How were Nazi leaders actually compelled to participate in their own doomed cases?
from sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 16 Sep 18:33
https://sopuli.xyz/post/33789092
from sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 16 Sep 18:33
https://sopuli.xyz/post/33789092
Like obviously they were forced to show up but how did they get them to actually, like, make their plea and play along being examined rather than simply stonewalling?
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I think everyone in the whole world operates with some amount of “(bad thing) could never happen to me” but they were especially extreme cases of it
Prisoner’s Dilemma:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
Did any one of them actually end up getting the implied/hypothetical cake?
Well Krupp did a successful legalese shell game with his dementia ridden father and was back in the saddle in '51…
Speer was a difficult case, but eventually walked free. Wikipedia has a list. There were others.
I didn't study it, but I think of it this way. You don't get to that level of power without having a strong desire to be seen in public. Part of being a general/minister is standing up and giving a speech.
I'd guess most of them wanted to stand up and be heard, even if the outcome was ordained.
One of the things to remember is the nazi crimes against humanity trials were essentially unprecedented. There wasn’t much of an international court system at the time. The trials happened mostly because so many people were horrified by what had been done (more or less) legally. The nazis really believed in their own righteousness and the technically legal status of the actions they had taken. A repeated response to ‘how dare you commit these crimes?’ was ‘They were not crimes in Germany,’ or ‘The government was illegitimate, and therefore crimes committed against it were legitimate,’ or ‘Those were crimes of self-defense because [we believed] the victims were seeking our destruction,’ or ‘Our courts ruled that was legal,’ etc.
They were racist loons, but to understand their position, imagine a group of your neighbors, who you know have gotten up to some hinky shit of their own in their own homes, grouped together, kicked the shit out of you, and then locked you in your bathroom until they could set up a courtroom in your home, and proceed to harangue you about how you treated your step-son. If that happened, it’s very unlikely you’d accept the legal or moral authority of your captors. You know you won’t get away, and you know you’re dead anyway if you stonewall, (you also have no 5th ammendment to plead.) so you may as well say your bit and try to sway someone to your side. Heck, your neighbor America has always had some very similarly grim views regarding the treatment of step-sons. Maybe you can get him to help you.
The oft repeated ‘don’t say anything’ response to being arrested is only applicable in places where you think you can trust the court and you think there’s a chance they might not be able to prove you are guilty. If you know they have all the proof, you might as well try to nullify the jury since that’s your only hope.
Nazis mostly got away without prosecution. A bunch were also simply assimilated into “Ally” governments / militaries / universities. They weren’t usually doomed. It is why they are back.
I mean specifically the actual captured leaders put on trial at Nuremberg
They are always allowed to mount a defense in these international tribunals. Usually their big move is to try and make a mockery of the process and turn it into a circus.
This is also the era when “I was just following orders” and “the banality of evil” entered the lexicon, if you can guess why
“Operation Paperclip” for the Americans, although all the victorious countries grabbed as many Japanese and German scientists as they could.
Trump showed up to his trial, even though he was sentenced with 34 felonies. He thought he could buy and lie his way out of it. He’s not mentally stable, and most nazis weren’t/aren’t.