Latest news with #NurembergTrials
Times
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Mein Kampf at 100 — why the most reviled book in history still haunts us
Nuremberg, January 8, 1946. The British prosecutor Frederick Elwyn Jones opened the case against the 21 senior Nazis in the dock, charged with crimes against humanity. Eight months earlier Adolf Hitler had killed himself in his bunker; others close to him were dead or had absconded. It was vital that justice was seen to be done. There was no shortage of evidence of the Holocaust, of the slaughters of the Eastern Front and other war crimes. But one item had particular resonance. 'May it please the tribunal,' Jones said, 'it is now my duty to draw to the tribunal's attention a document which became the statement of faith of these defendants.' Mein Kampf is 100 years old this month. The centenary will reinforce Germans' determination to keep the odious book buried. But I recently set myself the task of understanding it better, to see what lessons it provides — not just for Germany, but for all countries. It was not a straightforward assignment. My Jewish father escaped Czechoslovakia by the skin of his teeth in the summer of 1939. Several members of his extended family were killed in the camps. He rarely spoke of his ordeal, and I never got to ask him about my strange surname. I had never read Mein Kampf. Almost nobody has, or says they have, although everyone knows the title. It took nerves of steel to plough through the 700-page tome, which is what I did, 30 pages a night, in German and then in English. My research also required some subterfuge, using the term 'MK' in emails to spare my interviewees any embarrassment. Hitler originally wanted to call his book Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice but was persuaded to make it shorter. It is both a carefully crafted biography (riddled with inventions and falsifications) and a job application. • Read more book reviews and interviews — and see what's top of the Sunday Times Bestsellers List The Germany of the 1920s was deeply unstable. Defeat in the First World War had changed everything. The Kaiserreich was no more, the army had been emasculated, the economy was in ruins. The new Weimar Republic, with its fragile parliamentary democracy, was for Hitler and his supporters a byword for weakness and decadence. In 1923 Hitler led the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. When it failed he was sent to jail, but given a light sentence and a large, comfortable cell. Landsberg prison may have been called a fortress, but for its most celebrated inmate it was more a political meeting room. 'Hitler made an announcement in a newspaper. He asked all his friends and politicians not to visit him any more,' says the German historian Othmar Plöckinger, author of a landmark study of Mein Kampf. 'He wanted now to start seriously writing his book.' He needed a manifesto to propel him on to the fragmented political scene. As well as repulsive, it is a curious book. It could have done with some serious editing. Much of the time the writing is repetitive and barely coherent. Sometimes Hitler veers into strange tangents on the Habsburg or Japanese empires. Some passages are moderately rational, but all too often the author can't help himself. There are 467 mentions of the word Jew or its derivations, 64 mentions of poison, 14 of parasite, 27 of disease and 167 of blood. Along with history, Hitler's main themes are sociology and a horrifically distorted understanding of biology. He borrows ideas from late-19th and early 20th-century ideologues such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the British-French-German philosopher who propagated theories of ethno-nationalism and racial superiority that were standard at the time. Others, such as the political scientist Carl Schmitt, focused on the acquisition of power. Some ideas were copied; others, such as Charles Darwin's theory of evolution , were traduced to fit his agenda. Hitler saw the fate of people as being driven by the law of racial struggle; the stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker. 'Every animal mates only with a member of the same species. The titmouse seeks the titmouse, the finch the finch, the stork the stork, the field mouse the field mouse, the dormouse the dormouse, the wolf the she-wolf etc.' There are pages and pages of this stuff on racial purity, eugenics and the urgent need for Germans to acquire space to live, Lebensraum. For Hitler, Aryan supremacy was evident in all walks of life, from biology to high art. 'Everything we admire on this earth today — science and art, technology and inventions — is only the creative product of a few peoples and originally perhaps of one race.' He found many groups responsible for the humiliation of the German people, the Treaty of Versailles, the 'stab in the back'. He blamed the communists, the media, the liberal elite, homosexuals and the French. But he blamed one group in particular. 