Where's the 24 defendants figure coming from? "Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy" by Telford Taylor (U.S. Chief Counsel at Nuremberg) mentions 200. [EDIT: I forgot to log in...]
The info on Karl Doenitz contradicts the infomation in the article on Karl, which claims he was found guilty of crimes against peace... Martin
Why should the Allies have been tried for war crimes? For what? The indictments at Nuremberg were for:
- Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace: The Allies acted in wartime in response to German aggression.
- Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression: Germany initiated the wars
- War-Crimes: The only violation of the Geneva convention as I can see it is the Fourth Convention (civilian population), which dates to 1949. The League of Nations did condemn aerial bombing of civilian targets, however given the Battle of Britain, I'm not quite sure this is relevant.
- Crimes against humanity: which we describe as "heinours persecution against a group.
Apart from the self-deprecating "look at the Allies. They were almost as bad the Nazis," there is no reason for the statement. Danny
- Karl Doenitz was charged for unrestricted submarine warfare. Chester Nimitz engaged in unrestricted submarine warfare (by his own evidence) and yet was not charged. That's interesting, at least to me. Obviously crimes against peace and against humanity were only commited by the Axis side, but allegations of war crimes were made against both sides. Martin
Just because allegations were made doesnt mean they have any validity. Plenty of allegations are made in wartime and after. Posting them here without context, without saying who said it or when, while equating American and British military leaders to Nazis is at best misinformed, at worst, libelous. Danny
- You'd like more context, Danny? Righto... Martin
Something beyond Biddle, please, since he does recognize the validity of Jackson's position regarding Nimitz, even though it he argues that it opened the trials up to tu quoque criticism. Danny
Okay, now you wrote:
- "The clearest example of the differences between the treatment of Axis military leaders and Allied military leaders was the trial of Karl Doenitz. ... The court later decided that "In view of all the facts proved ... the sentence of Doenitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare".
In other words, Doenitz was cleared of the charges as it was recognized that both parties engaged in that kind of warfare. What, then, is the "clearest example of the difference? You'll have to do better than that. Danny