Irving In Denial:
A Closer Look At the Legality of the Nuremberg Trials

by K. L.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - fall 2000)

"Do you think we would have been given anything like this if Germany had won the war?" - words of a British judge of the IMT upon seeing Luise Jodl conferring with his lawyer

Those publications that deal with Holocaust denial which have arisen since the 1970’s can be categorized into two basic types. The first category is made up of vividly apparent, pedestrian anti-Semitic propaganda. "The second is compromised of publications which have been written in a more academic style, with a defined research methodology, primary sources, "scientific findings," and a thorough set of claims. Those belonging to the latter group, such as Robert Faurisson and Arthur Butz, do not deny that the Jews fell victim to Nazi persecution and that a large number of them died during the war in the concentration camps, mainly as a result of epidemics and maltreatment. They do, nevertheless, deny the existence during the war of a systematic industrial plan of organized destruction, which resulted in the death of six million Jews. By the early 1990’s

David Irving had become one of the most prominent representatives of this stream of Holocaust denial. Unlike other authors in this school, whose primary interests in World War II was the attempt to distort or deny the Holocaust, Irving came to the question of the destruction of the Jews as part of his revisionist writing on WWII. Works which he began to publish as early as the 1960’s. He argued mainly against Hitler’s demonic image during what he described as "years of intense wartime propaganda and emotive postwar historiography." However, up until the late 1980’s Irving refrained from explicitly denying the extermination itself. Until 1988 Irving refrained from supporting the deniers’ outlook explicitly. The event that caused him to cross the line and join the deniers’ pursuit was the publication of The Leuchter Report. Fred Leuchter, who claimed to be a specialist in constructing and installing execution apparatus in United States prisons, was hired by the Canadian Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to be an expert witness at his trial. Before the trial, with Zundle’s financial support, Leuchter traveled to Poland where he visited Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Madjanek and illegally collected "forensic samples" for chemical analysis. In his first published findings he claimed that the facilities in these camps were not capable of mass annihilation.

The allegation that the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps in general and in Auschwitz in particular were used only for disinfect ion purposes was not new, having already raised a few years after the war by one of the first European Holocaust deniers, Maurice Bardeche. From then on it was introduced as a major breakthrough for those who were "seeking the truth." With Leuchter’s work their claim had allegedly been proven scientifically. "For myself, shown this evidence for the first time when called as an expert witness at the Zundel trialƒthe laboratory reports were shattering. There could be no doubts as to their integrity, " wrote Irving in his introduction to The Leuchter Report, which was published in Britain by Irving’s publishing house. Thirty years after he had begun working as an "independent historian," as he frequently described himself, presenting revisionist concepts in regard to WWII he no longer refrained from outwardly denying the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people. A recurring motif in Irving’s books, as well as in his articles and lectures, is the claim that the British leadership, and especially Churchill, was responsible for the outbreak of WWII. Here the influence of previous WWII revisionists is evident.

Adopting their historical approach, Irving claimed that British leaders could have prevented the war had they accepted Germany’s reasonable peace proposals. The decision to enter the war against the essential interests of the British; its main consequence was the decline of Britain as a world power. Denial of the gas chambers, which actually meant the denial of the systematic machinery of destruction, was intended to reinforce Irving’s claims in regard to the relativism of German atrocities. By adopting the Holocaust denial concept he could argue that German violence against the civilian population, including local killing and atrocities against the Jews, was not morally different from Allied atrocities. Denial of the Final Solution removed not only from Hitler but also from the entire Nazi regime the label of Evil, which had created a clear distinction between Nazi Germany and the Allies. So while it is true that until the end of the ‘80’s Irving refrained from denying the Holocaust explicitly, the conceptual foundations were laid years before, originating in the desire to change the widely held image of evil of Nazi Germany. Although Irving’s identification with Holocaust denial was announced publicly only in 1988, it is clear that this admission was not a dramatic turnabout, rather the end of a prolonged process.

