Evening star., 1945-06-03
War Crime Trial Plans Split Allies
Whether Civil Military Procedure Be Followed Now
at London Conference-Mocow Playing Lone Hand
By Joseph II. Baird

assigned was four years in prison for
manslaughter.
With this fiasco in mind, the Big
Three Allies decided at the Moscow Con-
ference of foreign ministers in the fall
of 1943 to conduct their own trials and
do it speedily. OF course, they had in
mind, too, the fact that atrocities in
this war had been far more heinous and
widespread than in the earlier conflict.
In the Moscow declaration two diff
ferent classes Of war criminals and two
separate means of dealing with them
were defined. First, those who had
played a flrst-hand role in the perpetra-
ton of war crimes were to be returned
to the locality of their atrocities and
tried before local courts. Second, major
war criminals-high Gestapo officials,
for example-"whose of1enses have no
particular geographical localization"
were to be punished "by the joint deci-
sion of the governments of the Allies"
Only Two So Far Named.
1t is with these major criminals that
the commission in London is primarily
concerned. So far the only specific
names revealed by the commission as
being on their list are those of Hitler
(who supposedly is dead and Reichs-
marshal Hermann Goering, No. NaA
who is now an Allied war prisoner
1t may be assumed, however, that the
blacklist includes the names of virtually
all the high-ranking Gestapo and Nazi
party leaders and perhaps some of the
German generals who are known to have
violated the rules or civilized warfare
by slaughtering civilians or killing or
abusing prisoners of war.
The late President Roosevelt expressed
the American attitude toward these big
scale leaders in brutality in a statement
in October, 1912, saying:
1T is not the intention of this Gov
ernment or Of the governments associ-
ated with us to resort to mass reprisals.
1t is our intention that just and sure
punishment shall be meted out to the
ringleaders responsible for the organized
murder of thousands of innocent per-
sons and the commission of atrocities
which have violated every tenet OF the
Christian faith"
Death Takes Several.
1t can be assumed that there will be
no lack of proof against most OF the
war criminals on the commissions list.
For nearly two years the nations rep
resented on the London group have
maintained national Offices which made
1t their business to sift and collect evi-
dence of atrocities. That of the United
States is a part of the War Depart
ment
The trials will be robbed Of some of
their sensationalism by the fact that a
number of the arch-criminals of the
war are dead, many by their own hand.
The Germans say Hitler is dead, al
though his body has never been pro-
duced. Mussolini was shot by Italian
insurgents. Heinrich Himmler, chief of
the Gestapo, "the chief hangman Of
Europe" took poison. Reinhardt Heyd-
rich, who brutalized Eastern Europe for
several years, was assassinated.
But either the Allies or Russia have
in their custody today many other arch
fiends of the war and some others who
are likely to be on the list of major war
criminals.
These include Goering and Rudolf
Hess, named by Hitler at the begin
ming of the war as respectively No.
and No. in the line of succession
as fuehrer; Hjalmar Schacht, Vidkun
Quisling of Norway, Lord Haw Haw, the
British born German propaganda;
Ezra Pound. the American poet who
turned Nazi Prince August Wilhelm,
Franz Won Papen, Konstantin Won Neu-
rath,, Anton Mussert, Hollands "Quis-
ling; Ferenc Szalasi. puppet premier
OF Hungary; Arthur Seyes>1nquart, Hit
ler's man Friday" in several occupied
countries; Admiral Nicholas Horthy Of
Hungary; Field Marshals Kesselring,
Won Werchs, and Won Runstedt and It.
Gen. Kurt Ditmar, chief propagandist
for the German Army.
Whether Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz,
formerly commander in chief of the
German Navy who took over the Reich
government after Hitlers supposed
death and negotiated unconditional sur