Do you think someone could come to power like Hitler did, and change laws, and win over a majority of the country?
Thesis: America’s response to the crimes that were committed in Germany, and the action that should be taken.
“I believe that we may proceed to punish those responsible in full accord with both our own traditions of fairness and with standards of just conduct which have been internationally accepted” (303-304). Robert H. Jackson describes this way of handling legal actions committed by the Germans. This seems like a great way to handle these scenarios, and to accept that each scenario is different and should be treated as such.
“They witnessed persecution of the greatest enormity on religious, political and racial grounds, the breakdown of trade unions, and the liquidation of all religious and moral influences” (304). Jackson follows this by talking about the evil intention that the Nazis expressed. America bore witness to these crimes, and many others.
“They wantonly destroyed cities like Rotterdam for no military purpose. They wiped out whole populations, as at Lidice, where no military purposes were to be served. They confiscated property of the Poles and gave it to party members” (305). Jackson is listing many of the things that Nazis did, all in an illegal fashion. He’s calling attention to all the crimes that only few people have been accused of, when there really may be many more at fault.
Something that seemed to me problematic, was chapter 17, about the debate between the two. It started off so strong, and then the two became very argumentative. And I know that that is what a debate is, but it seemed to me that they were trying to take cheap shots at each other, and the debate didn’t really progress.
A troubling quote from page 305 reads “ They refused the ordinary protections of law to the populations which they enslaved” I find this sentence very troubling, since people were no longer protected. People who were already being controlled, had no one to support them.
In chapter 14, it is said that 800,000 children of the nation had died of starvation and malnourishment at the end of the war. This is extremely troubling, since that is a ludicrous amount of children that died in such a horrific way.
I found the last chapter of part 4 the most illuminating. This chapter detailed Robert H. Jackson’s report to the President about war crimes. Jackson wrote about what should be done with the convicted, and how they should be dealt with. He described how individuals will be dealt with even if they were working in an organization. He summed up some of the terrible things the Nazis had done.
Three Holocaust related revelations:
1. Over 11 million Jews were distributed throughout different countries.
2. Jews over the age of 65 were not intended to be evacuated, but rather sent to ghettos for older people.
3. Hundreds of thousands of children were starved and malnourished in Germany at the end of the war.
Question? Do you think it would be easier for something like this to happen in America? As in do you think someone could come to power like Hitler
did, and change laws, and win over a majority of the country?