osnabrück 1990, pp. 70, 93f. Since D. Irving published a more sophisticated book about Nuremberg, (D. Irving, Nuremberg. The Last Battle, Focal Point, London 1996) the reader should refer to this, even though it could not be included in detail in this study which was written prior to its publication.
[28] J. Bacque, Other Losses, Stoddart, Toronto 1989.
[29] Enacted on Aug. 16, 1945; A. von Knieriem, Nürnberg. Rechtliche und menschliche Probleme, Klett, Stuttgart 1953, p. 158.
[30] F. Utley, The High Cost of Vengeance, Regnery, Chicago 1949, p. 172.
[31] Op. cit., p. 171; M. Lautern, op. cit. (note 26), p. 24.
[32] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Recht und Wirtschaft, Munich 1952, p. 5; cf. also ibid., Zur Frage einer Revision der Kriegsverbrecherprozesse, pub. by author, Nuremberg 1949, see esp. pp. 14ff.
[33] R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 71, 73; F. Oscar, Über Galgen wächst kein Gras, Erasmus-Verlag, Braunschweig 1950, pp. 77ff.
[34] A. Rückerl, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht, C. F. Müller, Heidelberg 1984, p. 98.
[35] Regarding G. Froeschmann cf. O. W. Koch, Dachau – Landsberg, Justizmord – oder Mord-Justiz?, Refo-Verlag, Witten 1974.
[36] Regarding W. M. Everett cf. R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), esp. pp. 82, 103ff. This also contains the best account of the activities of the various investigative committees.
[37] R. Tiemann, ibid., p. 144.
[38] Ibid., esp. pp. 160ff., 175ff., 282ff.; R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), p. 65f.
[39] R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), p. 181.
[40] Congressional Record-Senate No. 134, July 26, 1949, pp. 10397ff., reprinted in its entirety in R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 269ff.
[41] Aside from McCarthy, op. cit. (note 40), also cf. R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), esp. pp. 190ff.; F. Oscar, op. cit. (note 33), pp. 38ff.
[42] J. Halow, JHR 9(4) (1989) pp. 453-483 (online: vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/9/4/Halow453-483.html); J. Halow, Siegerjustiz in Dachau, Druffel, Leoni 1993; for a typical example, cf. the case of Ilse Koch in A. L. Smith, Die "Hexe von Buchenwald", Böhlau, Cologne 1983; for Malmedy cf. also R. Merriam, JHR 2(2) (1981) pp. 165-176 (online: …/2/2/Merriam165-176.html).
[43] R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 86, 220f.
[44] A. von Knieriem, op. cit. (note 29), pp. 159, 169; M. Lautern, op. cit. (note 26), p. 41ff.; see also the chapter by I. Weckert, this volume.
[45] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 32f.; cf. Article 7, Ordinance No. 7 of the Military Government of the American Zone, in A. von Knieriem, op. cit. (note 29), p. 558.
[46] R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), p. 102.
[47] Address by J. McCarthy, op. cit. (note 40); R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), p. 275.
[48] M. Lautern, op. cit. (note 26), p. 32, regarding E. von dem Bach-Zelewski and F. Gaus. The cases of W. Höttl and D. Wisliceny are similar – and the list could go on.
[49] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 29f., 43f.
[50] R. Aschenauer, ibid., pp. 26ff.; F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), p. 197.
[51] R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 91, 96f., 103.
[52] A. von Knieriem, op. cit. (note 29), p. 558.
[53] Cf. R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 18ff.; O. W. Koch, op. cit. (note 35), p. 127.
[54] R. Aschenauer, ibid., p. 24ff., 33f.
[55] R. Aschenauer, ibid., p. 21.
[56] Gesellschaft für freie Publizistik, Das Siegertribunal, Nation Europa, Coburg 1976, pp. 69f.
[57] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 42f.; R. Tiemann, op. cit. (note 27), p. 98ff., 103.
[58] F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), pp. 195.
[59] Later on the VVN was declared an unconstitutional Communist association.
[60] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 42f.; F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), p. 198; O. W. Koch, op. cit. (note 35), p. 53; Gesellschaft für freie Publizistik, op. cit. (note 56), p. 67.
