Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Sebastian looked over, mock-amiably, and said in German: “Ah, mein Freund , would you rather we let them out, and you people can just do the Third Reich thing all over again?”

  Startled, the German hesitated, then smiled, then introduced himself and his companion. They were veterans. The first one said that the day the Nazis surrendered, his wife had a baby boy, and they named him Eiche.

  “You get that, comrade? Eiche ? In English, that’s Ike . We named him after General Eisenhower. That’s how we feel about the Americans.”

  He raised his beer glass, and his companion raised his.

  There was a moment before Sebastian and Albright raised theirs. But the tension passed, and the four of them drank to the good health of Ike, and then of Eiche.

  Book Three

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Nuremberg , September 1945

  He was seated in a two-armed wooden chair, the seat and back lined with leather turned shiny over the years. The defendant wore his black SS jacket, shorn from Day One at Nuremberg of any identifying features indicating rank or military order. The pants matched his jacket and he wore boots that rose to a few inches from his knee. An MP guard stood at either side, in the parade-rest position. When the door opened, he rose and the guards snapped to attention.

  He looked first at Sebastian, who walked at the head of the little procession to his seat opposite. Sebastian was followed by Captain Carver and Sergeant Hempstone. Carver nodded curtly and sat down. He waited for the portly Sergeant Hempstone to set up her stenotype machine. She moved her chair and her stand deftly and turned an experienced glance at Captain Carver: She was ready.

  Carver cleared his throat and read out for the record: We will proceed with the interrogation of defendant Kurt Waldemar Amadeus .

  “ General Amadeus,” the defendant corrected, revealing at least enough familiarity with English to recognize that his rank had not been acknowledged.

  “We do not use rank,” Carver said offhandedly, looking down at his notes. Then, “That you attained the rank of brigadier general will be revealed in the interrogatory.”

  Sebastian interpreted, his rendition only once requiring the telltale pause of the alien phrase going from one language to another.

  Amadeus turned his eyes to Sebastian, a hint of curiosity on his face at the young man’s fluency.

  “You are charged...”

  Captain Carver read out Counts Three and Four from the London Agreement, and then launched into the step-by-step interrogatory. This was tedious because he already had the answers to the preliminary material. Such, he sighed inwardly, would always figure in encounters with the law. He knew that from experience. Time wasted, but perhaps necessarily.

  “You were born in Essen, Germany, in 1909.” The questions were rapidly interpreted and answered.

  “You attended the Technical Institute of Berlin where you studied civil engineering and architecture. You graduated in 1929 and did work for defendant Albert Speer while he was at the Institute. You returned to the Institute in 1933, where you served as instructor. In 1937 you left to join the SS. Why?”

  Amadeus looked up, his pale face without expression, his body erect. “The SS needed younger men with experience. Herr Speer urged me to take the assignment.”

  “After you joined the SS and received training you were sent to a camp called Dachau to supervise the completion of a new wing. Which part of the Dachau camp were you engaged in building?”

  “The new barracks, and attendant buildings.”

  “Were there prisoners resident in Dachau when you were doing this?”

  “Yes. But in a different part of the camp.”

  “Were you aware what these prisoners were in Dachau for?”

  “They were there, I was told, for miscellaneous misconduct against the state.”

  “Did you receive help in the construction of your new buildings from the Dachau prisoners?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did any of these prisoners die, while at work for your division?”

  “You mean die at work? Die while working?”

  “Yes.”

  “No”

  Captain Carver leaned over to Sebastian. He lowered his voice. “There’s no affidavit on this point that I can remember, is there?”

  “None, sir.”

  Back to Amadeus. “After you did your work at Dachau, you were assigned to an SS unit in the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler?”

  “Yes.”

  “And participated in the war against France.”

  Amadeus paused. “I participated in the action against the Lowlands and France.”

  “We call that a war.”

  “Herr Captain, that was a defensive military action. France had been at war with us since September 1939.”