Irving’s attraction to these ideas, the "missing link" in his historical concept was already visible in his first public meeting with deniers at the 1983 International Revisionist Conference. Shortly after the conference Robert Faurisson and the historian Gerald Fleming pointed out that Irving deliberately used conditional words and phrases in his lecture which indicated his doubt as to whether the Holocaust had actually occurred. When relating to the death camps Irving’s comment was, "We do know in the meantime that Dachau is a legend, that everything that people found in Dachau was in fact installed by the Americans." Regarding Auschwitz and other extermination camps, the question "about the goings-on inside" was left open "as a matter of controversy." Another significant example of the link made by Irving between world Jewry’s alleged threat of war against Germany and Hitler’s decision to escalate the anti-Jewish measures, was Hitler’s meeting with the Hungarian regent Miklos Horty in 1943. Irving could not disregard the murderous language that Hitler used in that meeting concerning the fate of the Jews; however, he claimed that Hitler was deeply influenced by the Allied bombing of German cities. Documents and target maps found at the bombsites, Irving wrote, proved that British aircrews were instructed to aim at only residential areas, convincing Hitler that this was mainly the Jews’ retaliation. The fact that Irving refrained from any comment left the impression that Hitler’s belief might have been realistic. Irving raised the possibility that Jewish pressure had been one of the main factors behind the Allied decision to bomb and devastate German cities. In 1961, during his research into the causation of the bombing of Dresden, Irving wrote provocative letters concerning alleged Jewish involvement in this operation to the curator of the Wiener Library. Based on dubious German testimony, requested confirmation of the claim that the World Jewish Congress had demanded the liquidation of Dresden in reprisal for the crushing of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the later destruction of the ghetto.

Irving denies plainly the allegation that he is an anti-Semite. However, his anti-Semitic attitude, and especially his strong belief in a Jewish conspiracy, "our traditional enemies ", in general, and its role in the "myth of the Holocaust" in particular, are well reflected in some of his books, articles and speeches. The Jewish conspiracy notion, the "myth of the Holocaust," and the revisionist theories presented by Irving over the years, were integrated into his complete thesis which is that contrary to British global interests, Churchill, paid and influenced by the Jews, refused any compromise with Germany. The Holocaust myth was inflated by British intelligence to serve as a "moral alibi" for Churchill’s disastrous decision to confront Germany to the bitter end.

Irving, with his book "Nuremberg: The Last Battle", sets his sites on the "farcical legality" of the trials and how they were political rather than judicial proceedings. In support of his thesis Irving presents material which, until the book’s publication, was previously unknown or "lost." He has become famously credited for his ability to unearth interesting and previously unheard of documents. Much of his "new material" consists of diaries and letters by the accused and by witnesses, themselves later tried for war crimes, plus complaints by defense counsel. Strangely Irving deliberately chooses not to use the 22 printed volumes of the proceedings of the Nuremberg Tribunal, containing nearly every word which was spoken in court and backed by near 20 volumes of the full documents from which extracts were read as evidence. His purported excuse for not utilizing the record is that it is inaccurate and incomplete. He often confuses this record with the daily transcript distributed within 48 hours for use as a quick reference by all present in the court. The published version was checked against the original shorthand and wire recordings and corrected by defendants and prosecution alike. Irving’s main goal is to contend the nature of the law employed to try the defendants; a law with its ex post facto nature was designed to construct a "judicial façade" to conceal the Allied pursuit of "victor’s justice." An important aspect of the trials alluded to by Irving is the hypocrisy which surrounded the proceedings.

