Were the Nazis tortured into confessing at the Nuremberg Trials?

[sarahgoodson]

Quite often on revisionist websites it's claimed that the Nazis were tortured into making confessions.

Is there any truth in this allegation?

[David Thompson]

sarahgoodson --This question is easier to answer if you start with the claims of torture. Who was supposedly tortured and what did they say as a result? If those questions are answered it helps in analyzing the issue.

[WW2Researcher]

Here is a source for this claim http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p167_weberb.html

The site seems to promote revisionism, so I'm not sure about its legitimacy, but the source is interesting to read.

[pugsville]

none what so ever.

compare to moscow show trails.

[ChristopherPerrien]

You may want to pursue the transcripts of the secret recordings of captured German generals, used in various attempts to establish complicity of German officers to the Big H, both during the Nuremberg Trials and since by various authors and interests.

Please note the Nuremberg Trials were not just of the surviving big wheels of NSDAP Germany but included hundreds of German officers located in may POW camps and many hearings and trials at numerous places.

ANyway I recall from the secret records of comments by about some German generals being beaten and tortured , particular while in one British operated POW camps. Some these persons were subsequently tortured by American MP's.

There may have been a few "off-hand" comments by high ranking German officers and attorneys at the trial to this effect during the big Nuremberg trials, transcribed in the testimony and notes there. Big area, I suggest the secret recordings first.

It has been too many years for me to recall specifics, but I know if you dig, particularly from those secret recordings , there were comments to this effect.I suggest researching those transcripts in as original context and writing because many of later Holo books did take many liberties with the truth, and some may have omitted such malfeasance on the part of Allied holders of those captive German officers. Or some may have happily included mentions of torture and beatings. There have been a few books on it. I can't comment on the validity of any, firsthand now.

You can also research the Jewish Brigade Hit Squads established by Churchill. Safe bet they weren't too gentle with the prisoners they captured or were given by the Allied POW admin before they executed them.
Note that the claims of Jewish Death Squads is contested. I never cared enough to look at the subject, I only note there have been people who claimed to be members of these death squads, and I don't know why some Jewish people who certainly were in British military/government service in WWII would make false claims about such stuff like this. Read up on it and judge for yourself.

[Knouterer]

It's possible that here or there a German officer or Nazi official got a punch in the face from some undisciplined MP, but there's no evidence of any systematic use of torture as far as I know.
Anyway, what would be the point? The evidence against the Nazi war criminals was massive and overwhelming, so why would anyone bother to extract confessions by violence, thus undermining the case against them?

If you're on trial for murder, and there are a hundred witnesses who saw you do it, plus a pile of documentary and other physical evidence, the prosecution won't really care if you want to confess or not. Conviction is assured anyway.

Streicher is a good case in point: he was charged and convicted as an accessory to murder, and for crimes against humanity, on the basis of his many articles before and during the war advocating the extermination of the Jewish race. So any "confession", voluntary or not, would have been ENTIRELY superfluous.

There's a thread on Streicher's allegations of torture here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=30254

[OpanaPointer]

Here is a source for this claim http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p167_weberb.html

The site seems to promote revisionism, so I'm not sure about its legitimacy, but the source is interesting to read.

The Institute for Rewriting History So We Like It Better is not a trustworthy source. You can't be sure that the sources they provide haven't been edited to something more favorable to their position.

[Larry D.]

With a focus on logic and mathematical probability only, it would seem to me that the media might have made some mention of this over the past 10 years in connection to the handling of Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at CIA rendition lockups, Gitmo and Allied in-country detention and interrogation facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The torturing of prisoners by the U.S. and Brits was (and still is) a big story and the media was on it like a pack of salivating wolves on the trail of an injured elk in the Colorado Rockies in dead winter. They looked under every rock and behind every wall going back to 1776 but all they could find was water boarding, sleep deprivation and such. Much to their dismay, there were no hot irons, whips, truck batteries with the prisoner's bare feet in a pail of water, and you can fill in the rest. Thousands of journalists and left-of-center researchers came up empty. And I think that's what Sarah G. will come up with here. As stated above, the Nürnberg prisoners were not tortured, although a few ill-disciplined MP warders may have thrown a punch or two at one time or another.

