Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  “Can he see my guards when he climbs up to his garden?”

  “No. The area is entirely enclosed.”

  “So what is it I am to do in the matter of — the Fuehrer’s health?”

  “All of his cables come up to your floor to be transmitted. They go through your hands, that is to say. Kurt, when I proposed you for the rank of general, it was because I had personal knowledge of your background, of your — intelligence.”

  Kurt Amadeus divined the line of Speer’s thought.

  “If I have reason to suspect that...some medicine has affected...our Fuehrer’s thinking, I am to — ” Amadeus nodded his understanding.

  “Exactly. In that case you are to call me. You will find that there is a direct line to me in your office in the hunker.”

  “As also to Reichsfuehrer Himmler?”

  “There is an operator who will always put you through to him. In the unlikely event that you need to speak to him. Your visit with me, I should have informed you, replaces your scheduled visit with him.”

  Speer depressed one of the buttons on his desk.

  “You will meet Corporal Danzig. He has a jeep and radio telephone. He is permanently assigned to you, day and night.”

  Albert Speer rose.

  “We will be in touch, Herr General.” He smiled. The color of his suit did nothing to give color to his wan cheeks.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  June 1946

  Robert Jackson presided at the informal meeting. Sitting at the table opposite were the acid-tongued British prosecutor Maxwell Fyfe, Captain George Carver, and interrogation chief Colonel John Amen.

  “Well, we’re done with Albert Speer, five interesting days. Nice try, trying to convince the judges that, toward the end, he was really working against Hitler. And then he pops the business about how defendant Kurt Amadeus will bear him out. How come we didn’t get anything on that from the Amadeus interrogation?”

  “We didn’t have any leads in that direction,” Carver said. “All we got from Amadeus was that Speer recommended him as bunker security chief.”

  “Well, we can’t do much with it now. The defense has the ball. So, Carver, what does your informant, Lieutenant Reinhard, tell you? Will Amadeus change his plea tomorrow on the stand?”

  “We’ve given him two-thirds of what he asked for, Mr. Jackson. He got the access he wanted to Lieutenant Reinhard — ”

  “Did he invoke that privilege?”

  “Last time I counted, Reinhard had been in to see him eight times.”

  “And always pressed on the matter of the plea?”

  Dumb question , Carver thought. On the other hand, he himself had asked Sebastian that same question after the fourth or fifth visit.

  He nodded his head. “I was going to say, prosecution request number one — Amadeus got the visiting privilege; and request number two — we adjusted the entire prosecution schedule so that he would come in after Speer. Now we have some idea, after hearing Speer, why he wanted that.”

  Jackson reflected. “If he testifies that Speer told him to keep his eye on Hitler, and to prepare to pull the cord on him when Speer said go — is he likely to base his defense on that?”

  “He might,” Max Fyfe said. “Of course, if he pleads guilty, he wouldn’t have anything relevant to say except later, in the matter of mitigation of sentence. Still...yes. That defense would be something along the lines of: ‘I became so opposed to Hitler when I got to Berlin that I co-conspired with Herr Speer and agreed to bump him off.’”

  “Amadeus took over the bunker on January 10th. Hitler shot himself on April 30th. That’s almost sixteen weeks — ”

  “Maybe Hitler shot himself because he was so afraid of Amadeus,” Fyfe volunteered.

  They appreciated the levity.

  Carver continued. “And maybe he can explain to the court how he plans to bring a quarter of a million of his Camp Joni graduates back to life...Favor number three, you remember, was that, when found guilty, he was to be shot.”

  “Nobody much wants to be hanged, there isn’t any doubt on that point,” Jackson said. ‘And when the sentences are handed down, hanging sentences, we can imagine what the principal stink will be from the admirals and generals.”

  “To say nothing of Goering,” Fyfe added.

  “Well, we’re the prosecutors, not the judges,” said Colonel Amen. There was a hint of rebuke in his voice. “All we can say to Amadeus, Let’s face it, is that we are not going to recommend capital punishment other than by hanging for anybody .”