[61] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 21, 24ff.; F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), pp. 195, 198; O. W. Koch, op. cit. (note 35), pp. 48, 55; cf. note 48 (‘Crown witness’).
[62] Gesellschaft für freie Publizistik, op. cit. (note 56), p. 69.
[63] M. Lautern, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 33, 51.
[64] M. Lautern, ibid., pp. 42f., describes such a case; cf. also the fate of E. Puhl, Vice President of the Reichsbank, during the IMT: H. Springer, Das Schwert auf der Waage, Vowinckel, Heidelberg 1953, pp. 178f.
[65] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), p. 13; F. Oscar, op. cit. (note 33), pp. 67f.
[66] For the best-documented example of a miscarriage of justice concerning a physician, cf. Zeitgeschichtliche Forschungsstelle Ingolstadt (ed.), Der Fall Rose. Ein Nürnberger Urteil wird widerlegt, Mut-Verlag, Asendorf 1988.
[67] F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), p. 194.
[68] To date, the only example of a Dachau trial that has been reviewed in detail: cf. A. L. Smith, op. cit. (note 42), esp. pp. 110ff.
[69] T. A. Schwartz, "Die Begnadigung deutscher Kriegsverbrecher", VfZ 38 (1990) pp. 375-414.
[70] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), pp. 72ff.
[71] A. Rückerl, op. cit. (note 34); for a comprehensive discussion of the British trial of the suppliers of Zyklon B to Auschwitz, cf. W. B. Lindsey, op. cit. (note 1).
[72] According to R. Faurisson, Annales d’Histoire Révisionniste 1 (1987) p. 149 (online: abbc.com/aaargh/fran/archFaur/1986-1990/RF8703xx1.html); Minden/Weser was the interrogation headquarters of the British military police.
[73] R. Aschenauer, Macht gegen Recht, (note 32), p. 72, tells of the infamous Special Camp Bad Nenndorf, where preliminary hearings culminated in severe physical abuse.
[74] R. Höß, in M. Broszat (ed.), Kommandant in Auschwitz, dtv, Munich 1983, pp. 149f.; cf. R. Faurisson, op. cit. (note 72), p. 137-152; in English: JHR 7(4) (1986) pp. 389-403; in German: DGG 35(1) (1987) pp. 12-17 (online: vho.org/D/DGG/Faurisson35_1.html); cf. also R. Faurisson, NV 33 (1994) pp. 111-117.
[75] B. Clarke, as quoted in R. Butler, Legions of Death, Arrow Books Ltd., London 1986, pp. 236f.
[76] R. Butler, ibid., pp. 238f.
[77] O. Pohl, "Letzte Aufzeichnungen", in U. Walendy, Historische Tatsachen Nr. 47, Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung, Vlotho 1991, pp. 35ff.; M. Lautern, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 43ff.; D. Irving, Der Nürnberger Prozeß, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 80f.; Pohl considered himself legally innocent, since he had neither caused nor tolerated any atrocities: cf. O. Pohl, Credo. Mein Weg zu Gott, A. Girnth, Landshut 1950, p. 43; cf. also A. Moorehead’s account of the rough interrogation methods used by the British in Bergen-Belsen, published in the British monthly The European, March 1945; quoted from: F. J. Scheidl, Geschichte der Verfemung Deutschlands, pub. by author, Vienna 1967, v. 3, pp. 83ff.; cf. Alan Moorehead’s essay "Belsen", in Cyril Connolly (ed.), The Golden Horizon, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1953, pp. 105f.
[78] Patricia Meehan, A Strange Enemy People: Germans Under The British 1945-50, Peter Owen Publishers, 2001
[79] A. Rückerl, op. cit. (note 34), p. 99.
[80] Aside from J. Bacque, op. cit. (note 28), see also the accounts of brutal torture of internees in Landesverband der ehemaligen Besatzungsinternierten Baden-Württemberg (ed.), Die Internierung im Deutschen Südwesten, pub. by ed., Karlsruhe 1960, esp. pp. 73ff.; cf. also A. L. Smith, VfZ 32 (1984) pp. 103-121, who bases his study exclusively on official accounts of Allied sources. Would it be equally appropriate to report about the conditions in German concentration camps exclusively on the basis of official contemporaneous accounts of German governmental and administrative sources?
