Dangerous to believe. That happens tonight on cspan to book tv. Good evening and welcome. By name is howard and on behalf of the United StatesHolocaust Memorial museum is my other two welcome you to todays program titled a relentless pursuit bringing holocaust perpetrators to justice. I am the son of a holocaust survivor and have served on the counsel for the Us Holocaust Museum for the past five years. Ive come to learn that the museum is so much more than just a building that houses exhibits. The Museum Research in history, trained educators and members of the military and judiciary within the us and internationally and has many programs focused on preventing future genocides from occurring again. Here in new york, the museums northeast Regional Office offers a variety of events including talks like this one that you are about to hear plus Film Screenings and holocaust history as well as contemporary genocide and antisemitism. Tomorrow, we will be holding this same program, so please encourage her westchester friends and family to join us there tomorrow evening at 7 45 p. M. Tonights program is part of the conversation at the us Holocaust Memorial museum is holding nationwide, examining the role each of us has when confronted with difficult and complex challenges. Only in recent history has International Law evolved to define and punish Mass Violence against civilians. Out of the devastating crime of the holocaust the allied was forced to bring state actors to justice for unspeakable crime never before tried in a court of law. A small percentage of nazi officials and collaborators were brought to trial in the immediate postwar period. As the years passed the Global Community largely lost interest in pursuing the remaining perpetrators. However, a few remarkable individuals continue to work to bring nazi criminals to justice in these later trials continue to influence International Law. Law grows through the setting a precedent. In other words, how a judge applies the law helps determine what the law means. Through the judgments of beer tribunals in court International Law on genocide and crimes against humanity evolved, deepening our understanding of the crime and our capacity to respond. Today, our outstanding panel will discuss how these precedents were created and applied to help carry them out and ongoing legacy of this history. Its now my pleasure to introduce our special guest, andrew nagorski, journalist and author of the new book, the nazi hunters and doctor Lawrence A Douglas and author of the right wrong man. Our moderator this evenings doctor elizabeth white, this story with states Holocaust Memorial museum. She goes by barry, so when you hear them talking to her that way you understand. Following the program both authors will be in the lobby to sign copies of their book. Thank you. [applause]. [applause]. Good evening, everyone and it just so we are straight on whos who, im doctor Elizabeth Barry whites. This is Lawrence Douglas and a andrew nagorski. Thank you all for coming out tonight and thank you both for participating in this program. Brutal atrocities has been a future warfare since the dawn of Human History and to the extent that perpetrators were made to account for their action it was true victors justice, acts of retribution by the winning side against the losers. The, during world war ii the alliedsignal they were going to take a different approach. Late in 1943, as it became clear that nazi germany was going to lose the war the leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the soviet Union Announced that the perpetrators of nazi atrocities would be brought to trial under the laws of the countries where they committed their crime and that the major nazi leadership and criminals would face joint punishment by the allies. Did this signal that the allies had definitely decided that they were going to forgo vengeance in favor of justice and what did they hope to accomplish by putting nazi criminals on trial . Will, not really in the sense that justice and vengeance were inevitably intertwined at the end of the war and remember, 1940 43 the declaration you cited there was a lot of fighting ahead on the way to berlin and a lot of it was vicious especially the red army had suffered massive losses and they were getting revenge among others by not just on the military for instant rapes by the red army are estimated to be close to 2 million in germany. , there you have that declaration, which was a novel idea that instead of just exact vengeance you do seek justice, but right away to six weeks stalin says to roosevelt and churchill, well, i have an idea of justice. Lets lineup 50000 were hundred thousand of the top german commanders and lets shoot to them. That will be justice. Churchill was horrified and roosevelt said Something Like lets have a compromise and shoot 49500. [laughter] did not go over well with churchill, but the back and forth and eventually stalin and roosevelt decide they want trials for different reasons. Stalin loved show trials and in the 30s he had show trials, fake trials and roosevelt really wanted this principle and churchill was aware of the danger of the trap of show trials and he suddenly in this recently declassified document we found out that at one point he was considering a plan to just have summary executions of a few top leaders and to some imprisoned without trial, so this went back and forth and eventually the trials happened as we know, nuremberg and dachau and so forth and it was unprecedented, but every step of the way it was controversial to today. What were the reasons they opted to go for the trials . Were there particular goals besides just Holding People