  “But we haven’t told him even that, Colonel. We’ve strung him along — shit. I didn’t mean that pun, sorry. I haven’t even told Reinhard that it’s nix on the firing squad.”

  “Well, here’s the nub of it.” Chief U.S. Prosecutor Robert Jackson had a way of asserting his authority whenever he thought the temptation to ramble was taking hold. “Tomorrow, the lawyer Amadeus wall speak first; the defendant Amadeus, of course, on the stand. If there’s to be a plea change, counsel can do it. Or he can just turn to the defendant and let the plea change come out of his own mouth.

  “But here’s the thing: If Amadeus sings — and it would be great if he did — it would substantially weaken the defense arguments of the whole pack. We’d have to reconsider the whole line of cross-examination. If, for instance, General Amadeus says that it was Governor Hans Frank who told him to gas the prisoners of war, we’ll goose up the case against Frank and try for corroborating documents. But we can’t do that while Amadeus is on the stand.”

  “So?” Colonel Amen asked.

  “So if he goes for guilty, Carver, you proceed to cross-examine and get everything you can from him, but after you’ve done the vital work, move for an adjournment on the grounds that the cross-examination, given the revised plea, needs more time to prepare. Got it?”

  Carver nodded.

  Jackson got up. “Take heart, gentlemen. Only five more to go after Amadeus.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  July 1946

  The marshal called out. “The Court recognizes George Friedrich Amadeus, counsel for the defendant Kurt Waldemar Amadeus.”

  The younger Amadeus rose from the row of defense tables. Walking over to the left side of the courtroom, he stood by the lectern. Simultaneously, Kurt Amadeus filed by the four defendants on his right, making his way, finally, past Hermann Goering. He walked to the dock on the right. Both lecterns had chairs. Attorneys and defendants could not be expected to remain standing for what could be days at a time.

  George Friedrich Amadeus wore his same corduroy suit, manifestly not made to order. His closed, white-starched collar crowded against his Adam’s apple.

  He cleared his throat. “Honorable judges. The objection I made at the time of the indictments was overruled. You will perhaps recall that I asserted that collective trials were a fundamental violation of individualized justice, which is the basis of individual rights — ”

  The gavel came down. Lord Lawrence’s voice was quiet but emphatic. “You are out of order, Counsel. There is no provision for appeal from a ruling of the tribunal.”

  “But Judge Lawrence, I wish that this final objection I am now making should appear on the record as a necessary adjunct to the testimony of my client.”

  “Strike that,” Lawrence ordered the clerk. “Proceed, Herr Amadeus.”

  “Very well.”

  He turned to look opposite him to his brother at the dock. “Kurt Waldemar Amadeus. You have considered the possibility of altering your plea to guilty. How then do you plead?”

  Several of the defendants leaned forward tensely. The gallery, which had not been full to hear through the defense of the last half-dozen witnesses, was crowded today. There had been the rumor that something out of the ordinary was up with the Amadeus prosecution. Only the encephalophonic whir of the cameras could be heard. Sebastian Reinhard sat stiffly in the control room, at the side of Harry Albright, looking down on the eerily still scene. Albright whispered. “ T
his is it .”

  Kurt Amadeus stood straight, his gray prison uniform suit well pressed. He looked over at his brother, then turned to face the judges.

  “I reiterate my plea of not guilty.”

  The whole of the prosecution staff seemed to draw breath. There was a smile over clenched teeth and Goering turned to Hess on his left, and then over to Keitel. There was the hint of a nod. “Very well,” Counsel said.

  Then, “On the matter of your role as Kommandant of the camp at Joni in Poland. It is alleged that while you were in charge, many thousands of people were gassed.”

  “Two hundred and fifty-one thousand were eliminated.”

  “It is alleged that among them were prisoners of war.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Were you aware, while Kommandant, of the regulations of the Geneva Convention respecting the treatment of prisoners of war?”

