ICC Overturns Nuremberg Convictions

The Court now realizes that calling for the removal of Jews from only the areas that Israel captured in 1967 would be discriminatory.

The Hague, Netherlands,  February 4 – Following a review of the protocols that form the basis for the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction, the Court voided the convictions of several Germans convicted at Nuremberg after World War II for war crimes.

In late 1945 and through most of 1946 the victorious Allies tried hundreds of officials and commanders of Nazi Germany’s political, military, and economic apparatus. The most prominent defendants stood trial at Nuremberg, among them Hermann Göring, Julius Striecher, Albert Speer, Hans Frank, and Rudolph Höss. Twelve of those convicted received the death sentence and seven imprisonment. However, the ICC has decided to overturn the convictions of all those Nuremberg defendants tried for crimes involving the extermination of Jews from areas under Nazi occupation, since the Court now realizes that calling for the removal of Jews from only the areas that Israel captured in 1967 would be discriminatory.

Consistency, said the court, demands that all territories be subject to the same principles. “The international community accepts as a given that Jews may not live in the Occupied Territories,” explained court spokesman Zyke Lonbee. “But that axiom must be applied equally, and we must therefore vacate the convictions of Hans Frank, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and other officials directly responsible for implementing policies that cleansed Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and parts of Russia and Ukraine of their Jews.”

Lonbee explained that the Court’s unanimous decision included expressions of regret for the death sentences imposed on the defendants. “The justices wish to apologize for the rush to punish,” said Lonbee. “In fact these men deserve commendation for their alacrity in enforcing what we, in 2015, have only begun to realize is the only policy consistent with the values we hold.”

The review process began with an amicus curiae brief by Human Rights Watch and B’tselem, that pointed out the hypocrisy inherent in prosecuting Nazi leaders for ridding large swaths of Europe of its Jews while insisting that Jews do not belong in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, or East Jerusalem. “It would be unreasonable to expect the Court to accept Jewish communities living unmolested in occupied territory; what it can do, however, is acknowledge that German officials once viewed as criminals for overseeing the same cleansing must have that taint removed from their reputations,” argued the brief.

Amnesty International, in a separate brief, contended that the men should in fact be hailed as forward-thinking heroes. “What the last century demonstrated is that the presence of Jews results in oppression, violence, and crimes against humanity, as this organization has documented extensively,” it said. “Only in hindsight has it become clear that the only crime of the people responsible for removing Jews from most of Europe was merely being ahead of their time.”

(h/t Irene)