Were you as nauseated as I was by the relentless media coverage of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, and now by the civil trial?
For me, the straw that broke the camel’s back came when I heard one TV commentator call the Simpson case “the trial of the century.”
Yet it was just over 50 years ago — Oct. 1, 1946 — that the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg delivered its historic verdict in the case that, by any standard, truly was “the trial of the century.”
The significance of that proceeding was aptly and eloquently put forth by Justice Robert Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg in his now-famous argument to the tribunal:
“The wrongs which we seek to punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated,” he said.
I can barely utter the words Simpson and Nuremberg in the same breath, let alone even think about comparing their relative significance. Having said that, some observations on Nuremberg are in order.
Virtually all of what has been written about the proceedings has focused on the main trial, in which Hermann Goering — who killed himself rather than face the hangman — was the most prominent criminal in the dock. Twenty-four defendants, high-ranking officials in Nazi Germany, were prosecuted for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity and waging wars of aggression.
In addition, six Nazi groups and organizations — including the SS, the General Staff and the High Command of the German Army — were indicted as criminal organizations. Twelve defendants were sentenced to death, three to life imprisonment, three to lesser jail terms and three were acquitted.
As important as this judgment was, it must be understood that the trial was not convened to exact justice for the horrific crimes against the Jews. To be sure, the “Final Solution” entered into the proceeding, but it was far from the central focus.
In one of the subsequent and lesser-known trials, however, the mass murder of Jews figured prominently. In the so-called “Einsatzgruppen” case, the United States prosecuted 24 leaders of the SS mobile killing units, who were charged with the murder of 1 million people — mostly Jews — in the eastern occupied territories.
For the most part this savagery took place in 1941 and 1942, before the death camps were fully operational; the victims were shot to death by these “elite” units and their eager local collaborators. It is for good reason and without exaggeration that this case has been called the greatest murder case in history.
One of the most astounding aspects of the case was the backgrounds of the defendants, who ranked from lieutenant to general. The presiding judge, Michael Musmanno from Pennsylvania, described the men responsible for such incomprehensible mass murder as follows:
“The defendants are not untutored aborigines incapable of appreciation of the finer values of life and living. Each man at the bar has had the benefit of considerable schooling. Eight are lawyers, one a university professor, another a dental physician, still another an expert on art. One, as an opera singer, gave concerts throughout Germany before he began his tour of Russia with the Einsatzcommandos.
“This group of educated and well-bred men does not even lack a former minister, self-unfrocked though he was.”
The overwhelming evidence consisted mostly of captured documents, which memorialized in grisly detail how these units, in town after town, city after city, “liquidated” the Jews. Most of the reports proudly noted that the areas of operation had been rendered “free of Jews.”
Forty years later, these hair-raising documents were again relied upon in judicial proceedings. They were invaluable to the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, as they constituted ironclad proof of collaboration in mass murder by local paramilitary units, many of whose members had illegally immigrated here.
None of the Einsatzgruppen defendants showed any regrets or remorse. Some pathetically tried to claim that they were not aware of the murders and others relied on the “superior orders” defense.
The lead defendant, Otto Ohlendorf, was actually brazen and proud of his accomplishments, arguing that the massacre of Jews, even Jewish children, was a “military necessity.”
“I believe that it is very simple to explain if one starts from the fact that this order did not only try to achieve security but also a permanent security, because for that reason the children were people who would grow up and surely, being the children of parents who had been killed, they would constitute a danger no smaller than that of the parents.”
Fourteen of the 22 tried were sentenced to death; two were given life sentences; the others were given lesser jail time. One committed suicide.
Complete justice? Of course not. Anyone expecting full justice for the crimes committed against the Jewish people is destined for desperate cynicism. Complete justice could never, under any circumstances, be achieved. At least at Nuremberg there was some measure of it.
Rest assured that the sustained and banal coverage of the Simpson case will continue. The would-be experts will find new ways to overstate the importance of the trial and the public will probably remain fascinated by it all.
Unfortunately, too many of those who will stay glued to the tube know little, if anything, about Nuremberg and the horrific crimes with which it dealt. They probably believe that they have witnessed the most important trial of this century.