Portraying Genocide: The Nuremberg Trial, the Press in Finland and Sweden and the Holocaust, 1945–46* Antero Holmila**
INTRODUCTION Sixty years ago the trial of the “major war criminals” before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg was under way. Twenty two leading Nazis were in the dock accused of three types of crimes which were articulated in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal under article 6. These were (a) Crimes against Peace; (b) War Crimes; and (c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,1 or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.2
In the indictment of 6 October 1945, article 6 was turned into four separate counts under which the individual defendants each faced permutations of the charges; these were: count one — the common plan or conspiracy, count two — crimes against peace, count three — war crimes, and count four — crimes against humanity.3 This article examines the links between law, mass atrocity and the press in Finland and Sweden by focusing primarily on one climatic issue of the trial: the representation of crimes against humanity through the prism of the Holocaust. It will be shown that consistent reference to the extermination of the Jews determined what crimes against humanity meant in practice. As Leon Poliakov *
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Immediately after the Second World War the term ‘Holocaust’ was not used. However, I will be using it throughout this article since it is the most widely used term to describe the destruction of European Jews (as well as Gypsies, and other ethnic/religious/political groups). Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London. Comma substituted in place of semicolon by Protocol of 6 October 1945. [Note in original.] See page 188, note 5. Cited in Michael Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46. A Documentary History (Bedford/St. Martins: Boston and New York, 1997) at 52. Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg 14 November 1945-1 October 1942, 42 vols. (Nuremberg: International Military Tribunal, 1947), vol. 1, pp. 10– 16 (hereinafter IMT). Ibid., pp. 27–67.
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has written: “crimes against humanity at Nuremberg more often than not meant anti-Jewish persecutions and massacres, about which there was much discussion and debate.”4 Similarly, it will be shown that the Holocaust was discussed to a surprisingly large extent in newspaper accounts of the trial. Like the British Judge Norman Birkett observed: This evidence is building up a most terrible and convincing case of complete horror and inhumanity in the concentration camps [sic] … but from the point of view of this trial it is a complete waste of valuable time. The case has been proved over and over again … but it seems impossible to stop it, or to check the volume of it.5
The way in which the Holocaust and crimes against humanity were disseminated to the public will be illustrated with reference to eight prominent cases in which the Holocaust was discussed in the courtroom. These are the opening of the trial; the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto; the testimonies of Otto Ohlendorf; Dieter Wisliceny; Rudolf Höss; Marie Vaillant-Couturier; Abraham Suzkever and the closing arguments of the trial. The criteria for the selection of these cases are based on Michael Marrus’ discussion ‘the Holocaust at Nuremberg’ in Yad Vashem Studies and Lawrence Douglas’ observations as regards the Holocaust in his excellent The Memory of Judgement.6 These two studies are the pioneering works in the field of the Holocaust and its legal representations, and therefore form a benchmark against which the press responses can be examined — together with primary source material. The press discourse of these topics is based on selected samples from the mainstream Finnish and Swedish press.7 The selection of quotations favours the most representative samples, and where appropriate, the comments of both Finnish and Swedish press have been included. While it has been difficult to pinpoint in exact terms the type of influence that the press exerts over public opinion, it must be remembered that the press’ influence ”lies in the ways in which cumulative support for dominant values is given over a period of time, not only what ‘the news said.’”8 Similarly, it has been argued that ”if … newspapers cannot offer an unproblematic guide to the 4 5
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Leon Poliakov cited in Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, supra nota 1, p. 192. H. Montgomery Hyde, Norman Birkett: The Life of Lord Birkett of Ulverston (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964), p. 505. Michael Marrus, ”The Holocaust at Nuremberg”, Yad Vashem Studies, Shoah Resource Centre, International School for Holocaust Studies, (28.3.2006) (The article is also published in 26 Yad Vashem Studies (1993) 5–41. However, I will be referring to the on-line version as it is more accessible.); Lawrence Douglas, The Memory of Judgement: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001). The examined Finnish papers are: Helsingin Sanomat, Uusi-Suomi, Suomen Sosiaali Demokraatti and Ilta-Sanomat. The examined Swedish papers are: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholms-Tidningen and Expressen (examined from January 1946 to October 1946). On the whole, these papers constitute the majority papers in both of these countries. Altogether, these samples have been taken from the collection of total 379 newspaper articles relating to the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trial between October 1945 and October 1946. James Curran & Jane Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain (3rd edn, London: Routledge, 1988), p. 57.
