Court Opinion

ID: 9641223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:25:37.361538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:38.430234
License: Public Domain

*253CLARK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with Judge HAND that the critical issue in the case is the last one he discusses, the only one, I take it, which he definitively determines against the plaintiff. As he formulates it, it is whether our government has “already” acted to relieve its courts of the traditional restraint upon the exercise of their jurisdiction to question acts of state of a foreign nation done within the latter’s own boundaries. Perhaps it is appropriate thus to load the issue with a presumption or burden which must be overcome before acts of Nazi oppression can be questioned in our courts. Even so, I think it should also be wholly clear that all the authorities cited — which I accept fully on the points they decide — are based upon the condition that the foreign nation whose acts thus deserve our judicial respect was one to which our Executive accorded recognition as the de facto or de jure government at the time. Compare Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 38 S.Ct. 309, 62 L.Ed. 726; Banco de Espana v. Federal Reserve Bank, 2 Cir., 114 F.2d 438. Such recognition gave it the hallmark of legality so far as our courts were concerned. But those precedents do not deal with, or even appear to visualize, the situation where our Executive acts later to repudiate the recognition which it has granted and to declare the acts of that nation as wrongful and void, to be wiped out by a tremendous war effort and by acts of restitution and retribution at the war’s end. Many things have happened since the days when Nazi Germany was the recognized government of German territory — so many and so important that we have no precedent to govern this case. In short, a new one must be formulated.
Now I do not think the case yet ripe for the definitive formulation of such a precedent; for a trial, if ordered, would clarify the facts and make the issues clear cut, as they are not on the present record. The only issue we need pass upon at this time is whether enough has been shown — or is within our judicial ken — to justify allowing the plaintiff a trial, rather than dismissing his case finally on this preliminary motion. I believe a trial should be had; and I think one of the first things the trial judge should do is to address a request to our State Department for a definition of executive policy in the premises. True, as we have found on previous occasions, the State Department officials may be wary of forthrightness to the point of determining or affecting already pending litigation. Even so, a negative or neutral answer might convey a certain amount of important information. Such an answer would at least show an absence of the policy which my brethren (quite curiously, as it seems to me) assume for our officials. That policy, as I understand it, is that only until there is “the most explicit evidence” of a willingness of the allied powers to divest themselves of a possible claim for reparations from the defeated for wrongs such as this will we have jurisdiction of this action. I do not see how the attitude of our allies may affect our jurisdiction directly; and in so far as it is one of the elements to be considered by our Executive in reaching a decision of policy, it concerns that high official, and not us. But if the supposition is to be relied on as making or increasing a presumption against this action, then I must suggest my own doubt of its rational basis. War seems to teach little permanently; I had thought, however, that the experience of World War I in the illusory character of reparations from a defeated enemy had destroyed all belief in their efficacy or possibility. For my part I have seen no suggestion that we were to exact such tribute from a defeated and prostrate Germany even if our economy were fitted to stand the shock of collection. Indeed the defendant does not suggest as much; it speaks only of the possibility of courts of restitution to 'be set up in Germany itself.
Further, the State Department could properly be asked to furnish a clear and precise recital of the various directives given to our representatives, military and civil, in Germany with regard to the invalidation of the Nazi laws as to Jewish oppression and the restitution of property to be made those despoiled. We have nothing like that before us now. True, the rather limited affidavits of the parties are supplemented by fairly full briefs so that, aided by the process of judicial no*254tice, we may perhaps have most of the relevant material before us. But of that fact we cannot be sure; and our interpretation of the data is likely to be as faulty as it is divergent. At any rate, the District Court, either with or without the aid of the executive officials, should be directed to make the complete inquiry which an order for a trial would entail.
As it stands, the opinion herewith draws certain conclusions as to our executive policy which I believe are subject to challenge because it (a) omits reference to various bits of relevant material accepted by the parties as at least 'being in existence and (b) gives a doubtful, if not erroneous, interpretation of the bearing and effect of the material discussed. Among the former is the original directive issued in April, 1945, to the Commander in Chief of the United States occupation forces in Germany, which stated as an allied objective the enforcement of a program of restitution to despoiled races and as a means toward that objective ordered impounded or blocked property taken through duress or confiscation, with the Commander to take “measures for prompt restitution” of such blocked property. J.C.S.Directive 1067, State Dept. Publication No. 2423, pp. 40-59. Also deserving of notice should have been the decree of the Military Government, “Law No. 1, Abrogation of Nazi Law,” depriving of effect specified objectionable Nazi laws enacted since January 30, 1933, and containing a “General Suspending Clause” applying to all laws causing injustice or inequality by reason of discrimination on account of race or religion ; the somewhat similar and more extensive “Law No. 1” of the Allied Control Council at Berlin, September 20, 1945, entitled, “Repealing of Nazi Laws”; and the various treaties of peace, signed or proposed, between this country and enemy satellite countries, requiring restitution of property confiscated for racial reasons, irrespective of any subsequent transfers. All such material is relevant for the light it offers as to American executive policy in the premises, irrespective of the direct or immediate application of such decrees or treaties to this particular defendant.
But even the material discussed seems to me to be interpreted according to a narrow legalistic formula of its inadequacy to overthrow the asserted presumption against jurisdiction, rather than on broad lines as pointing to the nature and purpose of the general executive policy. Thus, whether the particular decree or legislation may or may not operate in the territory where Bernstein was imprisoned in 1938 or 1939 or whether it is effective wholly to invalidate Nazi laws or is limited to prospective operation seems »not decisive on its relevancy; in either case an executive policy determinative of this case would seem at least in process of formulation. Moreover, the steps taken or to be taken do not seem to me as tentative and halting as the opinion suggests. Some of the omitted material supports the contention that already the Nazi laws are officially considered invalidated and nugatory; and newspaper accounts of last March were to the effect that a law for tribunals of restitution had then already been drafted. A trial would show just what has taken place; it would deal with actualities at the time, and not rest so strongly on a heavy burden of presumption which, with deference, I must say appears to be based upon mere theorizing as to our possible attitude toward our defeated enemy. Nor does it seem important that the British may occupy the zone where Bernstein was, and may not yet have formulated their plans of restitution — no more important, in fact, than the hope of reparations still attributed to some of our allies. This all seems to partake more or less of guesses as to attitudes of other nations which, however pertinent for our policy makers, are irrelevant to our particular problem. As a matter of fact, however, our allies were one with us in fighting the greatest war in history which had as one of its objectives the repudiation of acts such as here alleged. But passing that, they have joined with us in many, if not most, of the steps aimed at the restoration of an earlier German economy; and in particular they joined with us in the prosecution of the Nazi chiefs at Nuremberg. I suspect that they, as well as our enemies, *255may be mystified by what must seem the vagaries of a policy looking to restitution to the Jews in Germany at the same time that it accepts the acts of Nazi oppression of the Jews as binding in American courts.
Though I would not myself attempt a final decision at this time, yet the finality of my brothers’ words compels me to say that if the policy of our Executive is one of nonrecognition of Nazi oppression and of restitution to the Jews I think we are bound to observe it in our courts. And all the indications I have seen so far tend to support a finding that such is the policy of the United States. Indeed, without a clear showing to the contrary, I should think the classic excoriation of the Nazi leaders for these very acts, among others, made by the American prosecutor at Nuremberg, must be accepted by us as the authentic voice of our Executive.