[81] F. Utley, op. cit. (note 30), pp. 287ff.
[82] C. Roediger, Völkerrechtliches Gutachten über die strafrechtliche Aburteilung deutscher Kriegsgefangener in der Sowjetunion, Heidelberg 1950.
[83] R. Maurach, Die Kriegsverbrecherprozesse gegen deutsche Gefangene in der Sowjetunion, Arbeitsgemeinschaft vom Roten Kreuz in Deutschland (British Zone), Hamburg 1950, pp. 79ff.
[84] Reproduced in part in A. Rückerl, op. cit. (note 34), p. 100. See also the chapter by I. Weckert, this volume.
[85] A.E. Epifanow, H. Mayer, Die Tragödie der deutschen Kriegsgefangenen in Stalingrad von 1942 bis 1956 nach russischen Archivunterlagen, Biblio, Osnabrück 1996; cf. E. Peter, A. Epifanow, Stalins Kriegsgefangene, Stocker, Graz 1997.
[86] J. Buszko, Auschwitz. Geschichte und Wirklichkeit des Vernichtungslagers, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1980, pp. 193ff.; R. Henkys, op. cit. (note 9), p. 191, believes that in 1947 the Polish took care to ensure that trials were conducted in accordance with the principles of rule-of-law. But since hardly any of these trials at that time in the sphere of influence of Stalin were conducted as such, one wonders on which information Henkys relies.
[87] A. Rückerl, op. cit. (note 34), p. 211.
[88] W. Eisert, Die Waldheimer Prozesse, Bechtle, Munich 1993; for an account of a more recent trial regarding Oradour and Lidice, cf. H. Lichtenstein, Im Namen des Volkes?, Bund, Cologne 1984, pp. 132ff. According to Lichtenstein, the defense acted as secondary prosecution in this trial.
[89] A. Rückerl, op. cit. (note 34), pp. 95ff.
[90] Reprinted in its entirety in T. Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials, Little, Boston 1992, pp. 645ff. For accounts of the IMT, cf. also H. Härtle, Freispruch für Deutschland, Schütz, Göttingen 1965; H. H. Saunders, Forum der Rache, Druffel, Leoni 1986; F. J. P. Veale, Advance to Barbarism, Institute for Historical Review, Newport Beach, CA 1983; W. Maser, Das Exempel, Blaue Aktuelle Reihe 9, Mut-Verlag, Asendorf 1986; W. E. Benton, G. Grimm (eds.), Nuremberg. German Views of the War Trials, Southern Methodist UP, Dallas 1955; C. Haensel, Der Nürnberger Prozeß, Moewig, Munich 1983; M. Bardèche, Nürnberg oder die Falschmünzer, Priester, Wiesbaden 1957; Reprint: Verlag für ganzheitliche Forschung und Kultur, Viöl 1992; A. R. Wesserle, JHR 2(2) (1981) pp. 155-164 (online: vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/2/2/Wesserle155-164.html); C. Porter, Not Guilty at Nuremberg: The German Defense Case, Historical Review Press, Brighton 1990 (online: codoh.com/trials/trintglt.html); Porter, Made in Russia: The Holocaust, ibid. 1988 (online: codoh.com/trials/trimirth.html).
[91] E.g., L. Greil on the Malmedy Trial in Oberst der Waffen-SS Jochen Peiper und der Malmedy-Prozeß, Schild, Munich 1977, p. 90; for the view taken of the SS and Waffen-SS in the IMT, cf. G. Rauschenbach, Der Nürnberger Prozeß gegen die Organisationen, L. Röhrscheid, Bonn 1954; cf. also R. Hilberg, op. cit. (note 26), p. 692.
[92] A. von Knieriem, op. cit. (note 29), pp. 127f.
[93] D. Irving, Der Nürnberger Prozeß, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 24ff.; R. Hilberg, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 684, 691; cf. C. Haidn, DGG 34(3) (1986) pp. 11-14.