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attitudes of individuals, they remain of immense historical value for the contribution they made to the public and political discourses of the period.”9 With these observations in mind, it makes sense to examine the depth and the breadth of the press discourse on the Holocaust and crimes against humanity as they offer a glimpse of public attitudes towards these tumultuous issues of the 20th century. Yet, before moving on to the particular examples, it is essential to highlight the most salient points on crimes against humanity.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY — A THEORY The discussion on the Nuremberg trial and its legacy has been vivid since 1945. A considerable part of the commentary has been about crimes against humanity, which, as one commentator put it, was “a distinctive innovation of the Nuremberg Trial.”10 However, it has not gone without acknowledgement that the idea of crimes against humanity predated the IMT at Nuremberg. For example, in 1915, the governments of Great Britain, France and Russia denounced the Turkish government responsible for “crimes against humanity and civilization.”11 Earlier still, the “laws of humanity” were included in the preambles of the two Hague Conventions (1898 and 1907). Yet, as M. Cherif Bassiouni, a leading authority on international criminal law, has remarked, the words in the Hague conventions’ preambles were “the only reference in conventional international law which approach[ed] the term ‘crimes against humanity’”.12 However, what is striking about Nuremberg is the way in which crimes against humanity were embraced and woven at the time into the matrix of international law.13 Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that despite the possibility of using international law as a tool by which state wrongs could be prosecuted, this all sunk into oblivion during the Cold War era. Be that as it may, the success of the Nuremberg trial and the introduction of crimes against humanity become clear if juxtaposed against the complete failure to account for the inhumanity which the First World War had brought about. According to articles 228 and 229 of the Versailles peace treaty, Germany was to conduct its own war crimes trials in German run courts, which they did. The result: 901 Germans were indicted, out of which 888 were acquitted. Geoffrey Robertson laments that these trials (conducted in Leipzig in 1922) “were a complete flop: they produced no sense of shame for inhuman actions in wartime, since the verdicts emphasized with shoulder-shrugging resignation
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Adrian Bingham, Gender, Modernity and Popular Press in Inter-War Britain (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 12. Marrus, supra nota 1, p. 185. David Luban, ”A Theory of Crimes Against Humanity”, 29 Yale Journal of International Law (2004) 85–162, p. 86; see also Roger S. Clark, ”Crimes against Humanity” — George Ginsburgs & V. N. Kudriavtsev, The Nuremberg Trial and International Law (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1990) 177–212. M. Cherif Bassiouni cited in Douglas, The Memory of Judgement, supra nota 6, p. 44. For example, see Ruti G. Teitel, Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 34–36.
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that the ‘fog of war’ remained an effective defence.”14 The spirit of the Nuremberg trial was considerably different. From the outset, the press in Scandinavia perceived the Nuremberg trial as innovative on the whole, not only novel from a perspective of crimes against humanity. Helsingin Sanomat aired out the majority’s view when it argued that the trial “was a big step forwards in international law.” The originality was that head of states could be brought into justice, and they could not hide under the cloak of state sovereignty.15 Crimes against humanity were part of the parcel and considered as exiting in natural law, or on a metaphysical level, even if this was not codified in law. When it came to the existing idea of crimes against humanity particularly, and the way in which it had been dealt with in positive law, the press seldom discussed the matter. The absence of this kind of discussion is worth mentioning for it points out to the brevity of legal arguments on the public sphere. The masses were not particularly perturbed by the legal battles which strained the work of the trial, and aroused debates amongst legal experts. Out of the examined newspaper material only one debate can be extracted. Conservative Stockholms-Tidningen published the Norwegian legal expert Albert Brock-Utne’s criticism of the trial in early February 1946. In the piece, he argued that the application of retroactivity infringed the most fundamental foundation of the Western principles of justice — the principles which the Allies tried to re-root in Germany.16 In a reply to Brock-Utne’s arguments, a popular afternoon paper Expressen dismissed his work by referring to the old established moral norms of Christianity. According to the paper, humankind had always recognised the most basic human values, as represented in monotheistic religious cultures. ‘Is it not an axiom that a crime against the great spirit of community is the greatest crime of all? The paper asked. “Göring and the others in the dock must have, being brought up in a Christian state, known the grounding ethical norms of justice.”17 Thus, in Expressen’s reasoning, retroactivity lost its meaning since the crimes which the defendants were charged with on a retroactive basis were in fact embedded in the ethical norms of Western cultures and customs, even if they were not codified in positive law. Expressen’s argument revealed an important public attitude. Namely, matters of legal nature were debatable if commonly held beliefs (such as Christian norms) could be utilised to counter them. Expressen’s ideas thus echoed the words of Justice Jackson’s opening speech, where civilisation in general served as a bona fide source of international law.18 It is worth drawing attention to the idea of a crime against the “great spirit of community” as the greatest crime, especially since it offers a close link with 14
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Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (New York: The New Press, 1999), p. 211. ”Judgement at Nuremberg”, Helsingin Sanomat, 3.10.1946, p. 4 (hereinafter HS). ”Is the Nuremberg Process Justified?”, Stockholms-Tidningen, 3.4.1946, p. 6 (hereinafter StT). ”We Discuss: Criticism against Nuremberg”, Expressen, 6.4.1946, p. 2. At the beginning of his opening speech, Jackson argued: ”civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored [crimes of the Nazis], because it cannot survive their being repeated.” IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 2, p. 99.
