WORLD WAR II WAR CRIMINALS

Much has been written about World War II.  Up to 60 million died, Germany and Japan lost, and their leading military and civilian leaders were brought to trial for war crimes.

• The United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union and France, in London during the summer of 1945, agreed to what was called the Nuremberg Charter.
• There was a similar Tokyo Charter, a decree by Allied Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur, on instructions from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Eleven nations were involved.

The Viking Tir is today in Nuremberg.  Why was Nuremberg chosen for the trials?

International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

• Nuremberg was the symbolic location as the site of Nazi rallies. In 1933, 1927, 1929 and annually from 1933-1938, propaganda speeches were made in these rallies usually held in late August or September, lasting several dasy to a week, drawing hundreds of thousands of Party members, spectators and foreign journalists.
• See Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (of the 1934 rally).  This the whole film, with English subtitles.
• In 1935 Hitler announced the racist Nürnberg (either this or Nuremberg can be used) Laws against the Jews.

The Nuremberg trials began in November of 1945, ending on 1October1946.

• Twenty two leading Nazis were tried.
• Some of the more prominent Nazis like Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, had already committed suicide.
• The prosecuting group had a thousand personnel, two-thirds from the U.S.  These also included psychologists, translators, etc.
• Twelve were sentenced to death by hanging, seven to terms of imprisonment and three were acquited.
• Herman Goring committed suicide the night before his scheduled execution.

The Tokyo trial went from 3May11946 to 4November1948.

• Japanese war crimes throughout the Pacific were rampant and almost equivalent to what occurred in Europe.
• Trials were held in Ichigaya, Tokyo.
• The Royal family was excluded, and Hirohito remained emperor.
• There were 28 defendants.

• 
  Seven were sentenced to death by hanging and 18 to various terms of imprisonment.  Two died during the trial and one was declared unfit to be sentenced.
• Perhaps the most iconic was the execution of Hideki Tojo, head of Japan's second world war government.

There were seven notorious Nazis who escaped to South America.

• Argentina was already home to several hundred thousand German immigrants who maintained close ties to Germany during the war.
• In 1945, Argentine President Juan Peron, himself drawn to fascist ideologies, established "rat lines,' or escape routes via Spain and Italy, permitting thousands of Nazis to disappear.  In some ways, the Vatican also, many times inadvertently, helped.

• 
  The seven were:
• Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, architect of Hitler's Final Solution to exterminate Jews.
• He first hid out in Austria after the war, and aided by a Franciscan monk in Itqly, got an Argentine visa and falsified a Red Cross passport.
• Boarded a steamship to Buenos Aires under the alias Ricardo Klement, with his family.
• Worked in a Mercedes-Benze automotive plant.
• Took until 1960 for Israeli Mossad agents to capture him in a daring operation, then snuck him out of the country.
• Found guilty after a four month trial, and hanged on 31May1962.
• I somehow remember this, as I was soon to graduate from college
• 
  Angel of Death Josef Mangele was the doctor who conducted macabre experiments on Auschwitz prisoners, particularly twins, pregnant women and the disabled.
• After the war, spent three years hiding in Germany.
• In 1949, with the help of a Catholic clergy, fled Italy to Argentine,
• Remarried under his own name in Uruguay.  
• But after Eichmann's capture, went underground, first in Paraguay, then Brazil.
• West Germany attempted extradition, but was unsuccessful.
• Mengele ultimately drowned of the Brazilian coast in 1979, felled by a stroke.

• Verified in 1985.
• 
  Gregory Peck played Mengele in The Boys from Brazil.  This is the whole film.
• The other five were Walter Rauff (never was tried), Franz Stangl (was caught and tried, but died of heart failure in 1971),  Joseph Schwammberger (was captured in Argentina, sentenced to life in prison and died in 2004 at the age of 92), Erich Priebke (caught in Argentina, extradited to Italy, sentenced to life in prison and died at the age of 100 in 2013) and Gerhard Bohne (caught several times, and was declared unfit to stand trial, passing away in 1981).  Interesting that most of the above were aided by religious leaders in their escape.

Then there was God of Strategy Masanobu Tsuji, who oversaw various massacres and atrocities in the Pacific region.

• He evaded prosecution for Japanese war crimes.  Two of his underlings were executed.
• Hid out in Thailand, China and Vietnam.
• Returned to Japan in 1949 after General Tojo was executed, wrote successful books of his war experience and was elected to the Diet as an advocate of renewed militarism.
• Worked for U.S. CIA in the 50s.
• Became an advisor to the North Vietnamese government and disappeared on a trip to Laos in 1961.  
• Probably was kidnapped by the Chinese Communist Part and was alive in 1962.
• Never heard of him again.

For details, Hidden Horrors:  Japanese War Crimes in World War II.

Next stop, Passau.

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