Here you can post and/or discuss war crimes and judgments of WWII (Nuremburg Trials, etc.)
For instance, do you think the sentence was fair for…
Rudolf Hess
Jochen Peiper
Albert Speer
etc.
For me, I think Hess’ sentence should have been 20 years instead of life
I think Jochen Peiper should of been hung, and same for Albert Speer…
Alfred Krupp shouldn’t have been even sentenced, he was just an arms manufacturer.
Any thoughts or opinions?
Why not kill them all?
If they had been killed in an air raid nobody would have much noticed or cared after the publicity died down, although more than anyone noticed or cared about the numerous slave labourers who died working for Speer, Krupp etc.
The OP raises interesting moral questions about how we (sometimes) treat captured people with all the privileges and formalities of a good legal system while we are lawless in dealing with countless people we don’t capture but still kill randomly and without regard to guilt or innocence, as in bombing raids.
Who had more rightful claim to life? Speer,Krupp and their ilk, or some of the thousands of unknown one, two, three, four and five year old wholly innocent children incinerated in Allied air raids on Germany?
Curious that htis should come up. I was looking at a book on the fall of Singapore, today. Inside was a picture showing a group of Japanese (in 1945) at Changi prison, dressed in loin cloths, on their knees, heads to the ground in obeisiance to a Redcap whowas guarding them. He had his foot on the back of one of them, pushing it into the earth. The caption read something like this: ‘The British POWs didn’t want take revenge on their Japanese guards,but there were plenty among their liberators willing to do it for them.’ Another picture was of some Japanese Major or other who had been sentenced to death for his crimes. Despite his cruel acts, he had had his sentence reduced to ten years imprisonment because of the lobbying of the former POWs on his behalf.
Regarding the Germans mentiioned inthe question:
Hang them one of at a time and have the others dispose of each corpse in turn, in the same ovens as they used at Auschwitz (excuse the spelling) so that each will know the fate that awaits him. If the ovens are unavailable, put them through a mincer and feed them to the f****** pigs!!!
Maybe separate trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
All the nations make smaller or bigger war crimes, it wasn’t smart to place war crimes in the same category as crimes against humanity - Because it places forcing a POW to work, on the same level with murdering millions of people.
_
Good point, my friend!
Good idea, but even pigs have standards. 
The most common reaction of POW’s of the Japanese was to reject the opportunity for vengeance at war’s end, despite being offered many opportunities by rescuing Allied troops to do so. The rescuing troops were more likely to be the ones wanting to exact, or exacting, summary justice, like the Redcap in your quote.
I’ve read and heard often in personal accounts that individual POW’s considered summary justice at war’s end, but rejected it as it would reduce them to the level of their captors or because they had had enough of brutality and inhumanity. It seems an odd reaction as I’d expect I’d want to kill my tormentors, but I haven’t been in that position and the people who were reacted differently.
Conversely, I recall at least one, possibly two, accounts when ships transporting POWs from SE Asia to Japan were sunk (by American subs which didn’t know what the ships were carrying) and some Australian prisoners took the opportunity to settle scores on the sinking ships and in the water. In one case several Australians got themselves onto makeshift rafts and paddled around bashing Japanese to death with lumps of wood, while I seem to recall another Australian swimming around and drowning a few Japanese. I suppose the difference there is that the war wasn’t over and they were in a situation where they had limited prospects of survival, so why not settle some scores and make sure you take a few with you?
Just as a footnote, the worst offenders among Japanese troops mistreating POW’s in camps in SE Asia were very often Koreans, which probably reflected their miserable and abused status at the bottom of the brutal pile that was the IJA.
Back to the wider topic of war crimes, the war crimes tribunals were ultimately a joke. They show why the legal process in civil society has to be separated from political control if there is to be any semblance of justice. The worst example is the way the US in particular cooled off on Japanese war criminals towards the end of the 1940’s when it became politically expedient to cuddle up to the strongly anti-communist Japanese ruling classes when it was strategically more important to keep Japan as a potential ally, and base, against the communists in China and the USSR, which the Americans at that stage saw as essentially two sides of the same coin rather than the very different regimes they were.