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the theory of crimes against humanity. Essentially, it has been argued that “crimes against humanity are simultaneous offenses against humankind and injuries to humanness.”19 In Expressen’s reasoning, as Göring et al. must have known, it was a crime against humanity, since it was a deliberate violation of the moral norm which they had known. Furthermore, by the time of Expressen’s writing (early April), it had been established beyond doubt that the crimes of Göring and other leading Nazis were the gravest and the most repugnant acts of violence.20 According to David Luban, crimes against humanity have five distinctive features: (1) Crimes against humanity are inflicted on victims based on their group membership rather than their individual characteristics; (2) Crimes against humanity are crimes committed against fellow nationals as well as foreigners; (3) Crimes against humanity are international crimes, and their criminality overrides state sovereignty; (4) Crimes against humanity are committed by politically organised groups acting under colour of policy; (5) Crimes against humanity include only the most severe and abominable acts of violence and persecution.21 With these theoretical points in mind, the discussion which follows will show that at Nuremberg, where the understanding of crimes against humanity rested on a less defined ground (especially in the minds of the masses), the press frequently drew on these points when representing the Holocaust.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN PRACTICE — THE NUREMBERG VIEW The Opening of the Trial On 21 November Justice Robert Jackson delivered his opening speech which lasted nearly the whole day.22 His speech consisted of about 20 000 words and made frequent references to the Jews. Particularly, the afternoon session began with “crimes committed against the Jews.”23 The day following Jackson’s opening address, Helsingin Sanomat wrote: “Nine pages of his speech dealt with the crimes committed against the Jews. He said that it was his responsibility to disclose the plan which aimed at the destruction of the whole Jewish race.” The commentary continues in bold print: “… Accused Hans Frank described in his diary the Nazi policy as follows: Jews are the race which must be exterminated. Whenever we manage to catch a Jew, he’ll meet his end.” Returning to Jackson’s speech, the article carried on telling how all excesses against the Jews 19 20
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Luban, supra nota 11, p. 90. For example, by then the press had accounted for the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto and the horrific testimonies of Otto Ohlendorf and Dieter Wisliceny, as well as reiterated Wilhelm Höttl’s affidavit which chronicled the murder of Jews in the Russian territory. This is a theoretical framework offered by David Luban in his ”A theory of crimes against humanity”, supra nota 11, esp. pp. 93-109. John & Ann Tusa, The Nuremberg Trial (New York: Atheneum, 1986), p. 157. IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 2, pp. 118–127.
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formed a foundation for all Nazi plans and all accused were held responsible for it.24 Similarly, Stockholms-Tidningen observed on a front page sub-heading that Nazi crimes “culminated in the destruction of the Jews”.25 Other papers made similar kind of references too. For example, illustrating the linkage between the Holocaust and crimes against humanity, Ilta-Sanomat observed in its leader article that “count four of the indictment has its detailed focus on ‘crimes against humanity’. It deals with, for example, the fate of the Jews very systematically.”26 It is important to bear in mind that the opening speeches were long and therefore gave the press endless possibilities of what to include and what to exclude. The fact that the press discourse placed crimes against humanity and the Holocaust prominently in its reporting is significant, for reporters could have chosen any number of other topics to highlight. To be sure, the destruction of the Jews had featured in the press before the trial, most notably in connection with the liberation of the concentration camps in April-May 1945. However, the context of the liberation of the camps focused on the incredible cruelty (exemplified by the piles of emaciated bodies) of the Nazis while neglecting the wider framework in which crimes against humanity were perpetrated. For example, little discussion concerned the more systematic nature of the Nazi persecution or took into account that the crimes were international, committed all over Europe, particularly in the East, and that the state’s political goals enabled the execution of these crimes. At the time, mistreatment of the victims was seen in the more traditional (and more easily understandable) context of war crimes.27 In contrast, it was at Nuremberg where the more calculated nature of Nazi inhumanity was disclosed.
The Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto The destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 was the key event offering a paradigmatic interpretation of what crimes against humanity meant in practice. According to Marrus, the American prosecutor William Walsh’s presentation was not only the most extensive representation of the uprising presented to the world, but also one of the very few events at Nuremberg which offered intense and dramatic evidence on the Holocaust.28 Essentially, Walsh’s display recapitulated the sense of total destruction and abominable cruelty with which the operation was performed. Importantly, the chilling tone of SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop’s leather bound report to Himmler made the point that the destruction was vigorously pursued. On 14 December, the front 24
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”Nazi leaders’ list of crimes presented at Nuremberg yesterday”, HS, 22.11.1945, p. 4. Svenska Dagbladet (hereinafter SvD) also used Hans Frank’s diaries as an illustration of the Nazi treatment of the Jews. See, ”No Hitler salute when the Nazi leaders met their accusers”, SvD, 21.11.1945, p. 1. ”Göring restrained twice — not guilty in 20 different variations”, StT, 22.11.1945, p. 1. ”The Nuremberg Trial”, Ilta-Sanomat, 21.11.1945, p. 3 (hereinafter IS). See for example Tony Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), for Sweden, see Ingvar Svanberg and Mattias Tyden, Sverige och Förintelse. Debatt och Dokument om Europas Judar 1933-1945 (Stockholm: Arena, 1997), pp. 383–406 Marrus, supra nota 6, p. 13.
