Klooga

[Benoit Douville]

The Klooga concentration camp was created in the summer of 1943, and was a subcamp of the Vaivara concentration camp near Talinn in Estonia.

This topic is about another atrocities that the Germans attemps to hide it's traces.

Early on september 19 in 1944, Klooga was surrounded by German and Estonian SS Man. Toward midday they began to take group of prisoners from the camp to a nearby forest for execution. Approximately twenty four hundred Jews and one hundred Soviet prisoners of war died in this slaughter. A few days later, on september 28, when the Red Army liberated Klooga, they found the corpses of the slain stacked for burning.

[cobalt]

Don't quite understand the hiding part. If the Soviets liberated the camp what is there for the Germans to hide? It seems to me that the Soviets were in contraol of the evidence and the information. So what is this "hiding" thing by the Germans?

[Roberto]

Don't quite understand the hiding part. If the Soviets liberated the camp what is there for the Germans to hide? It seems to me that the Soviets were in contraol of the evidence and the information. So what is this "hiding" thing by the Germans?

What happened is that the killers didn't manage to hide all of the evidence by burning the bodies because the Soviets liberated the camp before some of the stacks of corpses alternated with wood could be set afire.

The findings were recorded in a report by the Deputy Prosecutor of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic on the Klooga concentration camp near Talinn of 12 October 1944, which included photographs of both the unburned stacks and the remains of those that were burned. I have a German translation of this report with me and can translate it into English, interest provided.

The Soviets are often accused of "controlling" the evidence, especially by apologists of National Socialism who feel uncomfortable with that evidence. Comparison with German records of the killings in question, however - e.g. the Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Reports and reports on "anti-partisan" killing sprees in Belorussia and other occupied areas - show that Soviet assessment of the evidence in these cases was not nearly as unreliable as some would like it to have been.

[Scott Smith]

Don't quite understand the hiding part. If the Soviets liberated the camp what is there for the Germans to hide? It seems to me that the Soviets were in contraol of the evidence and the information. So what is this "hiding" thing by the Germans?

The Soviets are often accused of "controlling" the evidence, especially by apologists of National Socialism who feel uncomfortable with that evidence. Comparison with German records of the killings in question...

"German records" often (if not usually) come filtered through Allied propaganda sources.

[Roberto]

Don't quite understand the hiding part. If the Soviets liberated the camp what is there for the Germans to hide? It seems to me that the Soviets were in contraol of the evidence and the information. So what is this "hiding" thing by the Germans?

The Soviets are often accused of "controlling" the evidence, especially by apologists of National Socialism who feel uncomfortable with that evidence. Comparison with German records of the killings in question...

"German records" often (if not usually) come filtered through Allied propaganda sources.

Any representative examples of German records the contents of which were changed by the "Allied propaganda sources" through which they were "filtered"?

I strongly doubt it, given that this "filtering" only exists in the mind of a True Believer.

[Scott Smith]

Any representative examples of German records the contents of which were changed by the "Allied propaganda sources" through which they were "filtered"?

I strongly doubt it, given that this "filtering" only exists in the mind of a True Believer.

One books, two books, three books, four;
Red Books, Blue Books, Green Books, more.

Not only the colored books but just about everything developed by the Nuremberg War Crimes trials was "selected," and you can add the Eichmann and Demjanjuk trials in Israel and the Auschwitz and Treblinka trials under the aegis of the Bundestablishment.

All should be taken with a grain of salt. I know that is hard to conceptualize for a True Believer--rather like the Pope's authority as the vicar of morality for the Faithful when encountering the disbelieving Infidel.

[Roberto]

Any representative examples of German records the contents of which were changed by the "Allied propaganda sources" through which they were "filtered"?

I strongly doubt it, given that this "filtering" only exists in the mind of a True Believer.

One books, two books, three books, four;
Red Books, Blue Books, Green Books, more.

Not only the colored books but just about everything developed by the Nuremberg War Crimes trials was "selected," and you can add the Eichmann and Demjanjuk trials in Israel and the Auschwitz and Treblinka trials under the aegis of the Bundestablishment.