L.

[ChristopherPerrien]

Second to all this. Note that this is in the Nuremberg trials context. I think it commonly accepted that some evidence was extracted by torture by the Russians. Which has since been brought up about the validity of evidence(testimonies, signed witness statements, etc.) that came from the Russian side, post WWII. Another are to look into..

[ChristopherPerrien]

Second to all this. Note that this is in the Nuremberg trials context. I think it commonly accepted that some evidence was extracted by torture by the Russians. Which has since been brought up about the validity of evidence(testimonies, signed witness statements,confessions, etc.) that came from the Russian side, post WWII. Another area to look to look for this.

[Hawkwind]

Here is a source for this claim http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p167_weberb.html

The site seems to promote revisionism, so I'm not sure about its legitimacy, but the source is interesting to read.

If there are footnotes to an original source, follow the footnotes to that source and see if it checks out. If there are no footnotes, be suspicious. This advice, of course, applies to any source, not just sites that seem to promote revisionism.

btw, ihr doesn't seem to promote revisionism. It promotes revisionism. I'm not saying they can't always be trusted. I'm just saying.....

[Hawkwind]

none what so ever.

compare to moscow show trails.

Are you saying the Moscow show trials involved torture? Got any evidence to back that up?

[siwiec]

I think it commonly accepted that some evidence was extracted by torture by the Russians.

Accepted by for example whom? Is it too much to ask to see some evidence instead of vague references to common knowledge etc.?

Note that the claims of Jewish Death Squads is contested. I never cared enough to look at the subject

Well, I wonder why did you brought this up in the first place then...

[pugsville]

You can also research the Jewish Brigade Hit Squads established by Churchill.

? churchill was mostly through wit the Zionists after Lord Moynes assassination , what evidence have you for this statement ? cannot see churchill working with the Zionists or vice versa. cant see the Zionists asking or working with the British, the British Army were the enemy in the post war environment.-

[ChristopherPerrien]

I think it commonly accepted that some evidence was extracted by torture by the Russians.

Accepted by for example whom? Is it too much to ask to see some evidence instead of vague references to common knowledge etc.?

Note that the claims of Jewish Death Squads is contested. I never cared enough to look at the subject

Well, I wonder why did you brought this up in the first place then...

If you have read enough of the Nuremberg transcripts and notes as to the questionability of some evidence and confessions arising from the Russians you would know what I am talking about. The Nuremberg trial became a "battle" of sorts between the lawyers for the Western powers and the USSR as to evidence, judgement and retribution against various detained Germans.

That at least one German General was beaten by British guards and other beating was mentioned in" Tapping Hitler's Generals." , https://www.amazon.com/Tapping-Hitlers- ... entries*=0 IIRC, or perhaps a better shot in The M Room http://www.helen-fry.com/books/the-m-room/

As to the Jewish assassinations squads, I brought it up since it was an "alternative" of sorts to Nuremberg and may have affected the prosecution of some people in establishing the culpability of others. This area has not been studied much or in fact verified. You can search for the various topics here on Jewish revenge or assanation squads.

We are talking about the "dirty aspects" of the Nuremberg Trials. If you want to "go there " is very difficult to find much in the MSM about such aspects as "torture" of Nuremberg Suspects as it questions the legalities of the trials themselves. You really have to go into grey or revisionist sites such as David Irving, and separate the truth from the chaff there.

Anyway, this brought to mind, another area to look at would be the comments by Thomas Dodd concerning the Trials. As I just mentioned "questionable/grey areas" but often have links and research from more "accepted" sites . An example is http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/Nuremberg/ ... d_ltr.html

All of this was of some interest to me when I first joined the forum, 15 years ago, but it is now long in passing which is why I can only suggest where to look for such stuff. Goering pretty much said it all, as far as I am now concerned, about Nuremberg.