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page in Ilta-Sanomat reads ”How the Warsaw ghetto was destroyed. 56 000 wooden houses were destroyed — only 8 houses still standing.”29 Svenska Dagbladet echoed SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop’s report, telling that “On 23 April [1943], Himmler ordered that the Warsaw Ghetto must be destroyed without mercy. I [Stroop] therefore decided to destroy the area by setting it on fire.”30 Uusi Suomi noted how the Jews were forced to retreat to a sewer system which Stroop’s forces then flooded with water.31 If the liquidation of the ghetto illustrated the determined cruelty of the nature of crimes that had been performed, the testimonies of Otto Ohlendorf and Dieter Wisliceny definitely illustrated the multi-national character of the crime as well as the organisational dimension of it, expounding the fact that systematic extermination was part of the Nazi policy.
Otto Ohlendorf’s and Dieter Wisliceny’s Testimonies Lawrence Douglas has observed that Ohlendorf’s testimony was “astonishing” and “most notable.”32 Indeed, as the commander of Einsatzgruppe D (a special task force which was designated to kill Jews in the occupied areas), Ohlendorf had been in charge of administering the murder of 90,000 Jews in Russia and Ukraine. The press commentary in Sweden and Finland discussed his testimony prominently, offering a glimpse into the abyss of Nazi persecution of the Jews. Helsingin Sanomat titled Ohlendorf’s testimony in its main foreign news section as “Execution groups were tailing advancing fronts in the East.”33 Svenska Dagbladet reported how under Ohlendorf’s leadership 90,000 people were killed in Russia; men, women and children. The same story also noted that Adolf Eichmann had the death of at least 5 million Jews on his conscience.34 Stockholms-Tidningen wrote in bold caption that “38 year-old … Otto Ohlendorf gave a terrifying testimony about the German mass killings of Jews in the occupied Soviet territory.”35 Further evidence of these tendencies was supplied in connection to Dieter Wisliceny’s extrodinary testimony, which Marrus has characterised as “perhaps the single most important testimony for understanding the European-wide evolution of the ‘Final Solution’”.36 Again, the press in Sweden and Finland grasped its significance. Stockholms-Tidningen reported that Wisliceny had discussed with Adolf Eichmann, an SS officer who on Hitler’s order specially devoted himself to ‘the Jewish question’ … Wisliceny explained that the Jewish question was dealt with in three steps. Up until 1940, emigration of the Jews was planned. Up to 1942, gheottoisation was
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”How the Warsaw ghetto was destroyed. 56 000 wooden houses were destroyed — only 8 houses still standing”, IS, 14.12.1945, pp. 1 and 2. ”3 million people are living amongst the ruins”, SvD, 14.12.1945, p. 3. ”The Warsaw ghetto to the ground. 56,000 Jewish deaths verified”, US, 15.12.1945, p. 6. Douglas, supra nota 6, p. 69. ”Execution groups were tailing advancing fronts in the East”, HS, 4.1.1946, p. 5. ”Slaughtering resulted in the death of 5 million Jews”, SvD, 4.1.1946, p. 6. ”Execution groups followed the German Army”, StT, 4.1.1946, p. 3. Marrus, supra nota 6, p. 15.
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planned. From thereon, Himmler ordered that the Jews must be exterminated.37
After chronicling the “path to genocide” — reasonably accurately with current historical understanding — the article told how Wisliceny, working on Eichmann’s orders, had organised the transportation of the Jews of Salonika to the “death factory” Auschwitz. The same story was also published in the leading Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, which wrote: ‘Jew-Specialist’ SS-man Wisliceny declared that the Jewish question was dealt with in three stages. Up to 1940, Jewish emigration was planned. Up to until 1942, the plan was to amass them to the ghettos. After that, it was Himmler’s order to destroy the Jews. According to Wisliceny’s estimation, destruction activity targeted at least 4 million Jews.38
Overall, these testimonies were significant for a number of reasons. First, they were a reminder of the European wide dimension of the Holocaust: Ohlendorf’s testimony covered a lot of the Soviet Union, sections on Eichmann captured the tragedy of the Hungarian Jews and Wisliceny’s testimony reached to Southern Europe. Second, in the press commentary, Auschwitz formed a central point in the extermination process; whether it was the deportations of the Hungarian Jews or of the Greek ones, all Nazi roads seemed to lead, momentarily at least, to Auschwitz. Third, as has been illustrated in connection to Stockholm-Tidningen’s report, the murder of Jews was based on (as the current understanding on crimes against humanity has it) “their group membership rather than their individual characteristics.”39
Rudolf Höss’ Testimony During spring and early summer 1946 the reports from Nuremberg were short, more infrequent and confined to the inner pages of newspapers. Only on one occasion, albeit briefly, did the reportage from Nuremberg attain any interest and was more vividly portrayed. Significantly, it was Rudolf Höss’s testimony — accounting for the role of Auschwitz that temporarily revived the wilting press interest in the trial. Helsingin Sanomat noted Höss’s testimony on page five: “‘Is it true that there [in Auschwitz] were more than 2 million Jews killed during 1940–43?’ ‘Yes.’ This is how Rudolf Höss’s testimony, who is [Ernst] Kaltenbrunner’s last witness, began.”40 Uusi-Suomi’s article on page six told how Höss’s testimony utterly crushed Ernst Kaltenbrunner’s defence. Amongst other things, the paper noted that “during the summer 1944 alone, 400 000 Hungarian Jews were gassed to death in the camp [of Auschwitz].”41 Höss’s dramatic testimony on Auschwitz pre-configures the image of a stereotypical Nazi bureaucrat — matter of fact, dull and unimpressive.42 Dagens Nyheter’s 37 38
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StT, supra nota 35, p.3. ”Execution groups followed the advancing German Army”, HS, 4.1.1946, p. 5. See also ”The case at Nuremberg continued Yesterday”, US, 3.1.1946, p. 5. Luban, supra nota 11, p. 109. ”2 million people were done to death in Auschwitz”, HS, 16.4.1946, p. 5. ”The executioner of Auschwitz wrecked Kaltenbrunner’s defence”, US, 16.4.1946, p. 6. Marrus, supra nota 6, pp. 22-3.