According to Irving, The Allies sat in judgment of men who were, in essence, just as guilty of the crimes laid out in the indictment as they were. Several examples are given to support this contention. Irving refers to written documentation that outlines Churchill’s ordering of the fire bombing of Berlin. In these orders it was specifically outlined to British airmen to eliminate as many German civilians as possible. What Irving does not mention is that there existed like orders for the German Luftwaffe to achieve the same purpose in their air raids. He then points out the dropping of leaflets by US forces on the Axis cities, which called for their immediate surrender, or they would " surely suffer horrid consequences." This act is labeled by Irving as ‘the boldest kind of violation of the Hague Convention.’ The previous war trials staged by the Russians in Kharkov are given mention. Russian justice involved torture coerced confessions, public executions, and out of the hundreds of trials not one acquittal or prison term. Additional documents alluded to by Irving prove the joint planning by both Britain and France for the invasion of Norway and Finland in 1940. An ‘aggression’ which would fall well within the categories of crimes against peace as so codified in the August 1945 meetings in London of international lawyers. The mass execution of Polish officers perpetrated by Russian troops in the forest at Katyn is mentioned as well. This atrocity along with subsequent Russian treatment of German captives taken on the eastern front were unquestionably violations of the Geneva Convention but, as Irving astutely points out, held no sway since the Soviet Union had refused to become a party to it. Outright execution of the war criminals was initially greatly favored for the Allies feared that a trial would possibly bring their own crimes under scrutiny. The knowledge of and ability to prove these Allied war crimes would enable the German defense to use the judicial tactic of ‘tu quoque’ (literally ‘you did it too’) making the trials an immediate sham. To prevent this a provision was written into the London Charter which forbid any mention of said acts. This selective aspect of the London Charter does serve to add some degree of truth to Irving’s argument. He states that the International Military Tribunal’s "purpose was to choose the defendants, and to draft the new laws they were to be accused of having broken, and the rules of the court which retroactively applied those laws." His sentiment is echoed in the words of Harry S. Truman — "The Nazis should be given a fair trial first and then hanged." It was alluded to that the Tribunal and its symbolic mission was too important to award light sentences, that the trials themselves were mere formalities. The simple fact that of the 22 alleged Nazi war criminals 12 were sentenced to hang, seven to prison, and 3 acquittals reveals that the IMT carried out a fair, judicious trial.

A common technique used by deniers and revisionists alike is to find fault with the translation of German testimonials. This is seen with the written testimony of the Nazi Dr. Kremer. The written coded messages he wrote regarding the conditions at Auschwitz are taken to be literal by the revisionists and are selectively translated to find a more fitting meaning. By this rationale the statement made by John F. Kennedy, "Ich bin ein Berliner," taken literally would mean that is a jelly donut, not his intended message. Seeing the potential chaos that could ensue over this matter the IMT painstakingly instituted a revolutionary translation system for the proceedings, making the trial simultaneously held in four different languages. After being transcribed the defendants were allowed to peruse their testimonies in order to be able to address any potential discrepancies. Irving mentions that the transcripts when published were riddled with problems — many accounts were deleted from both court records and transcripts. He cites a specific example in Erhard Milch’s testimony where a portion of it was deleted from the mimeographed transcript.

As this portion referred to the planned invasion of Norway by the British it would have been an asset to the defense. Irving states that only after much protest on Milch's part was the portion restored to the printed volumes, after the trial. Because the testimony transgressed against the rules on "forbidden themes which the chief prosecutors had drawn up in secret themselves" it was deemed unsuitable and ignored. The arguments raised by Irving mirror the "analytic principles" followed by negationists as outlined by Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Any direct testimony by a Jew is a lie or a fantasy by definition. Irving rejects the testimony of Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, a survivor of Auschwitz, as being greatly based on hearsay and speculation for she went on to give great details of the camp which as a political prisoner she could not possibly have known.