  “I was.”

  “How then can you plead not guilty to Count Number Three?”

  “Because, on mature reflection, I concluded that I am merely a cog in the machinery of this court, which is a charade whose primary purpose is to avenge Jewish sensibilities.”

  Everyone, it seemed, began talking. Hissing could be heard. Goering bit his lip and turned his eyes quizzically toward his own defense counsel, seated, his jaw clenched. Judge Lawrence brought down his gavel. “There will be silence.”

  “How does the...construction you presume to place on the proceedings and constitution of this court bear on the direct question? You ordered the execution of prisoners of war, in violation of an agreement to which Germany had been a part.”

  “I believed that the decisions of the Fuehrer were the supreme law, even as President Truman considered the use of the atomic bomb his supreme authority.”

  “What right did you have to consider Adolf Hitler’s word as outweighing sovereign commitments made by predecessor governments?”

  “I considered the National Socialist Party a revolutionary party, and therefore unbound, as the France of Napoleon and the Russia of Lenin declared themselves unbound by prerevolutionary conventions.”

  The stir now was general. The Russian judge, Nikitchenko, frowning, scribbled on a pad. Again Judge Lawrence had to insist on silence.

  Counsel resumed. “There is the matter of the Poles who were executed at Camp Joni. Why were they executed?”

  “Because Governor Frank gave me the orders to do so.”

  All eyes were now turned to Frank, seated in the higher of the two defendants’ tiers, between Frick and Rosenberg. He twitched, then closed his eyes and bent his head forward.

  “It is alleged that you authorized the...elimination of perhaps as many as two hundred thousand Jews.”

  “That figure is approximately correct.”

  “Why did you execute them?”

  The writer Rebecca West, seated in the front row of the press section, opened her mouth in a rhetorical yawn. She knew what the answer to that question would be. Everybody knew what the answer to that question would be. Amadeus did not surprise them.

  “Those were the orders of Herr Himmler, speaking for the Fuehrer.”

  “Again, why are you pleading not guilty?”

  “The matter of guilt or nonguilt reflects the biases of this particular court, which are not universal.”

  “When you left Camp Joni, in January of last year, you were placed in charge of security for Hitler’s bunker.”

  “Fuehrer Hitler’s bunker, correct.”

  “Did that give you an opportunity to revise your opinions about the correctness of following Hitler’s orders?”

  “Yes.”

  There was silence. Sebastian grabbed Harry’s shoulder. Harry adjusted his left earphone. “ He’s going to say ... Watch — ”

  “Well, did you revise them?”

  “No.”

  George Friedrich looked despairingly at his brother. He fiddled with papers on the lectern for a few seconds. Then looked up at the court. “I have no further questions for my client.”

  Again, a stir in the gallery.

  “The court will hear the cross-examination by the prosecution.” Captain George Carver rose determinedly, but quickly bent his head, giving his attention to what was being said to him over the earphones. He listened and nodded his head acquiescently.

  “ Jackson told him to ask for a recess ,” Harry tipped off his associate.

  Captain Carver bowed to the judges. “Your honor, the defense took much less time than anticipated, the prosecution needs a short respite, and it has in any case been over an hour. May I petition the court for a recess of thirty minutes?”

  The approval was gaveled by Lord Lawrence, and all rose to their feet.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  July 1946

  In the U.S. prosecutors’ lounge, Jackson was waiting for Carver. The U.K.’s Maxwell Fyfe joined them.

  Carver sat down and lit a cigarette. “So much for four months’ seduction of Kurt Waldemar Amadeus, boss.”

  “Yeah, yeah. It would have been nice. On the other hand, the stands he has taken aren’t going to get any sympathy from the judges for any of the other people.”

  “Certainly not from Nikitchenko,” said Fyfe. “The business about both Hitler and Lenin starting off from scratch! So if you want to prosecute Hitler, prosecute Lenin.”