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by-line was bland, characterising the image of Höss: “‘Were you the commandant of Auschwitz from 1940 to the end of 1943?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is it true that two million Jews died there during that period?’ ‘Yes.’” The paper then described Höss as “a little ordinary man, whose answers to the questions the defence lawyer Kaufmann put before him were like a [Catholic] Mass.” Importantly, in this context, the reference to a mass does not refer to a passionate service by a passionate priest, but the opposite; a service delivered in calm monotone during which a congregation would fall asleep. In this case, however, the contents of Höss’s dispassionate narrative ensured that everyone remained awake. What followed, was a chilling reportage on Auschwitz, reiterating many of the central themes with regard to the camp: two million Jews were murdered there (in reality the figure is about one million and a quarter),43 the doors to the gas chambers had signs saying either “shower” or “delousing” in numerous languages and the people in the vicinity of the camp knew what was happening because of the sickening smell that the burning bodies emitted.44 Svenska Dagbladet reminded its readers about the abominable nature of the Nazi violence. First it was told that 2000 people were murdered everyday, followed by the conceptualisation of the cruelty: “dying took 3–5 minutes and shouts from the gas chambers could be heard.”45
The Testimonies of Vaillant-Couturier and Abraham Suzkever While the press discussed the connection between the Holocaust and crimes against humanity prominently, there were some important pieces of testimony with regard to the Holocaust which the press barely noted. A number of scholars have commented that the Tribunal’s interpretation of the Charter severely limited the extent to which the extermination of the Jews was probed during the proceedings.46 For example, the pre-war persecution of the Jews was omitted from the Tribunal’s consideration.47 The question then is to what extent such a strategy shaped the representation of the Holocaust?
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The death toll of the murdered Jews in Auschwitz has been estimated to 1,250,000. See, for example, Ronnie S. Landau, The Nazi Holocaust (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992), p. 177. For example, see ”Auschwitz boss confesses the murder of 2 million Jews”, DN, 16.4.1946, p. 9. ”3 Million murdered or died in the horror camp Auschwitz”, SvD, 16.4.1946, p. 6. The paper misquoted Höss, for he in fact told that it took 3–15 minutes for victims to die. See IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 11, p. 401. B. D. Meltzer, ”The Nuremberg Trial: a prosecutor's perspective”, 4 Journal of Genocide Research (2002) 561–568, p. 563; Douglas, The Memory of Judgement, supra nota 6, passim; Jacob Robinson, ”The International Military Tribunal and the Holocaust: Some Legal Reflections”, 7 Israel Law Review (1972) 7–8. IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 22, p. 498: ”The persecution of Jews during the same period [before the war of 1939] is established beyond all doubt. To constitute Crimes against Humanity, the acts relied on before the outbreak of war must have been in execution of, or in connection with, any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal…The Tribunal is of the opinion that revolting and horrible as many of these crimes were, it has not been satisfactorily proved that they were done in execution of, or in connection with, any such crime. The Tribunal therefore cannot make a general declaration that the acts before 1939 were Crimes against Humanity within the meaning of the Charter.” See also Douglas, The Memory of Judgement, supra nota 6, at 49; Robinson, ”The IMT and the Holocaust”, supra nota 46, p. 9.
