Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - We begin our Work in Germany
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from the beginning, adopted an objective attitude
toward the entire question. Others, also experts in
this field, were of the opinion that, of course, the
German war criminals should be tried, but not
in this fashion and not under such sensational
circumstances. At the Congress on Criminal Law
held in Switzerland in the summer of 1947, the
opinion was widely held that the Nurenberg trials
represented a regrettable deviation from the
customary principles of western justice. I am completely
ignorant of judicial matters and therefore I have
no qualifications to express myself on this score. But
the question has also a moral and ethical side about
which, despite my amateur status, I have the right
to form an opinion, and even to express it.
In the first place I want to ask: is it really just
to condemn collectively all the members of a given
organization? Is it absolutely certain that all those
who haàve joined, for example the SS, are guilty of
a crime? But how can one be condemned without
being a criminal? I am fairly certain that in some
cases individuals who joined organizations in good
faith before the organizations’ true character had
been revealed, afterward did not dare resign because
they feared terrible reprisals against themselves,
which is cowardly, or against their families, which
is human. When the Nurenberg trials started, it
was fairly clear that a large majority of the accused
were war criminals. It was also fairly clear which of
them were certain to be sentenced to death. Was
there then not something farcical about these
desperately solemn proceedings, especially when a country
which at the outbreak of the war was allied with
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