A perfect example of the joke status of the way the Japanese war crimes process was run is the way that that vicious little bastard Col. Tsuji Masanobu, who was responsible for countless executions of POW’s, was removed from the wanted list of war criminals in 1950 (the NY Times article in the link below says 1949 but I’m pretty sure it was early 1950) after hiding out for years. He resurfaced and went on to write a book about his experiences in hiding and another about the Malaya campaign which he played a big part in planning (and which has a foreword by General Gordon Bennett, the commander of the defeated Australian 8th Division in Malaya!). He became a prominent politician in Japan, and a cold war spy for the CIA before disappearing and perhaps dying in mysterious circumstances in 1961, about 15years after he should have been hanged. It has recently been discovered that he was recruited by the US, including the CIA, shortly after he resurfaced. So much for bringing to justice the bastard who ordered the massacre of American POW’s preceding and during the Bataan death march and countless other deaths, including thousands of Chinese civilians in Singapore and the massacre of patients and staff at the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore after Singapore fell.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Spies-and-War-Crimes.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://warbirdforum.com/tsuji.htm
For those who don’t understand the structure of the war crimes trials of the Japanese, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East had representatives of the Allies on it and dealt with A class criminals, being the main war leaders. Individual nations ran their own tribunals under their own arrangements to try lesser war criminals. A good summary of the IMTFE is here http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/imtfe.htm
The President of the IMTFE was Sir William Webb, an Australian judge, who had conducted previous inquiries into Japanese war crimes during the war. http://www.naa.gov.au/fsheets/FS61.html
A good summary of war crimes trials in Europe and the Pacific and the differences is here http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v02/v02p155_Wesserle.html
For an assessment of British war crimes trials http://www32.ocn.ne.jp/~modernh/eng08.htm
I think the Australians were the last to stop war crimes trials in 1951.
For me, I think Hess’ sentence should have been 20 years instead of life
Agreed, Hees departed germany after the “final solution” squeme, and it was to trying to initiate peace talks.
I’m sorry, but does anyone know what Alfred Krupp did to recieve his sentance? I don’t think he used slave labor…
Maybe just because he was a huge German-Arms manufacturer?
Von Braun used and abused of slave labour to his V"…and did not take any conviction…you now why. :rolleyes:
Why…?
Because was useful to the occidental allies postwar cause, the cold-war.
Hess was at the heart of everything in the Third Reich following his appointment as Deputy Fuhrer in April 1933. He was instrumental in all its acts of aggression which caused so much death and destruction, and in all its evils.
It is absolutely ridiculous to hold that Hitler as No. 1 would have been deserving of the death penalty, and that others who survived deserved the death penalty, but that Hitler’s No. 2 should escape. In civilian legal terms, Hess was a willing co-conspirator in a common criminal enterprise of mass murder in both military and civilian activities, and he deserved to be treated the same as the gang leader.
Here is the IMT judgment on Hess, which does him a much bigger favour than he deserved. In reading it, one should read the preliminary findings (in the link) about the nature of the regime and its actions, in which Hess was fully complicit from the very earliest, being the 16th member of the Nazi Party in 1920 and fully devoted to Hitler and the Party from then on. The Nazis didn’t suddenly start being evil on 11 May 1941 as soon as Hess had left. There are plenty of reasons to criticise victor’s justice, but not in Hess’s case. He got off very lightly. Hess should have been hanged, along with the whole rotten gang who ran the Third Reich, including Speer.
Major General NIKITCHENKO:
Hess is indicted under all four counts. He joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and participated in the Munich Putsch on 9th November, 1923. He was imprisoned with Hitler in the Landsberg fortress in 1924 and became Hitler’s closest personal confidant, a relationship which lasted until Hess’s flight to the British Isles. On 21st April, 1933, he was appointed Deputy to the Fuehrer, and on 1st December, 1933, was made Reichs Minister without Portfolio. He was appointed Member of the Secret Cabinet Council on 4th February, 1938, and a member of the Ministerial Council For the Defence of the Reich on 30th August, 1939. In September, 1939, Hess was officially announced by Hitler as successor designate to the Fuehrer after Goering. On 10th May, 1941, he flew from Germany to Scotland.