  “And Napoleon !” Jackson grinned. “We can be grateful that Amadeus didn’t go into the subject at any length, though he’d have been stopped by the faithful Lawrence.”

  “Yes. But now, Carver,” Jackson said, “you go after him . After him hard . And clear up the Speer business. Let’s find out why Amadeus thought it was so important to come up on the court calendar after Speer. I love it, Amadeus doesn’t want to hang, just be shot. Yeah, we can get special favors for that guy.”

  “Hang on, Bob,” Maxwell Fyfe was adding to the haze of tobacco by puffing on his pipe. “We refused to agree to shoot him. We didn’t give him what he wanted, he didn’t give us what we wanted.”

  The five-minute bell rang.

  *

  “Herr Amadeus, you show no contrition over what you did at Camp Joni. So you are agreeably acquiescent in the acts of Nazis depicted on this screen” — he pointed behind him — “as recently as a few months ago — ”

  “No.”

  Carver looked up. “What did you say just now?”

  “I never engaged in atrocities.”

  Carver laughed scornfully. “You gassed victims by the tens of thousands but were not guilty of atrocities?”

  “They were eliminated, as ordered. But at Camp Joni, they were never starved or beaten.”

  Carver eyed quickly his carefully prepared summary of activities traceable to Amadeus. “Well, that’s very reassuring. So when you marched them into the gas chamber, you did not simultaneously beat them.”

  “There is a difference.”

  Carver waved his hand dismissively. “Perhaps an international treaty in the future will make that distinction. It is all right to eliminate prisoners of war and refugees and members of an ethnic group, so long as they are not tortured. They may think it torture when they lean back and begin to smell the poison issuing from the vents over their heads, but that torture is — what were your words? That it is different ?”

  Amadeus said nothing.

  “Now let me ask you to expand just a little on the matter of the sovereignty of Adolf Hitler over the law. Suppose he had ordered you to murder — your brother, sitting over there.”

  “I wouldn’t blame him,” Harry muttered, without removing his headphones.

  Amadeus did not answer immediately.

  “You are thinking about that question?”

  “I would not wish, Herr Carver, to say anything on the stand that would disrupt family relations.”

  Everyone laughed. Judge Lawrence had to repress his own reaction. He gaveled for order. Carver was unsmiling.

  “No, you would not wish to do that. You are perhaps a
ware, Herr Amadeus, that there were brothers you gassed who had brothers — and mothers and fathers and children — alive somewhere? You were not concerned about their family feelings?”

  “I did not permit myself to be distracted by emotions perfectly understandable in those who did not acknowledge the authority and foresight of the Fuehrer.”

  “ The foresight of the Fuehrer , Herr Amadeus? There are four million Germans — I am not counting German Jews — add another one to four million — who would be living today but for your Fuehrer. German cities are in ruin. The German people are stricken with remorse over what your Fuehrer did. Do you call that foresight?”

  Amadeus paused, then said: “I very much regret the consequences of the war.”

  “There is nothing to be done about the consequences of your gassing of its victims.”

  Amadeus did not reply.

  “I turn to another subject. On January 10th, 1945, you were given command of security over Hitler’s bunker.”

  Amadeus nodded.

  “You met with the defendant Speer in his offices before going to the bunker?”

  Again Amadeus nodded.

  Judge Lawrence broke in. “The defendant will acknowledge verbally the questions of the prosecutor.”

  Amadeus nodded. Then, on second thought, said, “Yes.”

  “Now the defendant Speer has testified that in the conversation he had with you, he began by advising you of your promotion to the rank of Brigadefuehrer.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Did you interpret this as a move designed to enhance your dependence on the defendant Speer?”

  “I considered it a promotion.”

  “A promotion initiated by Speer?”

  “It crossed my mind that he played a role.”

  “Why?”

  “We had been acquaintances, and he had sponsored me at other stages in my activity.”

  “He has testified that he communicated to you that you were to keep your eyes on the directives issued by the Fuehrer. Is that correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “What was the presumed purpose of your engaging in such supervision?”