'Today it is difficult, if not impossible, for me to say when the word 'Jew' first gave me ground for special thoughts. For me this was the time of the greatest spiritual upheaval I have ever had to go through. I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and become an antisemite.' There is worse, much worse, but I won't put readers through it. • The Nazi Mind by Laurence Rees review — warnings from history Volume one was published in July 1925. The first print run of 10,000 sold out within months. But sales quickly tailed off and the second volume, released a year later, fared much worse. Reviews ranged from supportive to outraged to dismissive. Cultured Germany wouldn't be taken in by such ramblings, was the prevailing response. But sales picked up again as Hitler closed in on power. After 1933 it was deemed patriotic to own a copy. Local councils were instructed to distribute it to married couples. As war loomed, soldiers were handed pocket versions; it became not so much something to read as a devotional object. Hitler received the royalties, and according to a 1939 article in Time magazine, the Führer had amassed more than $3 million (the equivalent of about $70 million today) from German sales alone. Versions in English and other languages tended to tighten up and sanitise the message. President Roosevelt — who came to power just a month after Hitler, and was fluent in German — scribbled this in his abridged 1933 translation: 'This translation is so expurgated as to give a wholly false view of what Hitler really is or says. The German original would make a different story.' On Germany's surrender, Hitler's assets were confiscated. The postwar authorities and the western Allies faced two competing priorities — de-Nazification and building democracy, in which freedom of expression was central. They came up with the ingenious idea of using copyright law: for the next 70 years it would be illegal to publish new versions of Mein Kampf in Germany, although it remained available around the world. It took much longer than non-Germans realise for Germany to reckon with its history. It wasn't until the late 1960s that a new generation started to confront their parents. Alongside discussion forums and TV talk shows, a new theatrical genre emerged. One of the first to deal directly with Mein Kampf was Helmut Qualtinger, an Austrian actor who read out excerpts on stage. In the 1990s a Turkish-born German comedian called Serdar Somuncu used ridicule and satire in a show called The Legacy of a Mass Murderer. Yasemin Yildiz, a cultural historian, describes the atmosphere: 'People were laughing out loud. He enabled them to have this bodily release through humour, which aimed to make Hitler smaller. A lot of the postwar period [had] dealt with this anxiety around him by making him demonic.' As for the book, many copies continued to sit in people's homes — sometimes stashed away in attics or cellars, coming to light only when the war generation passed on and their children or grandchildren went through their belongings. When the copyright ran out in 2015, a decision was taken to republish Mein Kampf, officially, under the watchful eye of experts at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich. Their task would be to produce a critical edition, inserting notes on every page, detailing distortions, falsehoods and the ensuing horrors. It triggered an impassioned public debate, including within Germany's Jewish community. There was a flurry of sales in the first year or so of publication, largely to scholars or curious members of the public, but that didn't last. Job done? Not at all. You can find the book in shops, if you look hard enough, and more easily online, both the sanitised version and the original. But that, in my view, is the least of the problem. What I have found, during months of interviews and research, is that the messages contained in Mein Kampf have not gone away. They can be found all over the world on the internet; on YouTube and elsewhere bloggers, vloggers and agitators borrow the themes of the 1920s and 1930s. • Ideology is at the heart of terrorism, says extremism tsar They do not usually cite Mein Kampf directly. Perhaps they think it will taint them. Perhaps they think it's no longer relevant or cool. But its ideas have moved from the fringes into the mainstream. Comparing passages with speeches by leading American and European politicians, who talk of 'ethnic replacement' and 'poisoning the blood', there is a similar focus on grievance, resentment and encirclement. This includes speeches and social posts from Viktor Orban, Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump. During a campaign rally in December 2023, the man who is now US president said: 'They're destroying the blood of our country, that's what they're doing. They're destroying our country. They don't like it when I said that. And I never read Mein Kampf. They said, 'Oh Hitler said that, in a much different way.'' There is more like it. Chapter two, volume two of Mein Kampf, titled The State, says: 'The poisonings of the blood which have befallen our people … have led not only to a decomposition of our blood, but also of our soul.' I know this is deeply contentious territory. I am fully aware that anyone cross-referencing modern-day populism with the 1920s and 1930s lays themselves open to being denounced as simplistic or plain wrong. No two political movements or historic moments are exactly alike. I am not trying to say that today's leaders will follow Hitler. Words don't inevitably lead to actions. But what I am saying is that, for all the efforts to eradicate this book's ideas, some of them have returned into the heart of global politics. Banning the spirit of Mein Kampf has turned out to be harder than anyone realised. Just as Hitler recycled existing material, so his book is being refashioned for our times. It's part of a continuum. His ideas have always been there, and they have never gone away. Archive on 4: 100 Years of Mein Kampf is on BBC Radio 4, Jul 5 at 8pm and then on BBC Sounds
New York Times
19-06-2025
- Science
- New York Times
Edward Anders, Who Duped Nazis and Illuminated the Cosmos, Dies at 98