Crimes against Peace
As Deputy to the Fuehrer, Hess was the top man in the Nazi Party with responsibility for handling all Party matters, and authority to make decisions in Hitler’s name on all questions off Party leadership. As Reichs Minister without Portfolio he had the authority to approve all legislation suggested by the different Reichs Ministers before it could be enacted as law. In these positions, Hess was an active supporter of preparations for war. His signature appears on the law of 16th March, 1935, establishing compulsory military service. Throughout the years he supported Hitler’s policy of vigorous rearmament in many speeches. He told the people that they must sacrifice for armaments, repeating the phrase, “Guns instead of butter”. It is true that between 1933 and 1937 Hess made speeches in which he expressed a desire for peace and advocated international economic co-operation. But He was in touch with the illegal Nazi Party in Austria throughout the entire period between the murder of Dollfuss and the Anschluss, and gave instructions to it during that period. Hess was in Vienna on 12th March, 1938, when the German troops moved in; and on 13th March, 1938, he signed the law for the Reunion of Austria within the German Reich. A law of 10th June, 1939, provided for his participation in the administration of Austria. On 24th July, 1938, he, made a speech in commemoration of the unsuccessful putsch by Austrian National Socialists which had been attempted four years before, praising the steps leading up to Anschluss and defending the occupation of Austria by Germany.
In the summer of 1938 Hess was in active touch with Henlein, Chief of the Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia. On 27th September, 1938, at the time of the Munich crisis, he arranged with Keitel to carry out the instructions of Hitler to make the machinery of the Nazi Party available for a secret mobilsation. On 14th April, 1939, Hess signed a decree setting up the government of the Sudetenland as an integral part of the Reich; and an ordinance of 10th June, 1939, provided for his participation in the administration of the Sudetenland. On 7th November, 1938, Hess absorbed Henlein’s Sudeten Germany Party into the Nazi Party, and made a speech in which he emphasised that Hitler had been prepared to resort to war if this had been necessary to acquire the Sudetenland.
On 27th August, 1939, when the attack on Poland had been temporarily postponed in an attempt to induce Great Britain to abandon its guarantee to Poland, Hess publicly praised Hitler’s “magnanimous offer” to Poland, and attacked Poland for agitating for war and England for being responsible for Poland’s attitude. After the invasion of Poland Hess signed decrees incorporating Danzig and certain Polish territories into the Reich, and setting up the General Government (Poland).
These specific steps which this defendant took in support of Hitler’s plans for aggressive action do not indicate the full extent of his responsibility. Until his flight to England, Hess was Hitler’s closest personal confidant. Their relationship was such that Hess must have been informed of Hitler’s aggressive plans when they came into existence. And he took action to carry out these plans whenever action was necessary.
With him on his flight to England, Hess carried certain peace proposals which he alleged Hitler was prepared to accept. It is significant to note that this flight took place only ten days after the date on which Hitler fixed 22nd June, 1941, as the time for attacking the Soviet Union. In conversations carried on after his arrival in England Hess wholeheartedly supported all Germany’s aggressive actions up to that time, and attempted to justify Germany’s action in connection with Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. He blamed England and France for the war.
War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity
There is evidence showing the participation of the Party Chancellery, under Hess, in the distribution of orders connected with the commission of war crimes; that Hess may have had knowledge of even if he did not participate in the crimes that were being committed in the East, and proposed laws discriminating against Jews and Poles; and that he signed decrees forcing certain groups of Poles to accept German citizenship. The Tribunal, however, does not find that the evidence sufficiently connects Hess with these crimes to sustain a finding of guilt.
As previously indicated the Tribunal found, after a full medical examination of and report on the condition of this defendant, that he should be tried, without any postponement of his case. Since that time further motions have been made that he should again be examined. These the Tribunal denied, after having had a report from the prison psychologist.
That Hess acts in an abnormal manner, suffers from loss of memory, and has mentally deteriorated during this trial, may be true. But there is nothing to show that he does not realise the nature of the charges against him, or is incapable of defending himself. He was ably represented at the trial by counsel, appointed for that purpose by the Tribunal. There is no suggestion that Hess was not completely sane when the acts charged against him were committed.
Conclusion
The Tribunal finds the defendant Hess guilty on Counts One and Two; and not guilty on Counts Three and Four.
http://www.trial-ch.org/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/trialwatch/Nuremberg_judgment.doc
THAT’S ****!
(Not to your post, but to how stupidly our society acts)
A similiar thing happend with Klaus Barbie…a huge war criminal! Know what happend to him after the war? After he should have been givin the death penalty???
Because he was up to his ears in just about everything the Nazis did, including funding the Party and profiting from its various crimes. He should have been hanged too, along with his old man, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, and mother.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH REPUBLIC,
THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN
IRELAND, and THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
- against -
HERMANN WILHELM GOERING, et al.,
Defendants.ANSWER FOR THE UNITED STATES TO THE MOTION
FILED IN BEHALF OF KRUPP VON BOHLENThe United States respectfully opposes the application on behalf of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach that his trial be “deferred until he is again fit for trial.”