  Sebastian wondered if Carver would let that go. He guessed rightly; he would; it didn’t matter. And it was true that France and England had already declared war on Germany.

  “What was the nature of your duties in France?”

  “I was head of the SS intelligence unit for the Leibstandarte.”

  “And what were the activities you engaged in as intelligence officer?”

  Amadeus smiled. “May I smoke, Herr Captain?”

  Colonel Andrus had said yes, defendants could smoke during interrogation, unless the interrogating officer found the smoke offensive. Carver motioned an okay.

  Amadeus nodded, withdrew a package of cigarettes, and lit one. “What did I do? What all intelligence officers do, Herr Captain.”

  “I do not know what ‘all intelligence officers do.’ My questions are directed to you to answer. You are not to assume my knowledge of the answers to the questions I direct to you. Now: Did von engage in apprehending any non-German citizens and shipping them to Germany or Poland?”

  “A few Jews.”

  Carver looked up. Sebastian scratched a hard exclamation point on his steno pad. The stenotypist paused, waiting for more.

  Captain Carver fiddled with his briefing papers. Then, “You say ‘a few Jews.’ What do you mean by ‘a few?”

  Amadeus blew smoke from his mouth and furrowed his brow. “Maybe eight or ten thousand.”

  “And why Jews?”

  Amadeus seemed surprised. “They were enemies of the state.”

  Carver thought to depart from the script. “Who decided that?”

  “The Fuehrer.”

  “You therefore considered it a legal act?”

  “Everything the Fuehrer did was legal.”

  *

  Suggested procedure, Colonel John Harlan Amen, in charge of coordinating interrogations, had said in his memo, was a five-minute break at the end of every hour of questioning. The guards would lead the prisoner out of the hearing room into the washroom. The interrogation staff would wait outside.

  Sebastian stretched his limbs, awaiting access to the lavatory. From one of the twin urinals, Carver leaned over to Sebastian. “He’s not going to give us any problem on the Jewish question. He’s a cool, unrepentant cat.”

  “Speer certainly thought he was a competent executive when he gave him that last assignment. But hold on, Captain. Amadeus never said he agreed with Hitler’s orders. He just said Hitler’s orders made what he did legal.”

  “Right. That’s worth pursuing.”

  They reassembled.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  October 1945

  On October 10, Justice Jackson called together the English-speaking prosecutorial staff. To Colonel Andrus, who would make the arrangements for the meeting, he had cautioned, “Burt, I just couldn’t stand it if the Russians, with all their complaints at our administrative meeting, were to protract our problems. But just so they can’t get mad at us if they find out we conducted a meeting on policy without them, I’ll also exclude the French — we’ll just say it was an all-English-language meeting, and the translating machine wasn’t up to the job, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “I don’t know about that, Justice.” />
  Colonel Andrus would rather have been boiled in oil than use the familiar when addressing a superior. Never mind that Justice Jackson wasn’t exactly his superior. In the chain of command, Andrus was in charge of the Palace of Justice; Colonel Amen was in charge of interrogation; Justice Jackson headed up the prosecution. Never mind the question of first names, Colonel Andrus was uneasy about excluding the Russians and pressed the point. Jackson’s patience diminished. “Burt, just get over it.”

  “Then who do you want there?”

  “Just the prosecutorial team — ”

  “That’s four. Three if you exclude the Russians. Two if you exclude the French.”

  “Plus the interrogators — ”

  “That would be, depending how you count it, eighteen.”

  “Plus the lawyers. What’s that, a thousand?”

  Colonel Andrus attempted a snicker. “Not quite. And anyway, some of them are out of town. Say twenty-five.”

  “Then that’s who I want there. And Burt, this will be a top-security Anglo discussion. Nobody gets in except those people.”

  *

  Robert Jackson — well-regarded, urbane, handsome — enjoyed addressing an assembly. On moving from Attorney General to the Supreme Court in 1941, he had forfeited his live audiences. That loneliness of a Supreme Court Justice’s life had been a five-year trial of sorts. Jackson always took pride, understandably, in his delivery. His arguments were carefully arranged. His spoken language reflected his renown as a judicial stylist.