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Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier’s and Abraham Suzkever’s were relatively poorly represented in the Finnish and Swedish press. It is tempting to view these testimonies as an affirmation of the fact that the Tribunal’s restrictive reading contributed to the misrepresentation of the Holocaust — especially since Suzkever was one of the very few Jews who actually was invited to the witness’s box. Moreover, Suzkever’s testimony was a remarkable one, chronicling the de-humanisation of the Jews in Eastern Europe.48 In Finland only Helsingin Sanomat noted it — under a heading which described Ribbentrop’s list of witnesses. After a more general discussion as to what was going on at the trial, the article took on Suzkever’s testimony on the destruction of Jews of Vilna. The article told that before the Jews were taken to prison … they had to undo their belts and put their hands up. When they began the march their trousers fell down, and all those who dropped their arms to hold their trousers were shot ‘until the street was red with blood.’49
Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier, a highly respected member of the French National Assembly had been send to Auschwitz due to her involvement in the French resistance movement. At Nuremberg, she gave a chilling testimony on Auschwitz.50 Vaillant-Couturier’s powerful testimony made frequent references to the Jews, making it clear that they were singled out for extermination. For example, she claimed that the Jews “were gassed for any reason whatsoever” and that from a convoy of 1000–1500 seldom more than 250 were spared “the rest went immediately to the gas chamber.”51 Yet, the press commentary hardly focused on the extermination of the Jews. For example, writing on her testimony Suomen Sosiaalisdemokraatti noted how members of European intelligentsia were tortured in concentration camps until they were mad. The news item, which ran for two columns, did not even mention the Jews.52 Many other papers missed out the story altogether. Only Helsingin Sanomat noted, in horror, that “Jewesses had no access to any medical treatment and the babies they had given birth to were drowned in water buckets.”53 The situation was similar in Sweden where out of all examined major papers only Dagens Nyheter reported the hearing, under a heading “Children thrown into the ovens alive when gas ran out in the death chambers.”54 The article did not reiterate the fate of the Jews in a similar depth as the witness had accounted for, although the article began with a discussion of the sterilisation of Jewish women in Auschwitz. That a non-Jewish witness, like Vaillant-Couturier, gave chilling evidence on the extermination of the Jews was an extension of the prosecution’s “paradigm 48 49
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Marrus, supra nota 6, p. 17. ”Questionnaires, but no witnesses from abroad — Many Lords on Ribbentrop’s list [of witnesses]”, HS, 28.2.1946, pp. 5 and 7. IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 6, p. 216. See IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 6, pp. 209 and 214–15. ”To be killed to extinct through labour”, SSD, 29.1.1946, pp. 1 and 2. ”Into the gas chambers in tunes of the Viennese waltz”, HS, 29.1.1946, p. 5. ”Children thrown into the ovens alive when gas run out in the death chambers”, DN, 29.1.1946, p. 9.
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of proof” which relied on the use of documents. The logic, as Lawrence Douglas has observed, “assumed that proof of extreme crimes became less credible and more impeachable as one moved from perpetrator to bystander to victim.”55 Douglas’s argument about Vaillant-Couturier’s and Suzkever’s testimonies can also be extended as regards the press commentary. In other words, they are worth mentioning since they remind us of the possibility that the prosecutor’s strategy of relying on the captured Nazi documents had an effect on newspaper discourse and, therefore, on the conceptualisation of the Holocaust in the press. Namely, the Tribunal, and the press, failed to bring home the centrality of anti-Semitism in the Nazi worldview. Had the tribunal chosen to include the pre-war persecution of the Jews within its jurisdiction, it is possible that the role of anti-Semitism vis-à-vis the “perverted logic of political control and military conquest”56 would have been realised more prominently. Since there is no empirical record to support this, only some tentative suggestions can be made. It is plausible to say that the Tribunal’s decision not to include crimes against humanity before the war shaped some elements in the representation of the Holocaust. For example, given the amount of press discourse on Jewish matters during the trial, and the press’ sensitivity towards it, it is likely that the press would have also been attuned to the persecution of the Jews prior the war. On balance, however, it is questionable whether Nazi persecution of the Jews before 1939 would have found a similar kind of resonance in the public sphere as the wartime extermination did. It is probable that the pre-war persecution of the Jews would have been hidden under a mountain of other topics which also competed for space in newspapers, and consequently would not have done much to clarify the process of Nazi genocide. For example, the organised Nazi pogrom against the Jews in November 1938, Kristallnacht, was not discussed in the press during the period of the trial. Second, since the prewar persecution of the Jews did not constitute such extreme forms of violence as the wartime extermination did, it is also conceivable that the persecution of the Jews would have been approached in a highly elliptical manner. Indeed, in many cases, even more extreme forms of violence escaped the attention of the press. Although horrific, the fate of Jews between 1933–1939 did not represent such unprecedented treatment as the war years did. Therefore, it is likely that their fate would have been considered together with other groups the Nazis targeted, such as the Communists, Social Democrats, homosexuals and the physically and/or mentally impaired. To weave all these topics into one coherent meaningful story would have been totally outside the capabilities of the press — especially given the tempo with which new shocking evidence was exhibited. Third, the trial was already burdened with the vastness of the case. Ilta-Sanomat lamented in its leader article in June 1946 that there had been so much documentary evidence presented at Nuremberg that it had only been 55 56
Douglas, The Memory of Judgement, supra nota 6, pp. 78–9. Lawrence Douglas, ”Film as Witness: Screening Nazi Concentration Camps Before the Nuremberg Tribunal”, 105 Yale Law Journal (1995) 449-81.
