After Germany’s defeat in WWII, the Nuremberg and later trials were organized primarily for political purposes rather than to dispense impartial justice. Wears War brings to you each week a quote from the many fine men and women who were openly appalled by the trials. All of these people were highly respected and prominent in their field, at least until they spoke out against the trials.
American Journalist William Henry Chamberlain:
International hypocrisy probably reached its highest point in the trials of thousands of Germans and Japanese for alleged war crimes. That some German and Japanese actions, and some actions of the victorious powers as well, went far beyond the somewhat elastic conception of the rules of civilized warfare cannot be denied. There would be a case for the impartial trial of all persons charged with such actions before a neutral tribunal.
But the International Tribunal, composed of American, British, French, and Soviet judges, which sat in judgment at Nuremberg and Tokyo, and the subsequent tribunals set up by the occupying powers in their respective zones, lacked the most elementary sanctions of a court of law. The prosecutors were also both judge and jury. There was no semblance of impartiality in these trials of the vanquished by the victors. Nor was there any pretense of punishment being meted out evenhandedly for all infractions of law and humanity. Only Germans and Japanese were brought to trial.
Most of the major offenses against the Nazis—plotting and waging aggressive war, forcible seizure of alien territory, impressment for slave labor, looting and undernourishment of the population in occupied countries, and mass murder of both soldiers and civilians—could be charged just as convincingly against one or all of the victorious powers.
For example, it was a matter of common knowledge at the time, and has since been proved by documentary evidence, that the Soviet invasion of Poland and the later occupation of the Baltic States were acts of premeditated aggression, concerted between Stalin and Hitler before they were put into effect.
As Montgomery Belgion says:
Altogether, it is clear that the “war crimes” of “murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilization of occupied territory” is a “war crime” with which the victors may be reproached. The international military tribunal at Nuremberg pronounced 16 of the former German leaders guilty of a “war crime” of which the victorious powers—by whom the tribunal was set up and whom the judges represented—might likewise have been pronounced guilty.
American judges and publicists who participated in the postwar trials reluctantly revealed the fact that American officers and agents, in trying to force Germans to confess or produce damaging evidence, were guilty of all manner of ruthless brutalities which matched the worst of which the Nazis were accused.
The hypocrisy of the war-crimes trials is well illustrated by the case of the German, Admiral Erich Raeder, who was given a life sentence for plotting aggressive war, namely, 
helping to plan the Nazi invasion of Norway. Lord Hankey revealed some years back that the British were making identical plans at the same time. Winston Churchill admitted this to be a fact in his book, The Gathering Storm. Final confirmation has recently been offered by the publication of the first volume of the British Official History of the Second World War. This sets forth in detail the plan approved by the British War Council as early as February 6, 1940. It embraced the seizure of Narvik and the occupation by force of northern Norway and Sweden, even including the Swedish port of Lulea on the Baltic. Yet, despite the fact that the official British version admits that, on this matter, the British war leaders were as “guilty” as the Nazis, no one has raised his voice publicly in Britain or the United States to demand that Admiral Raeder be released. He continues to languish in the grim Spandau fortress prison, subjected one week out of every four to at least minor tortures and brutalities at the hands of the Russian guards.
Justice Robert Jackson and others associated with the Nuremberg trial have tried to present it as a high point in the development of international law and justice. But it was actually an all-time low point in the prostitution of the forms of law to purposes of political revenge.
Aside from the affront to equity, in that the accusers were guilty of the same crimes as the accused, the legal aspects of the postwar trials constituted an affront to the basic principles of jurisprudence and accepted legal practice. They were based on ex post facto law, a procedure which challenged the most sacred legal principles. Just as bad was the policy allowing the accusing nations also to provide the judges and juries. Hence, the trials were legal travesties. There were additional absurdities. Officers were punished for the deeds of soldiers, though they had no knowledge or responsibility for their actions. The reverse of this was also true—soldiers were punished merely for obeying orders. Especially preposterous was the trial and punishment of industrialists who were merely serving their government in a period of intense national emergency. This ridiculous extension of guilt and responsibility was recently protested in the United Nations meetings. Its dire implications for the future were tardily discerned.
Even more important than the travesties with respect to law and equity was the assurance that these trials make wars far more brutal and ruthless in the future. In all wars to come the losers will be regarded as the aggressors, no matter what the facts, and will be punished accordingly. Hence, no methods of wartime destruction, however horrible, can be spared to produce victory, at whatever human and material cost. The trials will, therefore, produce exactly the reverse of the results which were represented as their main justification.
Source: Chamberlain, William Henry, “The Bankruptcy of a Policy,” Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Newport Beach, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1993, pp. 533-536.
Suggested Reading:
How Stalin Conspired To Foment WW2 & Infiltrate the U.S. Government
Did President Roosevelt Betray America To Force An Unjustified Global War? You Decide.
How Britain Forced The Invasion of Norway & Denmark By Germany Then Blamed Hitler, Again.
WEARS WAR has moved to a new website! 
William Henry Chamberlain was an outstanding writer and researcher. I highly recommend his book “America’s Second Crusade” to anyone who wants to know more about World War II history.
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I am about half-way through reading David Irving’s great book “Nuremberg, The Last Battle” (1996) and this is the book that the Austrian Government used to convict the author of trying to revive the Nazi (their word for National Socialist) Movement in Europe. Then they put him in prison and Irving spent the last year or so in solitary confinement until 5 judges in an Appeal Court ordered his release on December 20, 2006. On page 41 Irving writes: “It should be noted that on December 10, 1948 the United Nations ruled that the retrospective application of criminal laws was a violation of human rights.” On page 109: “Not only were the Allies seeking to convict their enemies under laws which had not existed at the time of the alleged offences, but under the London Statute they were specifically ruling out a number of obvious defences which would have immediately been raised:…” Still on page 109: “Lord Mansfieldin a famous case, Campbell v. Hall, that ‘conquest invested the conquering power with the prerogative right to ‘make what law he pleases.’ ” Then on page 110: Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court William O. Douglas would write, “Nobody can be convicted on the basis of having broken an ex post facto law…”
On September 2, 2017 I finished reading a short 61-page book “The Brainwashing of the German Nation” by Udo Walendy. The first Chapter of this book is entitled “How It All Began–The London Decree of August 8, 1945.” This is the Decree that constitutes de facto international law that was utilized in the Nuremberg Tribunal to convict the German Leaders who either committed suicide or were put to death by the WWII victors. These are the ex post facto laws referred to by John Wear in the article above.
I highly recommend that everyone read John Wear’s book “Germany’s War” then follow that by reading the two books I discuss in these comments.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” St. John 8:32
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