[94] A. von Knieriem, op. cit. (note 29), pp. 128f.; for a detailed description of the creation of the IMT ‘Lynch Law’ cf. D. Irving, Nuremberg. The Last Battle, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 1-119. |
http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndvalue.html
| quote: | But back to history. The interrogations on the Holocaust, which determined the
version of history accepted today, occurred between 1944 and 1947, i.e., during
the various war crimes trials, mostly in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Germany.
[...]
During the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, which the Americans conducted all
by themselves after the IMT, the president of that tribunal, Lee B. Wyatt, stated
the following during the trial against responsible members of the former German
Race and Resettlement Main Office (Rasse- und Siedlungs-Hauptamt,
Case 8):[961]
“During the course of the trial several witnesses, including some defendants,
who made affidavits that were offered as evidence by the prosecution,
testified that they were threatened, and that duress of a very improper nature
was practiced by an interrogator.”
[...]
After the former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß was arrested by the British,
he was tortured for days, until he was finally ready to sign the “confession”
presented to him. This is not only revealed by his memoirs, which Höß wrote in
a Polish prison:[967]
“On March 11, 1946, at 11 p.m., I was arrested. […] I was treated terribly
by the (British) Field Security Police. […] During the first interrogation
they beat me to obtain evidence. I do not know what is in the transcript, or
what I said, even though I signed it, because they gave me liquor and beat
me with a whip. It was too much even for me to bear. […] Minden on the
Weser River […]. There they treated me even more roughly, especially the
first British prosecutor, who was a major. […] I cannot really blame the interrogators
[at the IMT] – they were all Jews. I was for all intents and purposes
psychologically dissected. […] They also left me with no doubt whatsoever
what was going to happen to me.”
L: But who would believe a former Auschwitz commandant?
R: We don’t have to take his word for it. In the 1980s, his torturers personally
described the manner in which they tormented him, providing independent corroboration:
[968]
“Höss screamed in terror at the mere sight of British uniforms.
Clarke yelled ‘What is your name?’
With each answer of ‘Franz Lang,’ Clarke’s hand crashed into the face of
his prisoner. The fourth time that happened, Höss broke and admitted who
he was.
The admission suddenly unleashed the loathing of the Jewish sergeants in
the arresting party whose parents had died in Auschwitz following an order
signed by Höss.
The prisoner was torn from the top bunk, the pyjamas ripped from his body.
He was then dragged naked to one of the slaughter tables, where it seemed
to Clarke the blows and screams were endless.
Eventually, the Medical Officer urged the Captain: ‘Call them off, unless
you want to take back a corpse.’
A blanket was thrown over Höss and he was dragged to Clarke’s car, where
the sergeant poured a substantial slug of whisky down his throat. Then Höss
tried to sleep.
Clarke thrust his service stick under the man’s eyelids and ordered in German:
‘Keep your pig eyes open, you swine.’
For the first time Höss trotted out his oft-repeated justification: ‘I took my
orders from Himmler. I am a soldier in the same way as you are a soldier
and we had to obey orders.’
The party arrived back at Heide around three in the morning. The snow was
swirling still, but the blanket was torn from Höss and he was made to walk
completely nude through the prison yard to his cell.”
R: We can see from the same book that the former General Governor of Poland,
Hans Frank, was also tortured by the British at Minden, Germany.[969] Oswald
Pohl, former head of the Economic Administrative Main Office (Wirtschaft-
Verwaltungshauptamt) of the SS and, as such, responsible for all financial and
administrative accessory matters related to the concentration camps, described
the illegal methods employed at the interrogation center at Bad Nenndorf,
where he signed his affidavit.[970] The IMT transcript itself contains an informative
passage relating to the testimony of Julius Streicher. His testimony describes
the manner in which he was tortured. In response to a prosecution objection,
the passage was expunged from the transcript, but not the Court’s dis-
cussion of whether or not the passage should be expunged.[971] Karlheinz
Pintsch, Adjutant to Rudolf Hess, was tortured for months by the KGB in Moscow.
