He was only 100 years old when this interview took place but even at that age his eyes were clear, direct and unflinching and he spoke with the alacrity and focus of a man half his age (he also was wearing the sharpest suit I ever have seen a centenarian in).
Ferencz was in charge of a group of investigators that discovered the existence of a special group of SS called the Einsatzgruppen that followed behind the rapid German advance through Eastern Europe and Russia in the prosecution of Operation Barbarossa. They were charged with rounding up all the undesirables -- communists, intellectuals, ... and Jews -- and "eliminating' them. The discovery came in the form of the reports the Einsatzgruppen itself was sending to its higher HQ (and Hitler) detailing the exact numbers of civilians they were murdering.
Ferencz sat down with these records and an adding machine and began to tot up all the killings they documented. When he got to a million he decided that he knew all he needed to know to present this case to his boss.
He took this information to chief Nuremberg prosecutor Tilford Taylor and told him the Einsatzgruppen's crimes were so vast and so horrific that it was vital that they be prosecuted. Brig. Gen. Taylor said that that wasn't possible because his assets were stretched too thin with the prosecutions already on his plate. Ferencz countered to the effect of 'You don't understand, what I am holding in my hands amounts to a signed confession to more than a million murders.' Taylor finally agreed but on the condition that Ferencz be the lead prosecutor for the extra trials.
Benjamin Ferencz had enlisted in the army right after graduating from Yale law school. He had never tried a case before, and here he was prosecuting possibly the greatest crime in humanity on on the biggest stage in the world.
All 22 of the Nazis he tried were convicted, 13 sentenced to death, and four eventually danced at the end of a rope. Which was only a drop in the bucket but every last one of them probably would have got off unpunished except for Benjamin Ferencz.
The truth was that The Powers That Be had deliberately and severely limited the scope of the trials because they recognized that the chief cause of WWII was the excessively punitive treaty that had ended WWI. The rank-and-file German still felt hard done by over the first World War, and if those same Germans were going to contribute unreservedly to the rebuilding their country, the Allies were going to have to stop lambasting them for their role in the second World War. So for better or worse, they traded the democratization of post-war Germany for the full retribution due to those responsible for the Holocaust.
More's the pity that the last Nuremberg prosecutor has died while there still are unprosecuted Nazi war criminals walking the earth, alive and free.
Ferencz at Nuremberg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b67B-MoKG_o
The film:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5078614/
They will be punished. No one eludes the Great White Throne Judgment.
It sounds as if trade-offs were made , and decisions were made about what the priorities needed to be.
Great video, a 2005 interview with Ferencz, telling his story in his own words. How an army private artillery soldier becomes a war crimes prosecutor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-8m5YHt__4
BOOKMARK
In a 2005 interview for The Washington Post, [Ferencz] revealed some of his activities during his period in Germany by way of showing how different military legal norms were at the time:
"Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal the situation was ... I once saw DPs [displaced persons] beat an SS man and then strap him to the steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and took him back out. Beat him again, and put him back in until he was burnt alive. I did nothing to stop it. I suppose I could have brandished my weapon or shot in the air, but I was not inclined to do so. Does that make me an accomplice to murder? You know how I got witness statements? I'd go into a village where, say, an American pilot had parachuted and been beaten to death and line everyone one up against the wall. Then I'd say, "Anyone who lies will be shot on the spot." It never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid."
My Opinion: History is always more complex than some people think. The Good Guys are not 100% good. The Bad Guys are not 100% bad. Life is full of hard choices. Just as one aspect of this: The current Woke effort to eliminate the Confederate history from US history and from towns across America really fails to understand how complex history is for anyone who is caught up in it.
After the war ended, many top Nazis were sentenced to long prison sentences. Some even got life sentences. Many were then released early for “health” reasons. These “ailing” Nazis then went on to live for many years.
Disgusting.
I just watched "Judgement at Nuremburg" for the first time and the moral issues (peaceful post-war Germany vs full retributions for WW II Crimes against humanity) you described were covered very well in the movie.
I also recently watched the documentary "The Adolf Eichmann Trial - Justice in Jerusalem." on YouTube.
Before that I watched "Operation Finale" on Netflix about the Mossad's operation to capture Eichman in Argentina and transport him to Israel for trial.
“So for better or worse, they traded the democratization of post-war Germany for the full retribution due to those responsible for the Holocaust.“
Go after every cog in the infernal machine. Who’s going to resent that. I’d guess the rest wouldn’t mind at all projecting any of their own sense of guilt on the operators.
My dad finished out his hitch in the Army guarding prisoners at the Nuremberg trials.
My grandfather was involved in Nuremburg at the trials as a judge but not with the biggies. He died in his early 50’s.
I’m still waiting for one major commie to swing for the mass murders they did before WW2.
And not so potato peeling cook assigned at a concentration camp.
RIP.
He was Jewish. He was a graduate of Harvard Law School. He was a sergeant at the end of WWII, but was brought back as a war crimes prosecutor as a full colonel.
From his interview with the Washington Post quoted in Wikipedia:
“Someone who was not there could never really grasp how unreal the situation was ... I once saw DPs [displaced persons] beat an SS man and then strap him to the steel gurney of a crematorium. They slid him in the oven, turned on the heat and took him back out. Beat him again, and put him back in until he was burnt alive. I did nothing to stop it. I suppose I could have brandished my weapon or shot in the air, but I was not inclined to do so. Does that make me an accomplice to murder?[9] You know how I got witness statements? I’d go into a village where, say, an American pilot had parachuted and been beaten to death and line everyone one up against the wall. Then I’d say, “Anyone who lies will be shot on the spot.” It never occurred to me that statements taken under duress would be invalid.”
Bigger article here. I believe in vengeance. Never let a criminal get away.
I watched liberated concentration camp prisoners burn an SS guard alive - it taught me vengeance is NEVER the answer: The message the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz had for the world before his death at the age of 103
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11955237/Nuremberg-prosecutor-Ben-Ferencz-revealed-believed-vengeance-NEVER-answer.html