All should be taken with a grain of salt. I know that is hard to conceptualize for a True Believer--rather like the Pope's authority as the vicar of morality for the Faithful when encountering the disbelieving Infidel.

Without a convincing demonstration of "selection" or "filtering" of evidence, the above is just the usual hollow blah-blah-blah, too imbecile to even deserve a comment.

I will thus let the audience enjoy Smith's nonsense as it is. It says more about his twisted little mind than I possibly could.

[Scott Smith]

Without a convincing demonstration of "selection" or "filtering" of evidence, the above is just the usual hollow blah-blah-blah, too imbecile to even deserve a comment.

More is not needed; the material clearly comes from the enemy. The bias is tautological!

[Roberto]

Without a convincing demonstration of "selection" or "filtering" of evidence, the above is just the usual hollow blah-blah-blah, too imbecile to even deserve a comment.

[quote="Scott Smith]More is not needed; the material clearly comes from the enemy. The bias is tautological!

That's rather feeble, considering that the "enemy" was committed to giving the defendants a fair trial (Article 16 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal).

If he had not, the suspicion of manipulation might be warranted, but it would not be a substitute for evidence to such manipulation.

You'll have to do better, Reverend.

[Scott Smith]

That's rather feeble, considering that the "enemy" was committed to giving the defendants a fair trial (Article 16 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal).

If he had not, the suspicion of manipulation might be warranted, but it would not be a substitute for evidence to such manipulation.

You'll have to do better, Reverend.

No, the enemy was committed to giving the *appearance* of a fair trial in order to justify the virtue of his own victory and hegemony. A fair trial wasn't to be had on virtue that the victor himself was judge and executioner--hardly neutral by any stretch. A few cowed Germans under the duress of occupation acted as sham defense.

[Roberto]

That's rather feeble, considering that the "enemy" was committed to giving the defendants a fair trial (Article 16 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal).

If he had not, the suspicion of manipulation might be warranted, but it would not be a substitute for evidence to such manipulation.

You'll have to do better, Reverend.

No, the enemy was committed to giving the *appearance* of a fair trial in order to justify the virtue of his own victory and hegemony.

That's one of Smith's articles of faith. Too bad he can't demonstrate that there was anything in the trial procedures to make the trial seem unfair under legal aspects.

A fair trial wasn't to be had on virtue that the victor himself was judge and executioner--hardly neutral by any stretch.

By that standard, there would be no such thing as a fair trial anywhere. Judge and executioner are always representatives of state power, aren't they?

A few cowed Germans under the duress of occupation acted as sham defense.

Another of Smith's articles of faith. Too bad he cannot demonstrate that any of the defenders chosen by the defendants from among Germany's best attorneys was in any way "cowed", neglected his duties as a defender or suffered any disadvantages due to a spirited and skillful defense.

[Scott Smith]

That's one of Smith's articles of faith. To bad he can't demonstrate that there was anything in the trial procedures to make the trial seem unfair under legal aspects.

Judgment of the Defeated by the Victors. Some Justice. I thought you didn't believe in social-darwinism, Roberto.

A fair trial wasn't to be had on virtue that the victor himself was judge and executioner--hardly neutral by any stretch.

By that standard, there would be no such thing as a fair trial anywhere. Judge and executioner are always representatives of state power, aren't they?

The State is not normally the enemy. We are talking about soveriegn nations defeated and put on trial. The best analogy is that the plaintiff is the judge.

A few cowed Germans under the duress of occupation acted as sham defense.

Another of Smith's articles of faith. Too bad he cannot demonstrate that any of the defenders chosen by the defendants from among Germany's best attorneys was in any way "cowed," neglected his duties as a defender or suffered any disadvantages due to a spirited and skillful defense.

They were at the mercy of the occupational government and some could even be send to the Soviet sector, where a labor camp awaited without the prying eyes of Western journalists. Anybody who didn't play ball could have lost his family's ration cards or even been held under investigation himself for years. Sorry, but you are being naïve here. No, the German defense attorneys weren't going to make waves.

The best analogy is a medieval inquisiton, where one cannot dispute the charge of heresy or witchcraft--everybody knows that this is real--one can only attempt to minimize personal involvement.

Pretty simple, really.