If the Tribunal should grant this application, the practical effect would be to quash all proceedings, for all time, against Krupp von Bohlen.
It appears that Krupp should not be arrested and brought to the court room for trial. But the plea is that the Tribunal also excuse him from being tried in absentia. This form of trial admittedly is authorized by Article 12 of the Charter of the Tribunal. Of course, trial in absentia in circumstance of the case is an unsatisfactory proceeding either for prosecution or for defense. But the request that Krupp von Bohlen be neither brought to court nor tried in his absence is based on the contention that “the interests of justice” require that he be thus excused from any form of trial. Public interests, which transcend all private considerations, require that Krupp von Bohlen shall not be dismissed unless some other representative of the Krupp armament and munitions interests be substituted. These public interests are as follows:
Four generations of the Krupp family have owned and operated the great armament and munitions plants which have been the chief source of Germany’s war supplies. For over 130 years this family has been the focus, the symbol, and the beneficiary of the most sinister forces engaged in menacing the peace of Europe. During the period between the two World Wars, the management of these enterprises was chiefly in Defendant Krupp von Bohlen.
It was at all times however a Krupp family enterprise. Only a nominal owner himself, Von Bohlen’s wife, Bertha Krupp, owned the bulk of the stock. About 1937 their son, Alfried Krupp, became plant manager and was actively associated in the policy making and executive management thereafter. In 1940 Krupp von Bohlen, getting on in years, became chairman of the board of the concern, thus making way for Alfried who became president. In 1943 Alfried became sole owner of the Krupp enterprises by agreement between the family and the Nazi Government, for the purpose of perpetuating this business in Krupp family control. It is evident that the future menace of this concern lies in continuance of the tradition under Alfried, now reported to be an internee of the British Army of the Rhine.
To drop Krupp von Bohlen from this case without substitution of Alfried, drops from the case the entire Krupp family, and defeats any effective judgment against the German armament makers. Whether this would be “in the interests of justice” will appear from the following recital of only the most significant items of evidence now in possession of the United States as to the activities of Krupp von Bohlen in which his son, Alfried, at all times aided as did other associates in the vast armament enterprises, all plotting to bring about the second World War, and to aid in its ruthless and illegal conduct.
After the first World War, the Krupp family and their associates failed to comply with Germany’s disarmament agreements but all secretly and knowingly conspired to evade them.
In the 1 March 1940 issue of the Krupp Magazine, the Defendant Krupp stated:
“I wanted and had to maintain Krupp in spite of all opposition, as an armament plant for the later future, even if in camouflaged form. I could only speak in the smallest, most intimate circles, about the real reasons which made me undertake the changeover of the plants for certain lines of production … Even the Allied snoop commissioners were duped … After the accession to power of Adolf Hitler, I had the satisfaction of reporting to the Fuehrer that Krupp stood ready, after a short warming-up period, to begin rearmament of the German people without any gaps of experience …”
Krupp von Bohlen (and Alfried Krupp as well) lent his name, prestige and financial support to bring the Nazi Party, with an avowed program of renewing the war, into power over the German State. On 25 April 1931 Von Bohlen acted as chairman of the Association of German Industry to bring it into line with Nazi policies. On 30 May 1933 he wrote to Schacht that:“It is proposed to initiate a collection in the most far reaching circles of German Industry, including agriculture and the banking world, which is to be put at the disposal of the Fuehrer of the NSDAP in the name of ‘The Hitler Fund’ … I have accepted the chairmanship of the management council.”
Krupp contributed from the treasury of the main Krupp company 4,738,446 marks to the Nazi Party fund. In June 1935 he contributed 100,000 marks to the Nazi Party out of his personal account.The Nazi Party did not succeed in obtaining control of Germany until it obtained support of the industrial interests, largely through the influence of Krupp. Alfried first became a Nazi Party member and later Von Bohlen did also. The Krupp influence was powerful in promoting the Nazi plan to incite aggressive warfare in Europe.
Krupp von Bohlen strongly advocated and supported Germany’s withdrawal from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations. He personally made repeated public speeches approving and inciting Hitler’s program of aggression: On 6 and 7 April 1938 two speeches approved annexation of Austria; on 13 October 1938 approving Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland; on 4 September 1939 approving the invasion of Poland; on 6 May 1941 commemorating success of Nazi arms in the West.