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possible to give succinct commentaries as to what had been said in the courtroom. Hence, the paper continued, the knowledge of the trial and what it covered, was cursory.57 With this in mind, it is probable that the inclusion of crimes against humanity as committed before the war would have been another cursory issue in the press. Especially since it did not carry with it a similar kind of sensationalism as the extermination of the Jews during the war did. As a consequence, crimes against humanity were seen in the context of warfare, whereas today they do not need to be performed in connection with a conflict. Importantly, the way in which the press recapitulated the events in Vilna seemed like a crazed military conquest and because of VaillantCouturier’s involvement in the resistance, both pieces were possible to understand in the context of war.
Closing Arguments The press commentary on the trial sprang back to life in late July 1946, when the judges gave their final prosecution speeches. As throughout the trial, the Finnish and Swedish press was suffused with the talk of the Jewish tragedy. Uusi-Suomi reported that every defendant in the dock deserved the harshest punishment. The story, which ran for five columns, noted in the first one, in bold print that Jackson particularly charged the Nazis for “destroying” six million Jews. Indeed, Jackson argued that “the Nazi movement will be of evil memory in history because of its persecution of the Jews, the most far-flung and terrible racial persecution of all time.”58 Dagens Nyheter headline, taken from Justice Jackson’s speech, reminded that the actions of Hitler were the actions of the defendants too. The paper reminded its readers that Germany had exterminated two thirds of Europe’s Jews. The article then referred to this murder as “mass production industry.”59 After Jackson had finished his speech, the British prosecutor Shawcross followed. Uusi-Suomi’s headline from Nuremberg read as follows: “The extermination of the Jews alone is enough to convict the Nazi leaders — British prosecutor Shawcross’ concluding speech.”60 In truth, Shawcross’ speech was one of the most remarkable in terms of the Holocaust. Particularly, the extermination of the Jews was placed to a “rhetorical center of his speech.”61 Granted, the Jewish case was spread out 57 58 59
60
61
”The Nuremberg Process”, IS, 29.7.1946, p. 2. IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 19, p. 404. ”Hitler’s actions were actions of the defendants too”, DN, 27.7.1946, p. 6. In fact, it was Shawcross who made this allusion. However, as Jackson’s and Shawcross’ closing arguments were spread over two days, the DN published one article about it after both prosecutors had made their case. Unsurprisingly, their rhetoric was woven into one more general narrative. ”Everyone accused at Nuremberg deserves the harshest punishment”, US, 27.7.1946, p. 6 and ”The extermination of the Jews alone is enough to convict the Nazi leaders — British prosecutor Shawcross’, US, 28.7.1946, p. 6; ”Everyone should receive the maximum punishment! The American prosecutor’s view at Nuremberg”, HS, 26.7.1946, p. 6. It is significant to point out that on Shawcross’ closing argument the final solution forms a focal point. Moreover, it was not an accident, but a deliberate strategy to give a painful and personalised (he reiterated Gräbe’s emotional testimony) face to the Nazi crime, which otherwise, due to its scale, seemed to defy any personal representation. Douglas, supra note 6, p. 93. On the whole, see pp. 92–4.
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throughout his speech, reminding of the grim statistics of the tragedy, of Otto Ohlendorf’s testimony, of Auschwitz and other camps, of the Warsaw Ghetto, of the European wide destruction process and other issues.62 When reading the verdicts, the judges followed the trial’s established strategy of highlighting count one as the overarching category, under which all other counts were subsumed. Therefore, it was not surprising that the press commentaries first dealt with the broad scheme of Nazi government and its deliberations to wage aggressive war. Like in the indictment, the verdict dealt with the extermination of the Jews as the final point of the Nazi criminality. However, this does not mean that it was seen as less important point in the press commentary. For example, Uusi-Suomi’s report on announcing the verdicts ran for four columns. Only four lines in the main body of text were printed in bold. These lines read: “the director of the Jewish extermination action Adolf Eichmann has calculated that Germany’s Jewish policy resulted in the death of six million Jews.” The article noted that, in the tribunal’s opinion, the persecution of the Jews was a focal point in the Nazis’ systematic inhumanity.63 Helsingin Sanomat followed the same logic too. Discussing the same issues as Uusi-Suomi almost word for word, the paper printed these lines in bold: “Germany’s Jewish policy resulted in the death of six million Jews.”64 After the verdicts had been reached, Stockholm-Tidningen told its readers about what formed the basis for the death penalties. Importantly, the extermination of the Jews assumed a high priority: on Göring’s sentence, the paper wrote “he was the director of the slave labour programme and the instigator of the tyranny against the Jews.” Discussing von Ribbentrop’s role, it was told how he “played an important role in Hitler’s Final Soultion of the Jewish Question.” Kaltenbrunner, the paper argued, “murdered approximately four million Jews in concentration camps” while Rosenberg’s “subordinates were involved in the mass murder of the Jews.”65 Dagens Nyheter reminded its readers that Göring was “an instigator of Jews’ and other races oppression within and without Germany’s borders.”66 The day before, the same paper had argued (in bold print) that the extermination of the Jews was the most frightening chapter in Nazi history.67 Whilst the first commentaries of the verdicts noted the extermination of the Jews as an important issue, leader articles on Nuremberg verdicts, which all examined Finnish and Swedish newspapers published in the aftermath, did not. However, the point is that these articles focused on much more general themes than any of the more detailed topics like crimes against humanity. For example, Helsingin Sanomat wrote in its leader article that Nuremberg was to serve as an example of what crimes against peace could lead to. The article also noted, with optimism, that the trial was a big step forwards in international 62 63 64 65 66 67
IMT, supra nota 2, vol. 19, pp. 433–529, esp. pp. 434, 483–4, 502, 505–6 and 529. ”Crimes of the men accused at Nuremberg: Crushing evidence”, US, 1.10.1946, p. 6. ”Judgement at Nuremberg”, HS, 1.10.1946, p. 5. ”Judgement at Nuremberg”, StT, 2.10.1946, p. 6. ”Verdicts”, DN 2.10.1946, p. 4. ”Nuremberg men shaken deeply — the 21 sat petrified when verdicts were reached”, DN, 1.10.1946, p. 10.