[Roberto]

That's one of Smith's articles of faith. To bad he can't demonstrate that there was anything in the trial procedures to make the trial seem unfair under legal aspects.

Judgment of the Defeated by the Victors. Some Justice. I thought you didn't believe in social-darwinism, Roberto.

Judgment of criminals by those who overpowered and captured them. Nothing wrong with that, provided that defendant-friendly procedural rules are adhered to.

A fair trial wasn't to be had on virtue that the victor himself was judge and executioner--hardly neutral by any stretch.

By that standard, there would be no such thing as a fair trial anywhere. Judge and executioner are always representatives of state power, aren't they?

The State is not normally the enemy. We are talking about soveriegn nations defeated and put on trial.

No, Reverend. We are talking about individual criminals put on trial on account of their individual acts.

The best analogy is that the plaintiff is the judge.

Completely out of place. The situation was basically no different from that in any other criminal trial, as explained.

A few cowed Germans under the duress of occupation acted as sham defense.

Another of Smith's articles of faith. Too bad he cannot demonstrate that any of the defenders chosen by the defendants from among Germany's best attorneys was in any way "cowed," neglected his duties as a defender or suffered any disadvantages due to a spirited and skillful defense.

They were at the mercy of the occupational government and some could even be send to the Soviet sector, where a
labor camp awaited without the prying eyes of Western journalists.

Nonsense. There is no evidence whatsoever that any disadvantage hovered as a threat over any of the defenders for properly conducting his defense.

Anybody who didn't play ball could have lost his family's ration cards or even been held under investigation himself for years.

Any evidence to such coercion being applied or even hinted at, Reverend?
No. Hollow assumptions based on nothing other than wishful thinking.

Sorry, but you are being naïve here. No, the German defense attorneys weren't going to make waves.

Well, some of them did. Rudolf Hess' defender is said to have been pretty tough, for instance. And at the Dachau trials there was our friend Rudolf Aschenauer, who had his clients sign false affidavits in which they alleged that they had been tortured. Did anything happen to Aschenauer on account of these manipulations, Reverend?

The best analogy is a medieval inquisiton, where one cannot dispute the charge of heresy or witchraft--everybody knows that this is real--one can only attempt to minimize personal involvement.

Why, were the defendants not granted the benfit of presumption of innocence, convicted only on such charges regarding which their guilt could be proven beyond reasonable doubt?

Were the defendants not entitled to a qualified defense of their choice?

Were they not entitled to call witnesses to testify in their favor?

Was the defense not entitled to examine the documentary evidence against the defendants, and to cross-examine the prosecution's witnesses?

Were the charges related to some obscure allegations born out of superstition rather than to very down-to-earth acts of planning and organizing aggression and mass murder on a rarely equaled scale, as proven by a vast array of mainly documentary evidence?

Unless Smith can provide conclusive answers to these questions, I'd say his analogy sucks and exemplifies Stephen's famous statement:

Its just that once a topic comes up that involves his personal biases it seems he [Smith] is unable to resist the temptation to run the same points again and again, no matter how bad they are, he so desperately wants to believe certain things that he just turns his brain off.

Source of quote:
Stephen’s post # 47 (5/30/01 3:56:00 am) on the thread

American TV Dramatization of Wannsee Conference
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fskalmanforumfr ... 21&stop=40

[Scott Smith]

Roberto, we don't have "individual criminal acts." We have a regime on trial by its victors. Unlerss there are statutory laws that were broken, or in some cases international agreements that the Third Reich still considered binding, then the Allies had no case.

As far as the defeated Germans being the defense, that they were vulnerable to the goodwill of the Victors is obvious! In the later cases where some Americans were hired as defenders it might have been possible to have a spirited defense. They were not as likely to be personally intimidated, though still perhaps professionally cowed. Nuremberg was something that could make or break your career. And most people put that above principle.

The whole affair was/is so fraudulent that it is amazing that anyone can seriously defend it. The only bright spot was, as Mr. Kaschner duly noted, that it was better than a mob lyching. However, I'm not so sure, because the real focus of this two-minutes of Hate was not the accused at all but to generate an epistemological basis for postwar propaganda. The Victors must have been very insecure about the legitimacy of their legacy indeed.