Alfried Krupp also made speeches to the same general effect. Krupps were thus one of the most persistent and influential forces that made this war.
Krupps also were the chief factor in getting ready for the war. In January 1944, in a speech at the University of Berlin, Von Bohlen boasted, “Through years of secret work, scientific and basic groundwork was laid in order to be ready again to work for the German Armed Forces at the appointed hour without loss of time or experience.” In 1937, before Germany went to war, Krupps booked orders to equip satellite governments on approval of the German High Command. Krupp contributed 20,000 marks to the Defendant Rosenberg for the purpose of spreading Nazi propaganda abroad. In a memorandum of 12 October 1939 a Krupp official wrote offering to mail propaganda pamphlets abroad at Krupp expense.
Once the war was on, Krupps, both Von Bohlen and Alfried being directly responsible therefor, led German industry in violating treaties and international law by employing enslaved laborers, impressed and imported from nearly every country occupied by Germany, and by compelling prisoners of war to make arms and munitions for use against their own countries. There is ample evidence that in Krupp’s custody and service they were underfed and overworked, misused, and inhumanly treated. Captured records show that in September 1944 Krupp concerns were working 54,990 foreign workers and 18,902 prisoners of war.
Moreover, the Krupp companies profited greatly from destroying the peace of the world through support of the Nazi program. The rearmament of Germany gave Krupp huge orders and corresponding profits. Before this Nazi menace to the peace began, the Krupps were operating at a substantial loss. But the net profits after taxes, gifts, and reserves steadily rose with rise of Nazi rearmament, being as follows:
For year ending 30 September 1935 57,216,392 marks
For year ending 30 September 1938 97,071,632 marks
For year ending 30 September 1941 111,555,216 marksThe book value of the Krupp concerns mounted from 75,962,000 marks on 1 October 1933, to 237,316,093 marks on l October 1943. Even this included many going concerns in occupied countries at a book value of only 1 mark. each. These figures are subject to the adjustments and controversies usual with financial statements of each vast enterprise but approximately reflect the facts about property and operations.
CONTINUES IN NEXT POST
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/v1-11.htm
The services of Alfried Krupp and of Von Bohlen and their family to the war aims of the Nazi Party were so outstanding that the Krupp enterprises were made a special exception to the policy of nationalization of industries. Hitler said that he would be “prepared to arrange for any possible safeguarding for the continued existence of the works as a family enterprise; it would be simplest to issue ‘lex Krupp’ to start with”. After short negotiations, this was done. A decree of 12 November 1943 preserves the Krupp works as a family enterprise in Alfried Krupp’s control and recites that it is done in recognition of the fact that “for 132 years the firm of Fried. Krupp, as a family enterprise has achieved outstanding and unique merits for the armed strength of the German people.”
It has at all times been the position of the United States that the great industrialists of Germany were guilty of the crimes charged in this Indictment quite as much as its politicians, diplomats, and soldiers. Its chief of counsel, on 7 June 1945, in a report to President Truman, released by him and with his approval, stated that the accusations of crimes include individuals in authority in the financial, industrial, and economic life of Germany as well as others.
Pursuant thereto, the United States, with approval of the Secretary of State, proposed to indict Alfried Krupp, son of Krupp von Bohlen, and president and owner of the Krupp concern. The Prosecutors representing the Soviet Union, the French Republic, and the United Kingdom unanimously opposed inclusion of Alfried Krupp. This is not said in criticism of them or their judgment. The necessity of limiting the number of defendants was considered by representatives of the other three nations to preclude the addition of Alfried Krupp. Immediately upon service of the Indictment, learning the serious condition of Krupp von Bohlen, the United States again called a meeting of Prosecutors and proposed an amendment to include Alfried Krupp. Again the proposal of the United States was defeated by a vote of 3 to 1. If now the Tribunal shall exercise its discretion to excuse from trial the one indicted member of the Krupp family, one of the chief purposes of the United States will be defeated and it is submitted that such a result is not “in the interests of justice.”
The United States respectfully submits that no greater disservice to the future peace of the world could be done than to excuse the entire Krupp family and the armament enterprise from this Trial in which aggressive war making is sought to be condemned. The “interests of justice” cannot be determined without taking into account justice to the men of four generations whose lives have been taken or menaced by Krupp munitions and Krupp armament, and those of the future who can feel no safety if such persons as this escape all condemnation in proceedings such as this.