[972] The Soviets also tortured a “confession” out of Jupp Aschenbrenner relating
to the alleged gas vans on the eastern front.[973] August Eigruber, former
Gauleiter of Austria, was mutilated and castrated at the end of the war. Josef
Kramer, last commandant of Bergen-Belsen camp, as well as other SS men and
women, were tortured until they begged to be allowed to die.[974] The British
journalist Alan Moorehead reports as follows:[975]
“As we approached the cells of the SS guards, the [British] sergeant’s language
become ferocious. ‘We had had an interrogation this morning,’ the
captain said. ‘I am afraid they are not a pretty sight.’ […] The sergeant unbolted
the first door and […] strode into the cell, jabbing a metal spike in
front of him. ‘Get up,’ he shouted. ‘Get up. Get up, you dirty bastards.’
There were half a dozen men lying or half lying on the floor. One or two
were able to pull themselves erect at once. The man nearest me, his shirt and
face spattered with blood, made two attempts before he got on to his knees
and then gradually on to his feet. He stood with his arms stretched out in
front of him, trembling violently.
‘Come on. Get up,’ the sergeant shouted [in the next cell]. The man was lying
in his blood on the floor, a massive figure with a heavy head and bedraggled
beard […] ‘Why don’t you kill me?’ he whispered. ‘Why don’t you
kill me? I cannot stand it any more.’ The same phrases dribbled out of his
lips over and over again. ‘He’s been saying that all morning, the dirty bastard,’
the sergeant said.”
L: That’s pretty bad.
[...]
R: [...] let my quote
Edward L. van Roden, who served in World War II as U.S. Chief of the
Military Justice Division for the European Theater. Together with Justice
Gordon Simpson of the Texas Supreme Court, van Roden was appointed in
1948 to another extraordinary commission charged with investigating the
claims of abuse during U.S. trials in Dachau. Here is an excerpt of what he
wrote:986
“AMERICAN investigators at the U. S. Court in Dachau, Germany, used the
following methods to obtain confessions: Beatings and brutal kickings.
Knocking out teeth and breaking jaws. Mock trials. Solitary confinement.
Posturing as priests. Very limited rations. Spiritual deprivation. Promises of
acquittal. […] We won the war, but some of us want to go on killing. That
seems to me wicked. […] The American prohibition of hear-say evidence
had been suspended. Second and third-hand testimony was admitted, […] Lt
Perl of the Prosecution pleaded that it was difficult to obtain competent evidence.
Perl told the court, ‘We had a tough case to crack and we had to use
persuasive methods.’ He admitted to the court that the persuasive methods
included various ‘expedients, including some violence and mock trials.’ He
further told the court that the cases rested on statements obtained by such
methods. […] The statements which were admitted as evidence were obtained
from men who had first been kept in solitary confinement for three,
four, and, five months. They were confined between four walls, with no windows,
and no opportunity of exercise. Two meals a day were shoved in to
them through a slot in the door. They were not allowed to talk to anyone.
They had no communication with their families or any minister or priest
during that time. […] Our investigators would put a black hood over the
accused’s head and then punch him in the face with brass knuckles, kick
him, and beat him with rubber hose. Many of the German defendants had
teeth knocked out. Some had their jaws broken. All but two of the Germans,
in the 139 cases we investigated, had been kicked in the testicles beyond
repair. This was Standard Operating Procedure with American investigators.
Perl admitted use of mock trials and persuasive methods including violence
and said the court was free to decide the weight to be attached to evidence
thus received. But it all went in.
One 18 year old defendant, after a series of beatings, was writing a
statement being dictated to him. When they reached the 16th page, the boy
was locked up for the night. In the early morning, Germans in nearby cells
heard him muttering. ‘I will not utter another lie.’ When the jailer came in
later to get him to finish his false statement, he found the German hanging
from a cell bar, dead. However the statement that the German had hanged
himself to escape signing was offered and received in evidence in the trial of
the others.
Sometimes a prisoner who refused to sign was led into a dimly lit room,
where a group of civilian investigators, wearing U. S. Army uniforms, were
seated around a black table with a crucifix in the center and two candles
burning, one on each aide. ‘You will now have your American trial,’ the
defendant was told.
