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Have We Learned? Crimes Against Humanity and Lessons of the
Nuremberg Trials.
This summative project is about the concepts of humanity and
personhood and a trial that took place sixty-six years ago in Nuremberg,
Germany. The Nuremberg Trials held between 1945 and 1946, convened to
judge the crimes of the Nazi regime, conveyed to the world the message that
crimes against humanity would never again be tolerated by civilization.
Classes that I took in the MLS program were a major influence and
the impetus for this project. The idea of Nuremberg for my summative
project came to me during a Trials class in which we read about and
discussed the trial. The human rights and crimes against humanity aspect
was further influenced by my work as a prosecutor of human rights abusers
in Immigration Court,
A class, on From Ancient Libraries to the Internet, in which I wrote a
paper about the Dead Sea scrolls contributed to an aspect of my paper which
discussed the Judeo Christian influence on human rights in Western
civilization. A class about the Nature of Children and individuals in general,
combined with discussions and suggestions from professors provided the
basis for a major part of my project regarding the concept of personhood.
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The project discussed whether we, the civilized world, learned from
Nuremberg.
Nuremberg established a precedent that individuals could be held
accountable for their actions, could be punished for their actions, and could
not hide behind the state. The question of whether the impact of the
Nuremberg decisions and the precedent established have been successful in
preventing the commission of crimes against humanity is part of this project
which includes -- a discussion of what occurred at the Nuremberg trial, a
survey of earlier historical crimes which may be categorized as crimes
against humanity, a brief background of human rights declarations, an
examination of the derivation and concept of humanity and personhood, a
discussion as to whether the world has learned anything from the Nuremberg
trial, and concludes with my contention that humanity’s behavior has
improved but not enough, and that additional resources are still needed for
humanity to behave better.
The attempt to define a crime against humanity is complicated and
precarious. A strict definition becomes restricting and at times inadequate,
and may require a definition of the parts of the definition. The Nuremberg
trial indictment defined crimes against humanity, but in addition to murder,
enslavement, and other specific acts, the indictment included the phrase
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other inhumane acts. This catch-all phrase illustrates how difficult is the
task of choosing an all encompassing definition of this concept. Very
generally stated, a crime against humanity is that which is regarded by the
opinion of decent humanity as a crime.
The basis for the concept of crimes against humanity is that the crimes
are crimes against the very idea of humanity and of personhood. Humanity
involves the idea of personhood or being a distinct, individual person.
People are different. People are individuals. People are independent and
sovereign. Collectively each individual is humanity. As a distinct,
individual member of humanity, the person has certain rights. As in the
Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal. . .” Prior to the Declaration of Independence,
John Locke taught that humanity’s inalienable rights come from the Creator
and that the state of Nature teaches that all equal and independent mankind
must not harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions and that a
transgressor of the law may be punished but that man has no absolute or
whimsical power to punish according to his own will, but only to punish
reasonably and proportionate to the crime. Philosophers such as Kant have
tried to provide a basis in reason alone for recognizing these rights, a
universal basis grounded in the essence of decent humanity.
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Each member of society has to think about personhood and the
concept of the individual and an individual’s rights. I contend that, as
exposed in the Nuremberg trial, the Nazis dehumanized people and stole
their lives, and their personhood.
We hear these general comments about the Nazis and the atrocities
committed, but what was actually done? Examples are provided by Justice
Robert Jackson, the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trial, in his
opening statement.
Through his opening remarks, Jackson wanted to impress upon the
panel of judges and the world that the crimes committed by the Nazis were
repugnant to all civilized people. Jackson assumed that the most effective
way to demonstrate the Nazis’ degree of criminality was to cite from the
Nazis’ own records, including detailed descriptions of crimes. For accuracy
and to provide the relevant impact that Jackson strove to achieve, I will cite
some of his opening remarks.
To illustrate the Nazi design as stated by the Nazis themselves,
Jackson quoted from the diary of defendant Hans Frank. Frank summarized
Nazi racist ideology as follows: “The Jews are a race which has to be
eliminated; whenever we catch one, it is his end.” As further evidence of the
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genocidal policy, Jackson quoted from a report to Heinrich Himmler, head
of the SS or Schutzstaffel, the Nazi security organization.