Any documents dating from before the Liberation is to be treated as a forgery or a rumor. Any document containing first-hand information on Nazi methods, for example those testimonies concerning the Warsaw ghetto, either is a forgery or has been tampered with. Any Nazi coded document — that is, using euphemisms for practices associated with the extermination of Jews — is to be interpreted in its strictly literal meaning, whereas any document speaking plainly of the genocide is to be ignored or "under-interpreted." Any Nazi testimony dating from after the war is to be considered as obtained under torture or other forms of coercion. Of all of the defendants at Nuremberg only Julius Streicher spoke of his maltreatment at the hands of the US army (why should he not be believed) while the others testified to the conditions as being favorable. Some even went as far as to thank Colonel Andrus for their fair treatment and the amiability of their guards. An enormous amount of pseudo-technical evidence is marshaled to confirm the impossibility of the existence and functioning of the gas chambers. Any complementary evidence that would make the Holocaust more plausible in historical and revolutionary terms — such as the Nazi euthanasia of the mentally ill or the activities of the Einsatzgruppen — is either "unacknowledged or falsified."

The International Military Tribunal found its being in the London Agreement for the "prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis." Any government of he United Nations, other than the signatories, could adhere to the Agreement and, in fact, 19 so with the result that altogether 25 nations pooled their several rights to proceed against was criminals and joined together present a common indictment before a single Tribunal. In accord with the Moscow Declaration (1945) between Britain and the Soviet Union those Germans who had been responsible for war crimes should ‘be sent back to the countries in which deeds were done’ to be tried by the national courts of those countries. The Agreement provides that an International Military Tribunal (as later articulated by the International Law Commission of the United Nations (1950) considered to be law and said to be the legacy of the trials) shall be established "for the trial of war criminals whose offenses have no particular geographical location." Attached to the London Agreement is the Charter of the IMT setting fort in 30 articles the constitution, jurisdiction, the general principles, and the powers of the Tribunal, the procedure to be followed in the course of the preliminary investigations and conduct of the trial, and the provisions concerning judgment and sentences.

Here the jurisprudential questions raised upon whether the IMT so established is a legal court in the true sense, and whether the trial it conducted can properly be described as legal will be addressed. A legal criminal trial may be defined as a trial in which an impartial judge, or an impartial judge and jury, determines the guilt or innocence of a defendant according to law and to the evidence produced by the prosecution and the defense. The judge, the law, and the evidence are therefore the 3 essentials in every legal trial. These aspects were present in the Nuremberg trial, but their extent has been debated. It has been argued that the Tribunal cannot be regarded in the true sense because, as its members represented the victorious Allies, they must have lacked that impartiality which is an essential in all judicial procedure. According to the view only a court consisting of neutrals, or, at least, containing some neutral judges, could be considered to be a proper tribunal. In order to avoid such criticisms over impartiality it would have been wise to select judges from other nations as well. It could easily have been done without jeopardizing the court’s endeavor. As no man can be a judge in his own case, so no Allied Tribunal can be a judge in a case which members of the enemy government or forces are on trial. This argument ignores the fact that it runs counter to the administration of law in every country. If it were true than no spy could ever be given a legal trial for his case will always be heard by judges representing the enemy country. It has not been widely argued that in such cases it was necessary to call on neutral judges. The prisoner has the right to demand that his judges shall be fair, but not hat they should be neutral. As was pointed out by Wright in his article, the same principle is applicable to ordinary criminal law because "a burglar cannot complain that he is being tried by a jury of honest citizens."

There are three grounds on which it can be asserted the Tribunal satisfied the essential element of fairness. The first is found in the character of its judges. Although the court is described as being the ‘International Military Tribunal,’ its members were not professional soldiers but legal experts who had been trained in the evaluation of evidence. It was suggested that they all should be given the rank of Major — General for the purpose of the trials, but was decided that it was not desirable to disguise their essential character. The second reason is that the trials were conducted in the full glare of world publicity. Under such circumstances it would be almost impossible for a tribunal to act in an obviously unfair manner. It must be remembered that at the Reichstag trials in 1933 even a court composed of subservient Nazi judges was forced to acquit the defendant Dimitroff due to it being obvious that he was not guilty. The third reason is that Article 26 of the Charter provides that the "judgment of the Tribunal as to the guilt or the innocence of any defendant shall give the reasons on which it is based." This provision, which is far stricter than the practice followed in the ordinary national courts where a simple verdict of guilty is sufficient, was the strongest guarantee of fairness, because the judges must have realized that their judgments would be subject to public scrutiny in the future. Article 13 of the Charter provided that "the Tribunal shall draw up rules for its procedure. M These rules shall not be inconsistent with the provisions of the Charter."