The sham court passed a sham sentence of death. Then the accused was told,
‘You will hang in a few days, as soon as the general approves this sentence:
but in the meantime sign this confession and we can get you acquitted.’
Some still wouldn’t sign. […]
In another case, a bogus Catholic priest (actually an investigator) entered
the cell of one of the defendants, heard his confession, gave him absolution,
and then gave him a little friendly tip: ‘Sign whatever the investigators ask
you to sign. It will get you your freedom. Even though it’s false, I can give
you absolution now in advance for the lie you’d tell.’”
[...]
R: [...] Similar to the IMT, most later trials of NS crimes degenerated to show trials as
well, during which many defendants were accused at once, hundreds of witnesses
testified, thousands of spectators gaped, and the mass media layed it all
out to uncounted millions all over the world. Not a single one of these cases
was ever supported by any forensic evidence. A statement from the verdict of
the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial is a symbol for this gross negligence:[1041]
“The court lacked almost all possibilities of discovery available in a normal
murder trial to create a true picture of the actual event at the time of the
murder. It lacked the bodies of the victims, autopsy records, expert reports
on the cause of death and the time of death; it lacked any trace of the murderers,
murder weapons, etc. An examination of the eyewitness testimony
was only possible in rare cases.”
[961] Trials of war criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals under Control Council law no. 10,
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1949-1953, vol. 15, p. 879.
[967] S. Paskuly (ed.), op. cit. (note 511), p. 179f.
[968] R. Butler, Legions of Death, Arrows Books Ltd., London 1986, pp. 236f.; cf.: R. Faurisson, op. cit.
(note 366); D. Irving, op. cit. (note 23), pp. 241-246.
[969] R. Butler, ibid., pp. 238f.
[970] O. Pohl, Letzte Aufzeichnungen, in: U. Walendy, HT no. 47, Verlag für Volkstum und Zeitgeschichtsforschung,
Vlotho 1991, pp. 35ff.; M. Lautern, op. cit. (note 955), pp. 43ff.; D. Irving, op. cit. (note
23), pp. 80f.; Pohl referred to himself as legally innocent, since he had never ordered or condoned any
atrocities: see Credo. Mein Weg zu Gott, A. Girnth, Landshut 1950, p. 43.
[971] IMT, vol. 12, p. 398; cf. Keith Stimely, “The Torture of Julius Streicher,” JHR, 5(1) (1984), pp. 106-
119; R. Butler, op. cit. (note 968), pp. 238f.; cf. W. Maser, Nürnberg. Tribunal der Sieger, Droste,
Düsseldorf 1988 (Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977).
[972] Wolf Rüdiger Hess, My Father Rudolf Hess, London 1986, p. 62.
[973] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago I-II, Harper & Row, New York 1974, p. 112.
[974] Cf. Montgomery Belgion, Victor’s Justice, Regnery, Hinsdale, IL, 1949, pp. 80f., 90.
[975] Alan Moorehead, op. cit. (note 775), pp. 105f.
[986] E.L. van Roden, “American Atrocities in Germany,” The Progressive, February 1949, pp. 21f.
(www.corax.org/revisionism/documents...00vanroden.html).
[1041] Verdict in the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, ref. 50/4 Ks 2/63, pp. 108ff.; cf. I. Sagel-Grande, H.H. Fuchs,
C.F. Rüter (ed.), Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. XXI, University Press, Amsterdam 1979, p. 434. |
(End of quote from Lectures, p. 381-184)
What did some of the Germans confess?
Few examples:
| quote: | RUDOLF HÖSS:
Höß was the first commandant of Auschwitz and is the indispensable
prime witness of the mass annihilation in that camp. Hilberg refers to him
twenty-six times.[142]
In his confession given during an intensive three-day interrogation by
a British torture team led by the Jewish Sergeant Bernard Clarke,[143] the first
Auschwitz commandant stated that already by November 1943 in Auschwitz
2.5 million persons had been gassed and a further 500,000 had died
of sickness, starvation and other factors.[144] Naturally Hilberg - who picks
and chooses his statistics to suit his fancy - does not mention these statements,
since these crassly exaggerated numbers, large even by Hilberg's
standards, show that the Höß confession was not voluntarily given and is
therefore worthless.
