. ©MAZAL LIBRARY

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. NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume VII · Page 99
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Table of Contents - Volume 7
B. Opening Statement for the Prosecution*
 
PRESIDING JUDGE SHAKE: The Tribunal is now ready to hear the opening statement of the prosecution.

GENERAL TAYLOR: May it please the Tribunal. The grave charges in this case have not been laid before the Tribunal casually or unreflectingly. The indictment accuses these men of major responsibility for visiting upon mankind the most searing and catastrophic war in human history. It accuses them of wholesale enslavement, plunder, and murder. These are terrible charges; no man should underwrite them frivolously or vengefully, or without deep and humble awareness of the responsibility which he thereby shoulders. There is no laughter in this case; neither is there any hate.

The world around us bears not the slightest resemblance to the Elysian Fields. The face of this continent is hideously scarred and its voice is a bitter snarl; everywhere man's works lie in ruins, and the standard of human existence is purgatorial. The first half of this century has been a black era; most of its years have been years of war, or of open menace, or of painful aftermath, and he who seeks today to witness oppression, violence, or warfare need not choose his direction too carefully nor travel very far. Shall it be said, then, that all of us, including these defendants, are but the children of a poisoned span? And does the guilt for the wrack and torment of these times defy apportionment?

It is all too easy thus to settle back with a philosophic shrug or a weary sigh. Resignation and detachment may be inviting, but they are a fatal abdication. God gave us this earth to be cultivated as a garden, not to be turned into a stinking pile of rubble and refuse. If the times be out of joint, that is not to be accepted as a divine scourge, or the working of an inscrutable fate which men are powerless to affect. At the root of these troubles are human failings and they are only to be overcome by purifying the soul and exerting the mind and body. This case, like any criminal proceeding, finds its jurisdiction only as part of this process of redemption and reconstruction. We have been told from the Mountain to judge not, that we be not judged, and we will do well to reflect upon and seek to comprehend this profound prohibition. It is at once the touchstone of the judicial process, and the core of this particular and fateful proceeding.
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* The opening statement for the prosecution was delivered on 27 August 1947. (tr. pp. 39-182). Most of the closing statement for the prosecution is reproduced below in section XI F. vol. VIII, this series.  



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