In one important respect the Nuremberg rules of procedure more closely resembled those of the Anglo-American law than they did those of Europe, for the judges were not playing the inquisitorial role which European judges assume in a criminal trial. The examination of witnesses was left almost entirely to the counsel. Article 16 of the Charter followed European practice in providing for the preliminary examination of a defendant; under English law a defendant need not answer any preliminary questions, and his failure to do so cannot be the subject of comment at the trial. No incidents in regards to Article 16 arose for the defendants never refused comment but were rather profuse in their explanations. The most important provision concerning evidence is found in Article 19 of the charter that provided that "the Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value." This marked a great departure from Anglo-American practice under which hearsay evidence is strictly excluded on the theory that no evidence should be admissible which cannot be subjected to the test of cross examination. If this principle had been applied at the Nuremberg trials much of the relevant evidence would have had to be excluded because many of the persons closely identified with the events were dead. The relaxation of the rules of evidence does not seem to have led to any problems for the presiding judge had no difficulty in excluding evidence that was either irrelevant or unduly prejudicial.

The third essential of a legal trial is that the guilt or innocence of the defendant should be determined according to the law. Therefore if the Nuremberg trials are to be considered legal trials in the true sense, it is necessary to determine whether there is any law applicable to them. If a court is free to hold that it may in its discretion punish any act which it considers ought to be punishable, then it may be administering justice but is not administering law. Such discretionary justice may in certain circumstances be necessary, especially in times of revolution or grave emergency, but it differs in essence from legal justice, which is based on established rules and principles. The law which the Tribunal administered is that laid down in Part II of the Charter which establishes its jurisdiction. In particular Article 6 provides that "the following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:- a) Crimes against peace: namely, planning preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing; b) War Crimes; namely, violations of the laws or customs of warƒ; c) Crimes against humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war." This is the law which the Charter required the Tribunal to administer and by which it was bound.

Were the Allied governments justified in stating the law as they did in the Charter? Was this statement of the law a declaration of already existing International Law, or was it the creation, after the event, of novel and previously unknown principles/ There is an essential difference between the two, because if the Charter laid down new law for the Tribunal then this could be subject to the criticism that it must be ex post facto in character. This might be in conflict with the principle of justice, generally recognized by all civilized legal system, that criminal law should not be retroactive in effect. It is true that the Nazis themselves in their penal legislation repudiated this principle of justice, but this would not by itself justify the Allied nations in taking a course which they had condemned in their enemies. It has been argued that all the law in the Charter must be ex post facto because in the past International Law was applicable only to the States and not to individuals. To hold an individual criminally liable for a breach of International Law is therefore, according to this view, the creation of an entirely novel legal system. It is true, of course, that in the past there has been no international court before which individuals could be prosecuted, but this does not prove that no international criminal law existed. This argument comes dangerously close to denying the existence of International Law as a whole, because there is no compulsory international court before which it can be enforced. Law has frequently existed before the particular courts of the State have been created. This distinction between law and the machinery for enforcing the law is recognized in the principle against ex post facto law, because this principle does not apply to the creation of new legal machinery. So no defendant could complain that a court that did not exist when he committed the act was trying him. The fact that in the past there have been no international courts before which such crimes could be prosecuted does not negate the existence of such duties. It merely shows that the existing machinery was defective. The creation of the International Military Tribunal remedied this defect. Previous legislation laid the groundwork for the IMT assuring its legality. History saw a steady evolution of International Law leading up to the creation of the IMT; the Versailles Treaty itself outlined the employment of a tribunal to address violations. The main governments of Europe signed the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1869. It brought about parameters for which activities in warfare were to abide, "the technical limits at which the necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity." Weapons that caused undue suffering ‘beyond the legitimate goal of war’ were to be prohibited. The institution of the International Red Cross (1890) was organized specifically to curtail human suffering experienced during war. The Hague Conventions (1899, 1907) echoed the sentiments of the St. Petersburg Declaration though emphasizing that it did not seek to outlaw war itself. "The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited (Art. 22)." The Geneva Convention (1929) addressed the proper treatment of prisoners of war and set up regulations for it. The Pact of Paris (also known as the Briand-Kellog Pact) (1928) criminalized the use of aggressive war as an instrument of a country’s national policy. The novel circumstances brought about by WWII and its atrocities dictated the necessity to create new laws or alter the old in face of them. Never before had the world seen anything like this and on such a scale. International law as it then existed was unequipped to properly address the crimes. "Defendants are charged with crimes of such immensity that mere specific instances of criminality appear insignificant in comparison." It was glaringly evident that the Nazi regime and its leaders were ineffective and deleterious to their country and in the state which they had delivered the infrastructure it could not hope to effectively pass judgment on them. To have allowed Germans to try the defendants would have raised the issue of a ‘fair trial’ for after the war no German could be said to be impartial.