In his 'confession', Höß stated further that he had visited the Treblinka
camp - remember it was opened in July 1942 - in June 1941 and
talked about a camp called 'Wolzek', which has never been heard of since.
When he was turned over to Poland, he was put in the Cracow prison, where
he wrote his 'memoirs', in which he penned down what he was told by his
jailers.[145]
[...]
KURT GERSTEIN:
Main witness to mass gassings in Belzec, was used by Hilberg as a
source six times.[166] SS sanitation officer Gerstein described these gassings
in a confession given after the war - or, better put, in six confessions, since,
as Frenchman Henri Roques has shown, there are no less than six versions
of the Gerstein confession, sometimes differing markedly from each
other.[167] Gerstein killed himself in July 1945 in a French prison. He claimed
that between 20 and 25 million people were gassed. He said that in Belzec
700 to 800 Jews were stuffed into a gas chamber with a floor area of 25 m2,
which is 28 to 32 persons per square meter. Of Auschwitz, which he never
entered, he affirmed that millions of children were killed by holding cotton
wads soaked with hydrogen cyanide under their noses. Hallucinations about
35 to 40 m (115 to 130 ft) high piles of clothes and shoes of murdered prisoners
top off this confession appropriately.[168] |
http://vho.org/GB/Books/Giant/Chapter7.pdf
(In addition Höss said impossible things about the gassings. Höss' and Gerstein's "confessions" are also described well in the video [url=http://www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com[/url] )
So, if no real evidence is required to prove anything, and nobody is allowed to question or doubt - it could be 'proven that "UFOs rule the world" or that "Witches and Devil are real"!
Some have even compared the witchtrials of 1450-1650 to Holocaust trials:
| quote: | R: In the same way, the views of a thousand years could not be wrong when, in
the 17th century, it was stressed that the earth was flat. Giordano Bruno was
sent to the stake because of that, and Galileo Galilei was banned for the same
reason. And what about the fact that witches were riding on broomsticks and
had intercourse with the Devil? That too was an obvious fact for centuries.
[...]
R: No. Since we have already touched upon the methods of medieval witch trials,
let me elaborate a little more on this. Other parallels between medieval witch
trials and the trials on NS crimes are for instance that the alleged perpetrators
were and are not allowed to rest in peace even after their deaths. The corpses of
those suspected of sorcery were exhumed, sometimes paled and chopped into
pieces, and the graves of alleged NS perpetrators were not left alone either.
They were exhumed in order to identify them – just consider the fuss about the
remains of Josef Mengele – and the mass media reported repeatedly about the
“monstrosity” in certain graves. The crimes under consideration were considered
self-evident centuries ago as they are today.
L: Witchcraft was considered self-evident?
R: The existence of the devil, of sorcery, and of witches with their evil activities
was considered just as self-evident during medieval times[1060] as are the alleged
NS crimes today. All motions to refute or verify this “truth” or to challenge
“common knowledge,” in particular with the help of forensic evidence, are rejected
in Germany and many other European nations without assessment of the
offered evidence. Such motions to introduce evidence are considered to be
mere delaying tactics,1061 and since the mid-1990, even defense lawyers who
defend their clients to ambitiously, for example by filing motions to introduce
“denying” evidence, are prosecuted in Germany, according to a decision of the
German Federal Supreme Court:1062
“He who, as a defense lawyer in a trial about inciting the masses, files a motion
to introduce evidence, which denies the genocide against the Jews
committed under the rule of National Socialism, invariably commits a crime
according to Sec. 130 III Penal Code.”
R: That German law outlaws “Holocaust denial.” This is another parallel to witch
trials, during which defense lawyers that did not keep sufficient ideological distance
to their clients, could be accused of sorcery or collaboration with a witch.
The crimes of which the defendants were accused were considered the most
atrocious crimes one could think of – today’s buzzword is the “uniqueness” of
German crimes, centuries ago the term used was “crimen atrox,” the atrocious
crime. Then and now such crimes, or the denial of them, had to be prosecuted if
they came to the knowledge of the authorities. No criminal complaint was necessary.