(In addition to my previous post)
The Allies sadly, instead of hanging Barbie, took him into the CIA and turned him into an operative during the Cold War. It makes me sick to see how society can do this, and spare this horrible man’s life during such a time…
It gets a lot worse.
Japanese Unit 731 used human beings for vivisection in order to develop biological weapons. Equally unbelievable is that the United States has covered up the crime in exchange for the data on human experiments, an act utterly ignoring international laws and human justice. What a great irony to the lofty ideal of democracy and the so-called “American civilization” of the 20th century!
http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/germwar/731rev.htm
There were live vivisections of captured American POW’s in Japan.
I’ve made this a separate post in case the mods want to delete it as I’m not sure if it’s acceptable. The link is to a photo of a live vivisection. Don’t click on it if you’re squeamish. It makes me sick, and I mean physically unwell, to look at it. Not so much because of what has been done to the victim, which is appalling, but because people could do it at all.
Before deciding to look at the picture, read this warning from the POW site which has the picture.
WARNING - The accounts and pictures you will see in this section are extremely upsetting and offensive. They depict the wartime atrocities of Japanese doctors, military personnel and scientists, who used tens of thousands of Chinese, Russian, American and other civilians and prisoners of war, as human guinea pigs in medical experimentation programs. They are graphic. If you are easily upset, or offended, read no further. You may EXIT by selecting the BACK button on your browser.
If you choose to continue reading this section, do so of your own volition. DO NOT write us and demand that this material be removed. DO NOT write us and tell us how offended you are at this material. DO NOT be offended by us. We are merely the messenger. BE OFFENDED by the actions of power, hate, greed, intolerance and ignorance that allowed an entity such as Unit 731 to be created and to exist. BE OFFENDED by the actions of the United States, to protect the murderers of Unit 731, and offer them immunity from prosecution in exchange for the documentation and data accrued by this crime against humanity. BE OFFENEDED that the survivors of this nightmare, the Chinese people, American POWs, Russian and other nationalities, have received no reparations for their suffering, nor an apology or answers. BE OFFENDED that as humans, we walk amongst such monsters, who think nothing of classifying another human being as ‘maruta’ - ‘a piece of wood’, something to be used, abused and then discarded. BE OFFENDED that the lies and deceit continue in order to protect a select few… at the incalculable expense and suffering of so many.
Thanks Rising Sun for the great infor about war criminals
I have to conclude the australians are the most informed mens in here. 
I’am absolutlu agree the Nurenberg trubunal was just “pitfull parody” at the justice.
Killing the ones Nazi leaders we ignored to kill the another who were REALLY responsible for the worst war crime.
A perfect example of the joke status of the way the Japanese war crimes process was run is the way that that vicious little bastard Col. Tsuji Masanobu, who was responsible for countless executions of POW’s, was removed from the wanted list of war criminals in 1950 (the NY Times article in the link below says 1949 but I’m pretty sure it was early 1950) after hiding out for years. He resurfaced and went on to write a book about his experiences in hiding and another about the Malaya campaign which he played a big part in planning (and which has a foreword by General Gordon Bennett, the commander of the defeated Australian 8th Division in Malaya!). He became a prominent politician in Japan, and a cold war spy for the CIA before disappearing and perhaps dying in mysterious circumstances in 1961, about 15years after he should have been hanged. It has recently been discovered that he was recruited by the US, including the CIA, shortly after he resurfaced. So much for bringing to justice the bastard who ordered the massacre of American POW’s preceding and during the Bataan death march and countless other deaths, including thousands of Chinese civilians in Singapore and the massacre of patients and staff at the Alexandra Hospital in Singapore after Singapore fell.
That’s amazing.
The “dual-standards” was a character situation after WW2.
BTW do you know the story of East front SS scum Bach-Zelevsky?
This bastard commanded of Warsaw massacre in aug-sep 1944 where were killed a lot of civilians by the worst unhuman way. He “used” a Dirlivanger brigade (the criminals the western-europe prisons) the and brigade of Kaminsky ( the gang of Ukrain-nationalists voluntares ).
The London’s radio “promised” for the pole to execute them after the war.
But Bach-Zelevsky was realised and calmly died in …1971 in Western Europe.
Cheers.