Edward Anders, a cosmochemist who unraveled mysteries about the solar system and the wildfires that helped wipe out the dinosaurs — and who then, in retirement, uncovered the identities of thousands of Jews from his hometown who were killed in the Holocaust — died on June 1 in San Mateo, Calif. He was 98. His death, in an assisted living facility, was confirmed by his son, George. Professor Anders emigrated to the United States in 1949, a few months after being called to testify at the Nuremberg trials about Nazi brutality in Liepaja, Latvia, in 1941 — events that he and his mother survived after she tricked soldiers into believing that she was of Aryan descent. His father wasn't as fortunate. Settling in New York City, Edward enrolled at Columbia University and studied chemistry. One day, his professor — a curator at the American Museum of Natural History — brought a handful of meteorite rocks to pass around in class. 'I found them tremendously exciting,' Professor Anders said in a 2001 interview with the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 'I would even use the word romantic. Here were samples from far beyond the Earth's orbit, older than any rock on Earth, and you can get your hands on them, and even do respectable research on them.' Professor Anders's research turned out to be more than merely respectable. At the University of Chicago, his academic home for more than 30 years beginning in 1955, he conducted a series of groundbreaking studies into the early history of the solar system. He demonstrated that meteorites were fragments from asteroids and not, as was believed at the time, debris from the moon or comets. He quantified the elements of the solar system in a journal article that has been cited more than 14,000 times. And he uncovered evidence of the global wildfires that helped lead to the dinosaurs' extinction. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Nuremberg Release Date Set for Russell Crowe & Rami Malek WWII Movie
Sony Pictures Classics has officially announced the release date, after acquiring the theatrical distribution rights to the upcoming historical drama. The movie is based on Jack El-Hail's 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiarist. 'It chronicles the true story of the eponymous trials held by the Allies against the defeated Nazi regime,' reads the official synopsis. 'The film centers on American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who is tasked with determining whether Nazi prisoners are fit to stand trial for their war crimes and finds himself in a complex battle of wits with Hermann Göring, Hitler's right-hand man.' Nuremberg has now been scheduled to arrive in theaters on November 7, 2025, pitting it directly against two highly anticipated movies Predator: Badlands and The Running Man. It will also be debuting in the same month as high-profile movies such as Now You See Me: Now You Don't, Wicked: For Good, and Zootopia 2. The film is written and directed by Zodiac filmmaker James Vanderbilt. The ensemble cast includes Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O'Brien, Lydia Peckham, Colin Hanks, Wrenn Schmidt, Lotte Verbeek, and Andreas Pietschmann. It is produced by Vanderbilt, Richard Saperstein, Bradley J. Fischer, William Sherak, Frank Smith, Benjamin Tappan, Cherilyn Hawrysh, István Major, and George Freeman. Executive producers are Jack El-Hai, Brooke Saperstein, Annie Saperstein, Beau Turpin, W. Porter Payne, Jr., Paul Neinstein, and Széchenyi Funds Géza Deme and Tamás Hajnal. 'I am beyond thrilled to be reuniting with Michael and Tom and the whole Sony Pictures Classics team, who ten years ago took a chance on me as a first-time director, and whose legacy of championing great films makes them an incredible partner,' Vanderbilt said in a statement. 'Nuremberg explores the fragile boundary between justice and vengeance in the aftermath of unimaginable atrocity. As we approach the 80th anniversary of this unprecedented moment in history, this story feels more urgent than ever, and I can't wait for audiences to see it on the big screen.' The post Nuremberg Release Date Set for Russell Crowe & Rami Malek WWII Movie appeared first on - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
Daily Maverick
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Understanding the landmark court ruling on apartheid-era crimes
The ruling in the Johannesburg High Court paves the way for the prosecution of hundreds of apartheid-era crimes. This is how the judge reached his decision. In a landmark judgment against members of the apartheid security forces, the Johannesburg High Court has ruled that the state can prosecute apartheid-era crimes, because apartheid is a crime against humanity and there is no time bar on the prosecution of such crimes. The case concerned the criminal trial of Christiaan Siebert Rorich and Tlhomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa facing charges of kidnapping and murder as crimes against humanity, and the crime of apartheid specifically. They were members of the Apartheid Security Branch charged with the kidnapping and murder in 1982 of the 'Cosas 4' – teenagers Eustice 'Bimbo' Madikela, Peter 'Ntshingo' Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and Zandisile Musi – who were anti-apartheid activists and members of the Congress of South African Students (Cosas). The prosecution of these crimes, however, was only initiated in democratic South Africa nearly 40 years later – in 2021. The accused made two main legal arguments. First, they argued that crimes against humanity only became offences in South Africa in August 2022 after the country ratified the Rome Statute and passed legislation to this effect. They argued therefore that these acts were