It was intended from the very beginning to obtain the
cooperation of the reliable population for the fight against
vermin that is mainly the Jews and Communists. . . . Care had
to be taken that reliable people should be put to the cleansing
job and that they were appointed auxiliary members of the
Security Police. . . . During the first pogrom. . . the Lithuanian
partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to
several synagogues or destroyed them by other means and
burned down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60
houses. During the following nights about 2,300 Jews were
made harmless in a similar way. . . . However, the cleansing
activities of the Security Police had to aim at a complete
annihilation of the Jews. . . .The sum total of the Jews
liquidated in Lithuania amounts to 71,105.
Jackson also referred to a report made to defendant Alfred Rosenberg,
the minister of the German occupied eastern territory. “ In the presence of
SS men, a Jewish dentist has to break all gold teeth and fillings out of the
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mouths of German and Russian Jews before they are executed. . . . Men,
women and children are locked into barns and burned alive.”
Jackson moved on and quoted a report from SS Brigadier General
Juergen Stroop on the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto:
The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could only be
suppressed by energetic actions of our troops day and night.
The ReichsFuehrer SS ordered . . . the clearing out of the
ghetto with utter ruthlessness and merciless tenacity. I
therefore decided to destroy and burn down the entire ghetto. . .
. Jews usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in the
burning buildings and jumped out of the windows only when
the heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with
broken bones across the street into buildings which were not
afire. . . . Countless numbers of Jews were liquidated in sewers
and bunkers through blasting. The longer the resistance
continued, the tougher became the members of the Waffen SS,
Police and Wehrmacht who always discharged their duties in an
exemplary manner. . . . This action eliminated . . . a proved total
of 56,065. To that we have to add the number of those killed
through blasting, fire, etc., which cannot be counted.
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Of course there were many, many more incidents of slaughter, and it
has been estimated that approximately 6 million Jews and millions of
gypsies and other so-called undesirables were murdered by the Nazis. Of
the twenty two Nuremberg defendants tried, nineteen were found guilty and
three were acquitted. Twelve of the defendants were sentenced to be hanged
and the rest sentenced to prison.
In partial summation, Jackson argued that “the German mistreatment
of fellow Germans is now known to pass in magnitude and savagery any
limits of what is tolerable by modern civilization. . . . These Nazi
persecutions, moreover, take character as international crimes because of the
purpose for which they were undertaken . . .” The Nazis’ actions, he
stressed, were not in any way defensive but outright persecutions to
extinguish entire groups of people from society. The methods, he claimed,
were not only expulsion or exile but enslavement, murder, and annihilation.
What About Crimes Other Than Genocide? Could They Be Considered As
Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization?
As herein stated, crimes against humanity are crimes against the very
idea, the very essence of humanity and against personhood. A significant
part of personhood is the individual’s ability to own property. The
ownership of property or at least the ability to own property increases an
individual’s independence and autonomy and contributes to his or her
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personhood. As such, is an act which damages an individual’s ability to own
property, or damages an individual’s independence and autonomy, a crime
against personhood and against humanity and civilization?
Let’s briefly consider the Enron disaster. Enron was an American
energy corporation in Texas. In approximately 2000, Enron publicized a
concern regarding the natural gas supply in California. As such,
Californians, through the state and their taxes, had to pay increasing amounts
to maintain a supply of natural gas. About a year later disclosures indicated
that the gas problem in California was contrived by Enron executives solely
to extort additional sums from California tax payers and thereby harm the
state and individuals. In 2001 Enron became bankrupt, with its executives
being sent to prison as a result of a massive fraud scheme. In the end, Enron
executives were found guilty of misappropriating investors’ and employees’
funds including retirement, pension, and savings plans. The loss to investors
was estimated in excess of seventy billion dollars with an estimated two
billion dollar loss to employees.