  “I don’t need to tell you,” he began, when the meeting was called to order, “how sweaty these preparations have been. We began interrogations on August 27th, six weeks ago. You know what we’ve been through. A trying period. Ley’s suicide. Diplomatic problems always hit us with something or other, requiring us to go to Berlin, or to London, or to Washington. The sheer immensity of the material amassed by the Nazis — I hardly need to tell you — is, most of it, now in our hands, in the hands of the Allies. And again I don’t need to tell you, that’s saddled us with a huge problem of bibliographic research, beginning of course with the basic requirement — a knowledge of German.”

  Jackson touched on the evolving questions of criminal law and the scrutiny being given to the whole question of newfound international war crimes and the apparent conflicts of Nuremberg procedures with common-law codes. He then did a quick survey of the four prosecution counts and gave his opinion that the interrogations he had surveyed had compiled abundant grounds to proceed before the international tribunal. They needed, he said, to get on with a trial.

  “Now, I’ll do this in a schoolmasterly way. I want to know, after I tick off each name, that the prosecutor in charge of preparing that case has written out the charges to be presented to the defendants — the ‘criminal defendants,’ as they will formally be designated the minute these indictments are served. I’ll give their names in the order of the indictment schedule. Just say, ‘Okay’ after your defendant’s name.”

  There was silence in the meeting room.

  “Hermann Goering.”

  Sitting in the front row, Colonel John Harlan Amen said, “Okay.”

  “Rudolf Hess.” There was an okay from the back of the room.

  ...And on:

  “Joachim von Ribbentrop.

  “Wilhelm Keitel.

  “Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

  “Alfred Rosenberg.

  “Hans Frank.

  “Wilhelm Frick.

  “Julius Streicher.

  “Walther Funk.

  “Hjalmar Schacht.

  “Karl Doenitz.

  “Erich Raeder.

  “Baldur von Schirach.

  “Fritz Sauckel.

  “Alfred Jodl.

  “Martin Bormann.

  “Franz von Papen.

  “Arthur Seyss-Inquart.

  “Kurt Amadeus.

  “Albert Speer.

  “Konstantin von Neurath.

  “Hans Fritzsche

  Having gotten the confirmations he wanted to hear, Jackson went on.

  “What we have here, in rough categories, is five groups, which I’ll label: 1) top Nazis; 2) top criminals; 3) bank presidents; and 4) admirals and generals. Plus, 5) some in their own categories.”

  A hand was raised. “In which of those categories is Speer?”

  “He’s certainly unique, one of the unclassified ones. Now we’ve got an uphill challenge here, dealing with Speer and a few others. As every one of you who attended law school knows” — there was an appreciative titter — “we’re making a lot of new law as we go. The toughest cases will also be the most combative, legally and factually. Their lawyers will raise every objection they can possibly raise. Thank the good Lord they don’t get to sound off during the prosecution’s case — ”

  “We’ll hear from Goering, you can count on it,” said Colonel Amen.

  “Yes. Goering will find some way to interrupt, but Judge Lawrence — has anybody here had any experience with Sir Geoffrey? I know he looks like a good old boy. But take it from me, he can handle a gavel, he’ll keep order.

  “Now golden, from our point of view, are the defendants who accept the prosecution’s factual allegations. And worth double gold is anybody who flat-out repents . That’s not going to achieve, for anybody who does repent — as far as I’m concerned — any commutation of sentence. But it will ease up the whole judicial picture.”

  A beckoned aide turned over a page on the large paper pad display resting on the easel. Jackson picked up his pointer.

  “Now here’s how we’ve broken down the groups by degree of projected difficulty. We have Category One, the toughest nuts to crack. And first in that group is Hermann Goering. Thanks to the fine facilities of our bugging system, about which,” he cautioned, “we do not speak to the press — here is what Goering had to say on one of the exercise walks a week ago. He was talking to Walther Funk and giving him advice. Quote: ‘Our defense should be, lick our ass . ’ ”

  Someone in the crowd whistled plaintively. Carver, sitting in the front row, observed, “Licking his ass would certainly take a lot of time.” There was a ripple of amusement...and the lull of resignation.