not regarded as crimes in South African law at the time they took place. In terms of the Constitution, an accused has a right to a fair trial which includes the right not to be prosecuted for an act that was not a crime at the time it took place. They also argued that even if it were a crime, the power to prosecute lapsed after 20 years and to prosecute them 40 years later would violate their right to a fair trial. Finally, they argued that there had been political interference in their prosecution and that the charges were brought too late which denied them a right to a speedy trial without undue delay. The National Prosecuting Authority and the Legal Resources Centre, which was admitted as a friend of the court, argued that crimes against humanity including apartheid are a part of customary international law and that the Constitution requires courts to abide by international law. They said crimes against humanity originate from the prosecution of Nazi generals during the Nuremberg Trials after World War 2 and have become part of international law since then. They argued that apartheid is a crime against humanity because it involved inhumane acts committed as part of a widespread and systematic campaign against black civilians and opponents of the regime. The charges against Rorich and Mfalapitsa related to acts committed in furtherance of this objective, they said. The main questions the court had to consider were: Whether apartheid was a crime against humanity and thus a crime at the time the acts were committed; and Whether any attempt to prosecute such crimes had an expiry date. In his ruling on 14 April, Judge Dario Dosio noted that the Constitution explains that customary international law is automatically law in South Africa unless it is inconsistent with the Constitution. This means it is not necessary for South Africa to have formally signed and ratified a treaty concerning that law, nor is it necessary for Parliament to pass legislation to this effect. This approach had been confirmed by the Constitutional Court on several occasions, he said. Turning to apartheid, the judge defined it as a system of racial segregation and discrimination which was designed to maintain the domination of the white minority over the black majority. He pointed out that enemies of the state had been subjected to imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, police brutality and assassinations. The United Nations General Assembly had declared apartheid a crime against humanity in 1966. More importantly, in 1973, the Apartheid Convention came into effect – an international treaty which criminalised apartheid and sought its suppression and punishment worldwide. In democratic South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed that apartheid was a crime against humanity. The judge concluded that apartheid had been a crime against humanity for at least 79 years. Referring to decisions of the Constitutional Court, Judge Dosio said that it had been accepted that crimes against humanity under customary international law can be prosecuted in terms of the Constitution. Based on this logic, the court found that these constitutional provisions provided a pathway for the prosecution of crimes against humanity which occurred in South Africa before 1994. Turning to the question of whether there is a time bar date for prosecutions, he found that there was not. He referred to the Convention on Statutory Limitations which set out that there are no statutory limitations (expiry dates) on the prosecution of crimes against humanity. This convention dates from the aftermath of World War 2 when war criminals during the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals raised such arguments. The judge said that in other countries the courts had made a similar finding, that there was no expiry date for prosecution for crimes against humanity. These included Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Spain, the US, Uganda and Uruguay. The Inter-American Court had come to the same conclusion. As a result, though South Africa is not a signatory to the Convention on Statutory Limitations, the judge found there can be no time bar for the prosecution of crimes against humanity committed in South Africa. Based on these findings he found no violation of the accused's right to a fair trial. Turning to the question of political interference and undue delay in the prosecution, the judge noted that it was regrettable that the National Prosecuting Authority had taken so long to prosecute apartheid-era crimes referred to it by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Despite this, he said, the interests of justice still required the prosecution of such crimes, given their gravity and impact on South African society both in the past and the present. The judgment paves the way for the prosecution of hundreds of apartheid-era crimes which were referred to prosecution by the commission. DM
Eyewitness News
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Eyewitness News
Understanding the court ruling on apartheid-era crimes