accountable . Aside from Holding People accountable and obvious one of someone has to be punished for the horrors, there was the educational element that was there very early and president truman said that one points, with these trials are meant to do is to make it impossible for someone to say now or anytime in the future that these things did not happen and thats why immediately you had at the trial documents, film, witnesses and in some cases witnesses of documentation, but it was to set the record straight because so many people were in denial of what it happened especially in germany and austria, but elsewhere in the world people were only beginning to grasp the magnitude of what had happened . Host was the particular focus on the german people to kind of show them that evils that had been done in their names then . Guest yes, that was the priority at first and why we fought this war. But, there was immediate opposition. In the United States there was opposition to the trial from the left and right say mrs. Victors justice which was aligned with many germans at first, but poor people that went into the concentration camps and liberated them said no, this is not victors justice. This is just justice. Host you are our legal expert here in the charges before the International Military tribunal at nuremberg were crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. A least some of these were new terms. Did the International Legal community consider these to be wellfounded in existing law or were some particularly controversy of . Guest will, as andy said the whole trial was developed with controversy and we have to remember this was the First International criminal court in Human History and in certain respects not only were the 21 individual defendants on trial, but a lot self was on trial that is to the extent allies had committed to doing a Trial Program as opposed to summary education. They had to demonstrate that law was inadequate adequate twill for dealing with crimes of this magnitude and so they wanted to make sure that whatever charges were brought against these defendants , that they had adequate grounding in International Law work now, that said i think we need to bear in mind that the nuremberg trial before the International Tribunal was not the first instance a holocaust trial. As you mentioned, the principal charge brought against a the defendants at nuremberg were that they had waged on aggressive war in violation of International Law and that to charge of waging on aggressive war that has not showed a lot of durability since nuremberg and even at the time it was very much involved in controversy. Indy use the term victors justice and it was most particularly applied to the charge of waging on aggressive war because the question emerges since when in Human History waging war a crime. It might something we dont like to disagree with, but since when is it a crime and the other charges that were brought, were crimes. Were crimes were pretty wellestablished and International Law and crimes against humanity in my mind was the most distant contribution that nuremberg made. It was through the channel of this relatively new thing called crimes against vanity that most of the evidence of the crimes of the holocaust entered the nuremberg trial and i think we can say now with 70 plus years of hindsight that crimes against humanity was the most distinctive and important legal breakthrough of the nuremberg trial. Host and crimes against humanity included what kinds of actions . Guest basically included what we can describe as extermination, systematic attacks on population. We have to remember that genocide, which is a think is a term we would all used today to describe the nazis exterminated practices, genocide was only coined as a term in 1944, a year before the trial started. It was coined by ralph who is a Legal Advisor, polish jewish Legal Advisor of the us war department, so even though today genocide stands as an independent crime in International Law, at the time at nuremberg it was very much a new term and it does emerge in the trial itself if you look at the closing arguments of the prosecutor. They start to use this new term, but the new term of genocide is basically used as a description of the knot sees crime against. Host i think it was in the indictment. Guest exactly and indictment as mentioned as a war crime and then the closing arguments of the lawyers of the prosecutors when they described as a crime against humanity. Host well, if youre going to hold a trial you had to present evidence to support the charges and is so late in the war the United States army formed war crimes investigated teams Whose Mission was to accompany combat troops as they caught their way across germany and to seize and collect evidence of nazi war crimes. So, lets take a look at how this worked according to nuremberg prosecutor. [inaudible] what i would do immediately would be to secure the records. I would seize. No one in, knowing out. All secured. In order to have a successful war crimes prosecution prosecution you need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, specific known crimes that have been committed also, defendants. If you havent got them both together at the same time then you have nothing and to bring the two together is not easy a theory if you were part of this death machinery, you were guilty, whether or not it could be proved you killed person x, y, oz. In complete contradiction to the so you have that controversy set up which goes up to the present. Then he also brought his trials were overshadowed by one case. Koch. The widow the wife of the current commander and known as the bitch of