Even Churchill called it an Iron Curtain...

[Roberto]

Roberto, we don't have "individual criminal acts." We have a regime on trial by its victors.

No, Sir. The defendants were individual persons, on trial for their individual participation in state acts of aggression and mass murder. Every one of them was convicted exclusively on account of such acts regarding which his individual guilt could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Unlerss there are statutory laws that were broken, or in some cases international agreements that the Third Reich still considered binding, then the Allies had no case.

Well, it’s not as if the defendants had not been involved in the breach of statutory rules such as the Hague and Geneva Conventions and a number of bi- or multilateral agreements, is it? Whether the Nazis “considered” them binding is hardly relevant unless i) such conventions could be unilaterally withdrawn from and ii) the Nazi government formally denounced them before breaching them. The essence of the defendants’ crimes, however, consisted in the breach of acknowledged rules of conduct sanctioning things such as war of aggression and, more important, wholesale mass murder of unarmed non-combatants. Murder happens to be a crime under any legislation.

As far as the defeated Germans being the defense, that they were vulnerable to the goodwill of the Victors is obvious!

Better leave out the exclamation marks, they make your silly platitudes sound rather desperate. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise, there is no evidence that any of the defenders had anything to fear from the victors. What did those bad, bad victors do to Aschenauer on account of his dishonest manipulations, once again?

In the later cases where some Americans were hired as defenders it might have been possible to have a spirited defense.

Why, were Hess’ defender (don’t remember his name right now) and Rudolf Aschenauer Americans?

And who are those more spirited American defenders supposed to have been?

The choice of defenders was up to the defendants, who understandably
preferred to choose attorneys of their confidence with whom they could confer in their mother language.

They were not as likely to be personally intimidated, though still perhaps professionally cowed. Nuremberg was something that could make or break your career. And most people put that above principle.

More hollow assumptions. Any evidence to personal or professional intimidation or the likeliness thereof that the Reverend can show us? Did any of the anti-Nuremberg polemicists he is fond of quoting suffer any personal or professional disadvantages due to his stance? I’d say it even helped them to become famous.

The whole affair was/is so fraudulent that it is amazing that anyone can seriously defend it.

Unless Smith can show what is supposed to have been wrong with the procedural rules and/or their practical application, the above statement is so ridiculous as to make it seem amazing that anyone can utter it in all seriousness.

The only bright spot was, as Mr. Kaschner duly noted, that it was better than a mob lyching. However, I'm not so sure, because the real focus of this two-minutes of Hate was not the accused at all but to generate an epistemological basis for postwar propaganda. The Victors must have been very insecure about the legitimacy of their legacy indeed.

Another sack full of hollow platitudes with not a shred of evidence behind them. As you mentioned Mr. Kaschner, let’s have a look at his assessment of the Nuremberg Trials:

1. Should there have been any trials at all? IMHO this can only be answered in the affirmative. The atrocities committed by Hitler’s regime and his minions had to be published to the German people and to the world at large, so that thinking people could wonder and ponder (and perhaps take heed) at how incredibly fragile is the thin veneer of civilization which protects human kind from reversion to barbarism. The perpetrators had to be punished – basic concepts of justice simply would not permit them to go scott (sic) free. But the punishment could not be permitted to be meted out indiscriminately by the same sort of barbarism that accompanied the acts of which the Nazi regime was accused. Turning the accused over to the various countries in which the atrocities had been committed: Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Czechoslovakia, France, Britain etc.etc. would probably have accorded them the same treatment that Mussolini and Clara Petacci received at the hands of the Italian communist partisans.
And I think it is extremely important to recognize the passions existing in the mid-1940s toward the treatment to be handed out to Germany when (eventually) defeated. At Teheran, Stalin toasted the idea of simply shooting 50,000 Nazis. The British were initially of the view that the senior Nazis and generals should be summarily shot, without trial. An influential group in the US, headed by Henry Morgenthau, the Secretary of Treasury, wanted the senior German officials shot without trial, the entire SS membership exiled to some foreign island and the whole of Germany pastoralized.. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed that Germany’s industrial capacities should be crushed, that it should be turned into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral, that the major war criminals were to be summarily shot, and it was proposed to get together with Stalin to draw up a list of names. The vigorous efforts of Henry Stimpson ( the US Secretary of War ), General Marshall and Justice Frankfurter led Roosevelt to change his mind, the Morgenthau plan was abandoned and under American pressure Churchill and Stalin agreed at the Moscow Conference that war criminals were to be tried and punished.