Then and now the judicial system is even obligated not to follow the
usual procedural rules – consider the creating of central “Nazi”-hunter organizations,
the appointment of politically reliable personnel, the uncritical acceptance
of all sorts of incriminating statements and the refusal of forensic investigations.
Then and now rude torture was used initially to make the defendants
compliant, but then as well as now such methods declined with time and were
replaced with more sophisticated psychological interrogation methods and
long, grueling incarceration during the investigations. Then and now all details
of the alleged crime were written down and defined in official books and were
prescribed as the absolute truth (then it was the Hexenhammer (witch hammer),
now it is the official history books). Then and now all available media saw to it
that the stories of these crimes were distributed all over the know world, so that
everybody knew what it was all about. Therefore all witness statements centuries
ago as well as today were very similar, often down to details, so that third
parties had to think that the statements of so many independent witnesses must
somehow be true.
Then as well as toady, many witnesses testified anonymously. Incriminating
witnesses that were obliged to swear a holy oath in court as to the truth of their
statement frequently received generous rewards for their services then and now.
As a rule, their statements were not then and not today critically examined.
Then and now they were not cross-examined by lawyers. Even if they were
caught committing perjury, they usually were not held responsible for it, either
then or now. Neither obviously contradictory or nonsensical, nor even outright
impossible statements were considered untrustworthy then and now.
However, if witnesses or defendants would deny the deed or their involvement,
they were prosecuted and punished even more severely for their stubborn denial
– then and now – because they were apparently not willing to confess their
evil acts, to show remorse, and to swear to turn away from the diabolical. Then
as well as now, every defendant knew that the only way to receive mercy from
the court was by confessing, so that even in cases, where torture was not applied,
confessions were frequent. In many cases the defendants tried then as
well as nowadays to get leniency and even to buy their liberty by cooperating
with the court by virtue of incriminating third parties.
In former centuries, material evidence on the alleged crimes were hardly ever
accepted, and nowadays they are always rejected, and even if it could be shown
that the individuals who are said to have been murdered by the defendant were
still alive or had died a natural death many years before, the courts then and
now often were unimpressed by this.
Then and now, defense lawyers were not allowed to challenge the deed as such
and had to display the commonly held views about the topic, if they wanted to
avoid being persecuted or even prosecuted, as I already mentioned. In former
centuries, defense lawyers only rarely got complete access to court documents,
and could not talk to their clients privately, as it was during the immediate
post-WWII trials.
If the defense lawyer, the defendant, or a third party decides to doubt the reality
of the alleged crimes as such – witchcraft revisionism then, Holocaust revisionism
now – then this was considered to be even worse than the crime itself. It
was the worst crime of all: “Haeresis est maxima opera maleficorum non credere.”
– “Not to believe in the deeds of the criminals is the worst heresy.”[1063]
[1060] W. Behringer, Hexen und Hexenprozesse in Deutschland, dtv, Munich 1988, p. 182. )
[1061] The German Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) rubberstamped this procedure as
perfectly legal, ref. 1 StR 193/93.
[1062] Sigmund P. Martin, “Volksverhetzung – Leugnen des Holocaust durch Verteidigerhandeln,” Juristische
Schulung, 11/2002, pp. 1127f., in a case against defense lawyer Jürgen Rieger; based on BGH, ref. 5
StR 485/01; cf. Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 2002, p. 2115; Neue Strafrechts-Zeitung, 2002, p. 539;
cf. also BGH, ref. 1 StR 502/99, in a case against defense lawyer Ludwig Bock, see Rudi Zornig,
“Rechtsanwalt wegen Stellung von Beweisantrag verurteilt,” VffG 3(2) (1999), pp. 208f. |
(Lectures on the Holocaust, p. 413 -> )
Conclusion: Witnesses were never cross-examined, confessions were obtained with brutal methods (even by torture), courts were set up to punish not to investigate and the courts had the rules of their own. What would be a better word to describe these trials, than SHOW TRIALS. With these kind of trials one can prove absolutely anything!
Next: the concentration camps, gas chambers, aerial photos, mass graves etc.
___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller
|