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law, yet remaining rather vague on the point.68 Suomen Sosiaalidemokraatti argued in its leader that the Nuremberg process was a reflection of the twentieth century eagerness to break free from the threat of terror. The paper also argued that the trial constituted a historical milestone; marking the end of one era and the beginning of a new (hopefully more peaceful) one.69 Svenska Dagbladet’s leader article brought up some of the contentious issues, like the Tribunal’s charge on organisational guilt which seemed to mitigate the principle of individual guilt, practised since the times of Socrates, and the German military’s argument that “they were [only] guilty to have sworn obedience to military leadership under all circumstances.” Despite these difficult legal viewpoints, the paper concluded that “the awkward process has, however, been performed with exceptional precision and in a dignified manner …. It should be desirable that the Allies would show a similar kind of capacity to co-operate in other areas.”70 According to Dagens Nyheter, one should hope that the trial had established the precedent of and the deterrent against aggressive great power to wage war.71 On the whole, in an atmosphere of relief and hope, any further discussion on the Nazi criminality was abandoned, for it seemed that the court had established the significance and the centrality of the extermination of the Jews in the Nazi project of violence. The verdicts and their reporting by the press represented thus the first attempt to attain a closure of the topic.
CONCLUSION It has been shown in this article that the press in Finland and Sweden typically responded to the news about crimes against humanity with verve and compassion. Those numerous Scandinavians who followed the press commentaries of the trial between the autumn 1945 and 1946 were certain to have their first in-depth encounter with crimes against humanity and the Holocaust. This included the realisation that these crimes were Europe-wide, mainly targeted against Jews simply because they were Jews. Further, the nature of the crimes was incredibly cruel and they were perpetrated by organised groups executing state policy — the top-Nazis on the dock, together with the criminal organisations (particularly the SS and Gestapo), were representatives of that state policy. In short, the press covered the case in a manner which parallels the main theoretical points of our current understanding of crimes against humanity. The only shortcoming in this respect was the omission of pre-war crimes against humanity, which were typically perpetrated against fellow nationals, such as German Jews. Despite the fact that, within the legal grid, crimes against humanity were subsumed within crimes against peace and war crimes, the press considered the subject in different tones. Most importantly, crimes against humanity 68 69 70 71
”Judgement at Nuremberg”, HS, 3.10.1946, p. 4. ”Judgement at Nuremberg”, SSD, 3.10.1946, p. 3. ”Judgement at Nuremberg”, SvD, 2.10.1946, p. 4. ”Verdicts”, DN, 2.10.1946, p. 4.
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represented an extraordinary tour de force. In the public arena crimes against humanity, especially as perpetrated against European Jews, came to illuminate the depths of Nazi crime. The reasons as to why the press in Sweden and Finland chose to expound the Holocaust are relatively simple. Above all, as this paper has aimed to demonstrate, the press chose these stories because they were the most horrendous ones, both in terms of their magnitude and cruelty, to have been discussed at the Tribunal. Therefore, they made the most interesting news. Secondly, unlike many other issues considered during the lengthy proceedings, this topic was discussed throughout the trial, in various connections. As these crimes were not only huge and cruel, but also omnipresent, they seemed to imply that the whole humanity was affected by these crimes. Similarly, crimes against humanity underscored the whole purpose of the trial. Namely, to educate the world on the evils of the Nazi regime and to establish an international judiciary which could prevent the execution of such atrocities in the future. In our contemporary world, where Saddam Hussein’s and others’ crimes against humanity are examined and disseminated through the media, one can hope that the press (and other forms of media) will play as significant a role in bringing the focus onto human suffering and exercising the ability to look beyond political and legal agendas as it did sixty years ago.