In a landmark judgment against members of the apartheid security forces, the Johannesburg High Court has ruled that the state can prosecute apartheid-era crimes, because apartheid is a crime against humanity and there is no time bar on the prosecution of such crimes. The case concerned the criminal trial of Christiaan Siebert Rorich and Tlhomedi Ephraim Mfalapitsa facing charges of kidnapping and murder as crimes against humanity, and the crime of apartheid specifically. They were members of the Apartheid Security Branch charged with the kidnapping and murder in 1982 of the 'COSAS 4' - teenagers Eustice 'Bimbo' Madikela, Peter 'Ntshingo' Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and Zandisile Musi, anti-apartheid activists and members of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS). The prosecution of these crimes however was only initiated in democratic South Africa nearly 40 years later – in 2021. The accused made two main legal arguments. First, they argued that crimes against humanity only became offences in South Africa in August 2022 after the country ratified the Rome Statute and passed legislation to this effect. They argued therefore that these acts were not regarded as crimes in South African law at the time they took place. In terms of the Constitution, an accused has a right to a fair trial, which includes the right not to be prosecuted for an act that was not a crime at the time it took place. They also argued that even if it were a crime, the power to prosecute lapsed after 20 years and to prosecute them 40 years later would violate their right to a fair trial. Finally, they argued that there had been political interference in their prosecution and that the charges were brought too late, which denied them a right to a speedy trial without undue delay. The National Prosecuting Authority and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) which was admitted as a friend of the court, argued that crimes against humanity including apartheid are a part of customary international law and that the Constitution requires courts to abide by international law. They said crimes against humanity originate from the prosecution of Nazi generals during the Nuremberg Trials after World War II and have become part of international law since then. They argued that apartheid is a crime against humanity because it involved inhumane acts committed as part of a widespread and systematic campaign against black civilians and opponents of the regime. The charges against Rorich and Mfalapitsa related to acts committed in furtherance of this objective, they said. The main questions the court had to consider were: whether apartheid was a crime against humanity and thus a crime at the time the acts were committed; and whether any attempt to prosecute such crimes had an expiry date. In his ruling on 14 April, Judge Dario Dosio noted that the Constitution explains that customary international law is automatically law in South Africa unless it is inconsistent with the Constitution. This means that it is not necessary for South Africa to have formally signed and ratified a treaty concerning that law, nor is it necessary for Parliament to pass legislation to this effect. This approach had been confirmed by the Constitutional Court on several occasions, he said. Turning to apartheid, the judge defined it as a system of racial segregation and discrimination which was designed to maintain the domination of the white minority over the black majority. He pointed out that enemies of the state had been subjected to imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, police brutality and assassinations. The UN General Assembly had declared apartheid a crime against humanity in 1966. More importantly, in 1973, the Apartheid Convention came into effect – an international treaty which criminalised apartheid and sought its suppression and punishment worldwide. In democratic South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission confirmed that apartheid was a crime against humanity. The judge concluded that apartheid had been a crime against humanity for at least 79 years. Referring to decisions of the Constitutional Court, Judge Dosio said that it had been accepted that crimes against humanity under customary international law can be prosecuted in terms of the Constitution. Based on this logic, the Court found that these constitutional provisions provided a pathway for the prosecution of crimes against humanity which occurred in South Africa before 1994. Turning to the question of whether there is a time bar date for prosecutions, he found that there was not. He referred to the Convention on Statutory Limitations, which set out that there are no statutory limitations (expiry dates) on the prosecution of crimes against humanity. This convention dates from the aftermath of World War II when war criminals during the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals raised such arguments. The judge said in other countries the courts had made a similar finding, that there was no expiry date for prosecution for crimes against humanity. These included Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Spain, the United States, Uganda and Uruguay. The Inter-American Court had come to the same conclusion. As a result, though South Africa is not a signatory to the Convention on Statutory Limitations, the judge found there can be no time bar for the prosecution of crimes against humanity committed in South Africa. Based on these findings, he found no violation of the accused's right to a fair trial. Turning to the last question on political interference and undue delay in the prosecution, the Judge noted that it was regrettable that the NPA had taken so long to prosecute apartheid-era crimes referred to it by the TRC. Despite this, he said, the interests of justice still required the prosecution of such crimes, given their gravity and impact on South African society both in the past and present. The judgment paves the way for the prosecution of hundreds of apartheid-era crimes which were referred to prosecution by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This article first appeared on GroundUp. Read the original article here.
