f | . HE writer who i is prone to desire the exotic<1is apt to find many curious things in Nuremberg. I am living like many other jour- nalists in a hotel where Am- erican officers and experts from law courts are put up. In the evening the bar is filled with a polygot crowd drinking cocktails while half-naked girls ‘Sing Emglish songs with a marked German accent and “ayrans” of various genuses perform Negro dances. The hotel itself looks luxurious, but there is no roof, the staircase is still piled with debris, and as- cent to the upper floors is @ series of exercises in equi- librium. Fhe city is no longer a city, but the trams are Trun- ning among ruins and souvenirs are sold in the few shops that remain standing after the bom- bardments. The citizens try to give the impression that they take no interest in the trial but the prosecutor refused to notify the counsel for defence of the ar- rival of witnesses for the pros- ecution, motivating this by the fact that Nuremberg was a hotbed of fascism. Under the debris rats swarm, and among the _ rates “werewolves.” The building in which the tribunal is held has suffered damage too. Court- room is well furnished but the long frosty strewn with rubble. are , eorridors are Thee onduct of the defend- ants is perhaps the most exotic thing of allfi Of course there was the time when Zeiss- Inquart was a barrister, but he was not thinking of Roman jurisprudence when he tortured Dutch hostages. Now when he is brought before courteous judges, the hangman has re- collected the law. Yes, the gangsters pretend now to be versed in law; their counsels refer to this or that article of the Code. When a. letter ex- ‘posing the criminals was read, a barrister in a black gown rose to his feet and declared that if the writer of the letter had known it was to be made public he would have written differently. it is easy enough . to agree with that. Exotic is the term that might be applied to Franck, Hangman of Poland, who, when he saw German concentration camps on films, began to wipe his eyes with his handkerchief, as though he didn’t know the rea- son why eabbage flourished so luxuriantly in the gardens of Majdanek. On hearing the order con- cerning the murder of Soviet war prisoners, Goering, to whom it must have sounded very familiar, looked non- plussed and remarked to Rib- bentrop, “How dreadful.” | The Trial of the Third R g hy I continue my tale of the fantastic. GoMe of the most prominent psychiatrists in the world gave long consideration to the question of whether Hess was k mm responsible for his actions pages were written about his pulse. Then unexpectedly, Hess got up and declared that he was tired of acting the part of a mad- man. The most monstrous dep- redations. and pettiest rascali- ties are interwoven. The question of havoc wrought in Europe is inter- spersed with talk of whether Fritsche approved or disap- proved in a confidential conver- sation of some circular or an- other of Keitel’s. Generals’ counsels assert that (fstorm- troopers) are to blame for everything, whereupon counsel for S. A. hastens to explain that the S.A. were lambs and that the S.S. were to blame for everything. The moral baseness of the defendants stresses still more strongly the sinister ineptitude of events to which neither heart nor reason can become reconciled. Thus we learn that Goering who ruined half of Europe bargained over the tea service he bought. Streicher, who was responsible for the death of millions of Jews, is an ignorant provincial with a criminal record; he was tried in this same city twenty years ago for defloration of a child. One of the witnesses, a gen- eral] from the German intelli- gence, exposes Keitel as a per- son who ordered the deaths of Soviet war prisoners and British parachutists. You must- PACIFIC ADVOCATE — PAGE 10 tice. n’t imagine that this German general’s conscience troubles him. He now hastens to explain that intelligence officials were interested in live war prison- ers. Then the question of branding Soviet war prisoners comes up; we hear an explan- ation of the order by its author, Field Marshal Keitel: “This is a most unfortunate misunder- standing.” It turns out that at the end of 1940, Keitel issued the order to kill General Wey- gand, then in the unoccupied zone of France. At that time the Hitlerites didn’t know that Weygand presented no danger to them. Keite1 protests: “‘No such order exists in the form of writing.” Ribbentrop assures us that in attacking Poland, he had na intention of wronging any Pole. He bore no ill will to any Polish Jew. Apparently ashes and blocd, gas-chambers and tank ditches in which people were buried alive are merely “unfortunate misunder- standings.” IX Nuremberg we are not seeking the exotic but jus- The trial is slow in un- folding. It-is a trial of the whole Third Reich; in addition to a score of blackguards, the German army and fascist sys- tem-are brought to trial That is) why scandalous items are combined with history lessons at sittings. We learn that after conceiv- ing the attack on Poland, the Germans acquired Polish mili- tary uniforms. We learn that long before the war, Intelligence maintained a gang of Ukrainian traitor-wreckers We learn that Ribbentrop studied the best way of insti- gating the Italians against the Yugoslavs. We learn that Ger- man military authorities issued official orders to kill all “Bol- shevik’ prisoners. Crimes of the German fascists would pro- vide material to talk about for months, and still the theme would not be exhausted. But apart from particular depreda- tions, there is a general crime: Germany started war for the purpose of conquering Europe. Defendants are anxious now to come out high and dry from the sea of blood. They declare that they can not be judged, because no German law exists forbidding them to attack other nations. Clearly no law existed or could exist in Germany. There is law for all honest nations, and verdict on the German aggressors will be a contribution to international law: in future others will think things over before loading their bombers on Saturday