A notion of ‘victor’s justice’ meant to attack the fairness and impartiality of the Tribunal is easily discounted. From past experience with the Versailles Treaty, which upon its violation called for executive action to be taken, a judicial via was selected. This would be simply the imposition of the victors’ wills upon the vanquished. Judicial means were adopted so that due process would be given. It could be seen that the IMT proceedings were but a guise for imposing "legal" vengeance upon the Nazis, but this too is discounted with the 3 acquittals and he criminalizing of only 4 Nazi organizations. The prosecutors (Allies) also balanced the weight of allied atrocities and the atrocities of the Nazis. Those of he Nazis being immense in both scale and scope. The intent of the Nazis was also greatly different and could not be attributed simply as a result of war as there was no strategic advantage to be gained. By providing the defendants with a fair trial they were given an opportunity denied to millions of their innocent victims. After referring to the wars of aggression Count II of the Indictment adds that these were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances. This accounts for the impressive list of broken treaties read out at the trial. Even if there should be some uncertainty concerning the effect of the terms of the Pact of Paris, there can be no doubt that the various wars waged by the Nazis were in breach of specific treaty provisions.

If these were not to be regarded as international wrongs, then no breach of a treaty could ever be held to constitute a wrong. It is clear that Count II is in accord with the provisions of International Law and it cannot be regarded as being ex post facto in character. The same can be said in regards to Count III- War Crimes. These crimes are described in the indictment as "violations of international conventions, of internal penal laws, and of the general principles of criminal law of all civilized nations, and were involved in and part of a systematic course of conduct." In the past there have been hundreds of case in which national military tribunals tried and convicted enemy nationals of breeches of the laws of war, so that the only novelty, as far as the IMT is concerned, is that this tribunal is an international one. A violation of the laws of war constitutes both an international and a national crime, and is therefore justiciable both in an international and a national court. The most interesting future of Count III is the allegation that the plan involved the practice of "total war" including methods of combat and military occupation in direct conflict with the laws and customs of war. It is on this ground that the defendants were charged with responsibility for the brutal acts committed by their subordinates even though they may have been ignorant of each particular violation. It is here that the Nuremberg trials differ from all previous war trials because previous defendants were only charged with crimes either committed by themselves or under immediate directions. Never before has cold calculated brutality played a leading role in military strategy. This does not mean that there was an innovation in the law, for all that occurred was that the law was applied to novel circumstances.