Unfortunately for those who lost money, only a small fraction of the
money lost was recovered. To the credit of the American judicial system, the
main perpetrators of this massive fraud were sent to prison. But what about
the hundreds or thousands of individuals whose finances were decimated
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and their lives permanently adversely altered. Were the Enron executives’
actions against personhood? Were they against individuals and humanity?
Should the Enron executives have been tried for crimes against humanity?
What about other financial events, such as the actions of large
financial institutions? Many financial executives received hefty profits, their
investors suffered, the companies considered bankruptcy, and drastically
affected the American financial climate by receiving exorbitant amounts of
so-called bail out money from American tax payers. Were the actions of
these financial institutions illegal? Did their actions affect individuals? Was
personhood affected? If so, should the actions be considered crimes against
humanity?
There is a painting in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France called the
Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa, painted by sixteenth century artist Leonardo da
Vinci, may be the world’s most famous and valuable painting. There is only
one Mona Lisa. What if the Mona Lisa were deliberately destroyed or
vandalized beyond repair? Should the perpetrator be considered as having
committed a crime against humanity? Would the damage or destruction be
against an individual, against personhood? An individual, as has previously
been discussed, has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If
this right is taken away from an individual, is the perpetrator guilty of a
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crime against humanity? Does pursuit of happiness include the ability to
enjoy, see, and be in the presence of a one-of-a-kind, world renowned work
of art?
So, what have we, the civilized world learned? Since WWII there
have been no world wars but, there have been additional crimes against
humanity- the killing fields of Cambodia, the Bosnian conflict, Rwanda and
Guatemala to name a few. The Nuremberg precedent in the evolvement of
civilization’s treatment of crimes against humanity that humans cannot do
certain things to other humans and if they do, the perpetrators will be held
accountable for their actions, was illustrated only two months ago, in late
April 2012, with the conviction in The Hague of Charles Taylor for war
crimes committed in Sierra Leone during the 1990s. Charles Taylor is the
former president of Liberia and became the first head of state since the
Nuremberg trials to be convicted of crimes against humanity. Taylor’s
crimes included murder, rape, slavery, and the use of child soldiers.
Another illustration of the Nuremberg precedent is the present discussions
regarding the killings in Syria, crimes against humanity, and the role of the
Syrian President Assad.
Parenthetically, regarding Rwanda, at the USC graduation ceremony last
month (May 2012) General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the United
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Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda from 1993 to 1994 received an
honorary doctorate degree.
Maybe a lesson from Nuremberg has to do with empathy
How does one become instilled with empathy for another? With
television and the internet, once human rights abuses are known, we have
close to immediate, graphic descriptions of the abuses. The images are
horrible, we feel bad. But what else do we feel? Do we feel empathy?
Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe a little. Usually the abuses are geographically
far removed and in the abstract. We don’t know the people, and it’s difficult
to relate to the people. We hear of thousands in Africa, of thousands in this
or that country. Who are these people? What feeling should we have for
them? Contrast the far removed and unknown to the close and familiar.
What if the abuses were to our fellow countrymen, inhabitants of our state,
our neighbors, our friends, our relatives? The feeling, the empathy would,
no doubt, be dramatically different.
Maybe a part answer is, if somehow, everyone realizes that we are all
part of the same human race, the same humanity. Another realization may be
that abuse could happen anywhere, and if individuals do not remain vigilant,
they may wake up and find that a portion of their liberties have been
abridged and that they are facing some potential danger. Maybe a solution is
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that by helping, empathizing, with others against, for example, racial
discrimination, it may prevent later racial discrimination against each of us.
If discrimination can happen against one group, why not against two, or
three?
Society must find ways to respect each other, to respect each other’s
individuality, personhood. Everyone must keep in mind, personhood and the
individual.
Although we’ve behaved better, we have still not behaved well enough. To
forever stop crimes against humanity from occurring, to understand and
accept the concept of personhood, and to stop the misbehavior, our behavior
must continue to evolve. To that end, each one of us, personally, should ask
him or herself, what are humanity’s resources that might be summoned in
order to behave better, and what can each one of us do in our small way, our
little corner, to contribute to a better society?