  “At the opposite end — the compliant end — is Albert Speer. What he has been saying is a fine example of pleading in the alternative. Number One: I’m not 100 percent sure it happened . Number Two: I didn’t know it happened . Number Three: If it happened , I didn’t order it to happen . And Number Four: I’m truly sorry that it did happen .

  “During the interrogation, Speer pretty well abandoned the first point — cultivated skepticism. He now acknowledges that it all happened . What we need to do is try real hard to move as many of the defendants as we can from the Goering camp to the Speer camp.”

  “What can we offer them?” John Amen asked.

  “That’s a problem. Maybe a firing squad. Those of them expecting execution — that’s what they all want, a soldier’s death. Some of them — I wouldn’t want to name names here — might persuade the judges that their involvement in the whole business was, ah, in some critical way, indirect — that special pressures had been put on them — that there was a confusion of orders...Who knows? But I’m going to ask the four special prosecutors to read over the interrogations as closely as you can, probing just the one question: Is this guy somebody we can bring around ? Bring around to the Speer camp? And we can keep working on that point, urging them on in the direction of a) admitting that it happened, and b) saying, I’m sorry it did happen. Hammer away at it right through the prosecution’s case up until they’re on the stand, defending themselves. Keep working on them . Go back again and again if you see any possibilities. We’ve already had thirty-five sessions with Goering.”

  Another whistle. From the ranks somebody said, skeptically, “Thirty-five interrogations ?”

  “Thirty-five. Ask John Amen. And I was there for some of them. And I heard some of the others on tape. And I’ve talked with Gilbert. He’s one ind
ustrious psychologist, considering that, as an army officer, he’s not being paid by the hour. He’s spending hours and hours with Goering. Keeps us well advised. But let’s deal with any questions you have. I’m shooting for Monday, October 15th to start courtroom proceedings.”

  There were questions, and the excitement was felt. Many of the men there had fought in the war, some as infantrymen, others in other military branches. The combatant’s spirit was there and for the lawyers among them, this was the show-down: the War Crimes Trial at the Palace of Justice. They would do the preliminary work, confront the enemy, plead their case, and hope to win a victory one day down the line, at the gallows.

  *

  Back at the work unit, Carver walked to Sebastian’s office. The evidence of work done was clear, cabinets full, one or two spilled over. Sergeant Hempstone wasn’t there so Carver pulled up her chair and sat down. He felt the raw curiosity of Sebastian, who knew that a critical meeting had taken place, but nothing else about it.

  “I can’t give you any details, but I can say this much: October 15th is a big day. From that day on in our dealings with Amadeus he will have become a formally indicted defendant.”

  “I think he’s thought that’s what he was all along.”

  “Probably. Besides, as we’ve discussed, I don’t think Amadeus is inclined to he about what he did.”

  “Or about what Camp Joni was like.”

  “We’ll test the waters on that tomorrow.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And Sebastian...when nobody else is around, call me George.”

  “Yes sir. George.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Nuremberg , October 1945

  In the interrogation room it was as before except that the stenographer, Sergeant Hempstone, was not there. Along with the other defendants, General Amadeus had been formally indicted by the war crimes tribunal. He had the right, he had been advised by Captain Carver, to refuse further interrogations. Amadeus quickly declined to exercise that right. Carver knew that he was following the advice of Albert Speer, with whom almost every day in the exercise yard Amadeus exchanged words. The bugged conversations were transcribed and given to Robert Jackson, who passed them down, as useful, to individual prosecutors. Some of the other defendants were following the lead of Hermann Goering, who conversed chattily with one and all both in the yard and, as opportunities came up, in the cellblock hallway. He advised his cadre to decline further interrogation, though he did not himself heed that counsel.