2.Were the charges appropriate? I have never questioned the legitimacy of Counts Three and Four of the Indictment, i.e. War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. They have been criticized as ex post facto in nature, but that doctrine is designed to protect against being charged with an act which one could not know at the time of commission was criminal. No one living in a civilized nation in the mid-20th century could have been unaware that the conduct identified under those charges was criminal under the laws of every civilized nation, including Germany , at least until the Hitler regime.
As to Count 2, Crimes Against Peace (planning or waging a war of aggression), I am somewhat more troubled, for two reasons. First, because in theory it can be very difficult to determine whether a war is aggressive or defensive, and second, there was no clear precedent or predicate for making a war of aggression a criminal offense. As to the first problem, however, although the determination might well be difficult in another case, clearly it was not Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece or Russia that invaded Germany. As to the 2d, there had been a long condemnation (at least since St. Augustine) of unjust wars, carried through thinkers like de Vitoria, Suarez, Grotius, Pufendorf and Vatel, and the war commenced by Germany IMHO squarely falls within that category. And while the 15 member Commission on Responsibilities of the Authors of the War established by the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, although finding that the Central Powers had launched a war of aggression, determined that this did not consist of a crime under international law, it went on to state that it should be made a penal offense in the future. Moreover, the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Treaty, to which Germany was a party, in effect outlawed war itself. As a lawyer trained in the common-law tradition, which finds its source of law in developing customs and practices, and not only in written statutes, I lean strongly toward the view that Count 2 was legitimate, particularly in light of Hitler’s long legacy of broken treaties and promises.
Count 1, Conspiracy to Commit Crimes Against Peace, gives me a great deal of trouble. The notion of conspiracy is, as I understand it, primarily an American legal concept and alien to most continental criminal jurisprudential thinking. I think it is a dangerous notion, and although undoubtedly useful in certain situations I can not see the grounds for its application in the context of international war crimes trials. But I don’t recall that anyone at Nuremberg was convicted solely on Count 1, and indeed only one solely on Counts 1 and 2 (Hess).

3. Was the procedure basically fair? I believe it was, although it was certainly not in strict accordance with criminal procedures in US courts. Compromises had to be made with the Russians and the French, who were accustomed to continental civil law procedures rather than the common law of the US and Great Britain. But in some ways (e.g. specificity of charges in the individual indictments) the continental procedures adopted were more favorable to the defense than the US procedures.
Certainly the trials were flawed, but equally certainly not fatally. I have never in my years of practice participated in a trial that I did not believe was flawed in some way or another. The gods of incompetence, confusion and simple mistake – yes and even bias and duplicity – rule in the courtroom as well as in all other realms of human endeavor. But on the whole, I think the trials were as fair, or even fairer, than could reasonably have been expected under the circumstances. One must keep in mind that Germany, and Europe as a whole, was still in chaos. And certainly the trials were infinitely fairer than the defendants would have had under the procedures applied under their legal system. Remember Roland Freisler's court?

4. Were the verdicts just? I do not think Streicher (however despicable) should have been sentenced to death; I think Doenitz should have been let off with time served; I think Hess should have been held unfit for trial and committed to a mental institution. But I have disagreed with other verdicts and sentences in other cases, which doesn’t necessarily mean they were unfair. The administration of justice is not a perfect science in any jurisdiction that I'm aware of. All in all, I can't find too much to complain about.

The source of this quote is Walter Kaschner’s post # 240 (9/18/01 2:34:44 am) on the thread

Any information on the Nurenberg trials?
http://pub3.ezboard.com/fskalmanforumfr ... 21&stop=40
of the old forum.

Quite a bit different from what Smith would like the author to have written, isn’t it?

Even Churchill called it an Iron Curtain... .

The trials, Reverend? Let’s see the backup. No remission to the library and no I-have-read-so-much-more-than-you – bullshit, please. A quote.