It is only in Count IV — Crimes Against Humanity that serious legal difficulty is found. In so far as these crimes constitute violations of the laws of war there is no juristic problem because they are merely the same crimes as those set forth in Count III under a different name, but novel considerations arise when the acts charged could not be brought into this category. This is true in particular of the murders, both before and after 1939, in the concentration camps of the hundreds of thousands of German nationals who were either Jews or political opponents. As International Law is not concerned with the treatment which a State metes out to its own nationals, how can such acts, however brutal, be considered an international crime justiciable by an international court? The answer is that although International Law is not as a general rule concerned with the internal affairs of the various States, nevertheless these may be of such a special nature as to affect the international community, either morally or materially, and thus become matters of international concern. This is not a novel idea, for in the 19th century there were a number of instances where States intervened to protect the national of other Sates, and numerous international treaties, unfortunately ineffective, were entered into for the guarantee of human rights. The Charter, in providing that the deliberate murder of numerous innocent people was punishable as an international crime, was therefore not taking a revolutionary step because no doubts can be raised whether these acts were contrary to the laws of every civilized nation. In every federal state the federal government is given power to intervene in the affairs if the individual States when the local conditions are such as to endanger the community as a whole. It must be stated that in the past this principle was of doubtful validity in International Law and that therefore Count IV is, in a sense, ex post facto in character. If there ever existed an instance in which such a necessity existed, then it can be found in the concentration camps. The concern of whether the men on trial at Nuremberg should have been dealt with by executive action and not by a court of law would have saved much time and anguish, but at what cost? In this connection the banishment of Napoleon to St. Helena can be cited as an expeditious mode of executive punishment. Such executive action did not leave opportunity for future criticism, as the judicial process at Nuremberg was and still is. Imprisonment is one thing while execution is another. To execute a man without legal trial, even if it were only a dram court-martial, is closely akin to murder. Whatever the risk the Nuremberg trials had to be held in the name of justice. They served three major purposes. Firstly, they gave the defendants an opportunity of proving, if they could, that they had not taken part in the Nazi conspiracy, or that some other ground of defense was open to them. Secondly, the trial placed on record the full story of these crimes, so that future generations would be able to know the truth. Nuremberg dispelled any possibility that the reports of the atrocities could be simply labeled "propaganda." Thirdly, the trials have established that aggressive war is an international crime, and that those who are guilty of waging such a war must pay the penalty. Law is more powerful than sometimes realized because to its defense rally those who might otherwise be uncertain. Without law there cannot be peace.

Bibliography

- Calvocoressi, Peter "Nuremberg: the Facts, the Law, and the Consequences," Chatto & Windus, London, 1947.

- Fenwick, Charles G. "Cases on International Law" Callaghan & Co.,2nd Ed., Chicago, 1951.

- Finkielkraut, Alain "Future of a Negation: Reflections on the Question of Genocide," University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1988.

- Irving, David introduction to "The Leuchter Report," Focal Point Publ. London, 1989. -Irving, David "Hitler’s War," Focal Point Publ., London, 1977.

- Irving, David "Nuremberg the Last Battle," Focal Point Publ., London, 1996.

- Lipstadt, Deborah "Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault On Truth & Memory" Maxwell Macmillan Int., NY., 1993.

- Rosenbaum, Alan S. "Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals," Westview Press, SF.,1993.

- Vidal-Naquet, Pierre "Assassins of Memory: Essays On the Denial of the Holocaust," Columbia University Press, NY., 1987.

- Wesserle, Anreas R. "Allied War Crimes Trials," The Journal of Historical Review, winter, 1987, vol.13.

- Woetzel, Robert K. "The Nuremberg Trials in International Law," Frederick A. Praeger, NY.,1962.

- Wright, Steven Lord "War Crimes Under International Law," Law Quarterly Review, vol. 62, 1946. Irving In Denial: A Closer Look At the Legality of the Nuremberg Trials By, Keith Long History 210 Prof. Neaman Mon, December 18 ‘00