vukenwald. She was nope for torturing and having prisoners beaten and for flaunt allergy sexuality and then having prisoners picked off who responded in any way it to. Then there were very lure rid stories in the press that she had also had prisoners, especially with tattoos, taken away, killed, and stripped, and lamp shades made of their skin. A lot of this was some of this became dubious, and especially the latter part, and later on she was pardoned by reduced from a life sentence to four years by clay, and dense was furious and there was a whole uproar in record but even when west germany wanted to end the trials, as soon as she was let out she was imprisoned by west germany and given another life sentence and then committed suicide in prison. As you indicated after 1948 there was the allies war crimes Trial Program petered out and they were instead of trying people they were commute sentences and granting clemency, and by 1958, pretty much everyone who had been convicted but hadnt been executed pretty quickly, after sentenced, was free. Lawrence, i want to ask you, what were the reasons for this change . Did the allies accomplished what they set out to do with the trial . I think theres three answers. One answer is the cold war. The second answer is the cold war. And the third answer is the cold war. That was really the realities were at some point the United States made the calculation that we needed west germany as a dependable ally against our former ally, the soviet union, and it was really just a calculation of trying to appease the germans. The germans turned against the allied War Crimes Program really, really aggressively. At the time of the nuremberg trial before the International Tribunal, the germans were actually quite sympathetic or at least they expressed perhaps they were too cowed to express their actual views but polls taken by the americans they expressed support for the nuremberg trial. When these additional trials were conducted, some of the ones that andy was describe, then the germans felt now the allies are rubbing our face in our crimes and we want to transition into a democratic society. Obviously in making the transition to a democratic society, there were tremendous number of former nazis who continued to occupy positions or power, particularly between the legal apparatus west germany. Those persons had very little incentive to support an aggressive War Crimes Program. So once the soviet union merged as the principle antagonist of the United States, and once the United States calculated that germany could be used as an ally, then the americans were willing to do a lot in order to secure the support of germany, and unfortunately that took the form of commuting sentences of perpetrators of genocide. Just one very specific example. Interviewed the man who became the head of the first cia base in berlin. Theres the oss, which was a predecessor, then the cia base. And he himself was a german jew, who had left germany as a teenager in the 30s, gone to prison, then came to the United States, became a citizen, joined the army, and then the oss and the cia. So, as this young head of this first cia base in berlin, he said, i was not interested in fighting the last war. They got rid of some of the big guys. Time to move on. And that was the prevailing sentiment. Even despite family ties he really just felt that very strongly. You have each written a book about the pursuit of justice for nazi crimes, and your books both focus particularly on the era after the allied War Crimes Program. But you take very, very different approaches. So, andrea, your book focuses on specific individuals who played very different roles in the pursuit of justice. Explain how you picked your subjects and why you thought this was a good way to approach the topic. Well, i think, first of all, you have to understand, when yaw say nazi hunters, which is a very loose phrase and i know many people in the Justice Department so forth have qualms about it, but there were two essential groups. There were the people who were the government, military prosecutors, investigators, and who had the authority of governance behind them, and then there were what call the free lance nazi hunters, people lime holocaust survivors, freedman, who made it their mission to publicize and push the issues when it was unpopular to do so, and when the situation happened with governments were dropping this very quickly, even people like wiesenthal, everybody gives him credit for keeping the issue alive and not allowing people to forget it. And then the other thing that intrigued me, as a reporter, for instance, covering the collapse of communism, im always struck by how history in retrospect looks so inevitable. This must have happened this way. Well, in fact, thats not true. In my experience, and individuals making decisions, someone like i say there are two things that distinguish the people i write about. Determination and, for lack of a better word 0, a good word, chutzpah. Friends demonstrate hewitt spa by saying at age 27 i can cake on this case. He had a famous incident where as a corporation, marlena dietrick came to the general headquarters and he told the guards to watch the latrine so she would take a bath and then he walked in when she was in the bath, and so impressed was dietrick she invited him to lunch with a general. But in determination, not to be stopped, and so you had people like friends and denson who were strongly motivated. Fritz bauer in germany, from a secular jewish family. A social democrat, had gone into exile, and then came back and was determined to make the germans face up to the past when it was incredibly unpopular. Web sentiments w