Shades of Nuremberg in our upcoming Jan. 6 insurrection hearings

[bigtree]

...I was watching portions of the Nuremberg trial, and was struck again by the forcefulness and thoroughness of the U.S. prosecution led by Justice Robert H. Jackson, and I could see strains of our upcoming Jan.6 insurrection hearings presaged by both the Nazis' defenses and the U.S. prosecution's closing argument.

Take a look:

Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief United States prosecutor, delivered his closing argument to the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg on July 26, 1946.

excerpt:

To escape the implications of their positions and the inference of guilt from their activities, the-defendants are almost unanimous in one defense. The refrain is heard time and again: These men were without authority, without knowledge, without influence, without importance. Funk summed up the general self-abasement of the dock in his plaintive lament that: "I always, so to speak, came up to the door, but I was not permitted to enter."

In the testimony of each defendant, at some point there was reached the familiar blank wall: Nobody knew anything about what was going on. Time after time we have heard the chorus from the dock: "I only heard about these things here for the first time."

These men saw no evil, spoke none, and none was uttered in their presence. This claim might sound very plausible if made by one defendant. But when we put all their stories together, the impression which emerges of the Third Reich, which was to last a thousand years, is ludicrous. If we combine only the stories of the front bench, this is the ridiculous composite picture of Hitler's Government that emerges. It was composed of:

A No. 2 man who knew nothing of the excesses of the Gestapo which he created, and never suspected the Jewish extermination programme although he was the signer of over a score of decrees which instituted the persecution of that race;

A No. 3 man who was merely an innocent middleman transmitting Hitler's orders without even reading them, like a postman or delivery boy;

A Foreign Minister who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy;

A Field-Marshal who issued orders to the armed forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice …

… This may seem like a fantastic exaggeration, but this is what you would actually be obliged to conclude if you were to acquit these defendants.

They do protest too much. They deny knowing what was common knowledge. They deny knowing plans and programmes that were as public as Mein Kampf and the Party programme. They deny even knowing the contents of documents which they received and acted upon. … The defendants have been unanimous, when pressed, in shifting the blame on other men, sometimes on one and sometimes on another. But the names they have repeatedly picked are Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, and Bormann. All of these are dead or missing. No matter how hard we have pressed the defendants on the stand, they have never pointed the finger at a living man as guilty. It is a temptation to ponder the wondrous workings of a fate which has left only the guilty dead and only the innocent alive. It is almost too remarkable.

The chief villain on whom blame is placed — some of the defendants vie with each other in producing appropriate epithets — is Hitler. He is the man at whom nearly every defendant has pointed an accusing finger.

I shall not dissent from this consensus, nor do I deny that all these dead and missing men shared the guilt. In crimes so reprehensible that degrees of guilt have lost their significance they may have played the most evil parts. But their guilt cannot exculpate the defendants. Hitler did not carry all responsibility to the grave with him. All the guilt is not wrapped in Himmler's shroud. It was these dead men whom these living chose to be their partners in this great conspiratorial brotherhood, and the crimes that they did together they must pay for one by one.

__ Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946

amen.

[Walleye]

1. Well the German Nazis weren't able to post selfies bragging about their genocide

I guess the problem now is we have too much evidence against these assholes

[Budi]

2. K & R Thank You, bigtree

From your link, which is worth a look. It is fascinating.
The ref to historic info is Bookmark worthy as well.
Excllent Op. Thank you, bigtree
---------------

SNIP
Ben Ferencz
Chief Prosecutor for the United States in The Einsatzgruppen Case, which the Associated Press called "the biggest murder trial in history."
Twenty-two defendants were charged with murdering over a million people. He was only twenty-seven years old. It was his first case.

Einsatzgruppen Trial was the ninth of the twelve trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity that the US authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II.
These twelve trials were all held before US military courts, not before the International Military Tribunal. - Wikipedia
Location: Palace of Justice, Nuremberg
Dates: Sep 29, 1947 – Apr 10, 1948

[Atticus]

3. "---crimes so reprehensible that degrees of guilt have lost their significance---" That pretty well

sums up how I feel about EVERYONE who invaded the Capitol on January 6th.