True Crimes
The Nuremberg Trials. By J. J. Heydecker and J. Leeb. Translated by E. A. Downie. (Heinemann, 42s.)
IN their introductory chapter, the two authors of this volume explain why they wrote it. At the time of the trial—despite the title, they deal only with the first and most spectacular trial— German newspapers were few and small. The reports of the trial were therefore inadequately brief. And in the years that have passed, they say, the subject has become almost taboo in their country. They therefore believe that they- are Performing a public duty in writing this com- Paratively brief (360 pages) summary of the evi- dence produced at the trial. They eschew legal Problems, such as the competence of the court, and controversial matters, such as Katyn.
The book, in fact, is a resumd of the crimes committed by the Nazis, in so far as those crimes were exposed before the International Tribunal in 1946 and 1947. There are also some interesting pages about how the principal criminals were caught, and some disgusting ones about how they were hanged (though not as dis- gusting as the facts in Charles Duff's A Hand- book on Hanging). It may be that for the German public such a book is educational and of value, even though it contains a mass of mis- sPellings and errors of fact. (Mannstein for Manstein is less misleading than Belsen for telzek : Mein Kampf was not written in 1933, nor was Operation Barbarossa planned in 1939, nor the Rhineland re-occupied in 1935. These, however, may be the result of faulty proof- reading by the translator, who believes that the English for Nacht and Nebel is 'Night and Stealth.) But why it should be published here Ig bard to guess.
There is nothing in this book which has not been stated better and more clearly in several Of the many books published on this revolting subject. They are listed in the bibliography. And the reason is obvious : a trial is not an exercise In historical research, nor is it meant to be. It may well be that the Germans, with their sup- Posed and perhaps real passion for authority, before the authorisation of an international court °efore they will accept the facts of history. But 10 we, and at two guineas?
It must be assumed that the directors of so eminent a publishing house as William Heine- mann and Co. must know what the public wants, and that therefore there are sufficient people ,no will read yet another account of the Jewish tnocide, yet another description of the Ratter- 'a 1 bombing, even if it costs them the price Of a bottle of whisky and even though they must have read it all before, and better, for half a crown.
„ Who are these people, this public, who pore over the well-known horrors? They are, per- haps, the latter-day equivalent of the public that years ago read love story after love story, always :1th the same plot, always with the same insipid (potions, always with the same happy ending. e OIY here, while the plot remains unchanged, the 2 lotions are far from insipid and the ending is, or Course, death.
know is absolutely right that everyone should know of the monstrous crimes that the Nazis inmitted less than twenty years ago. What is :88 certain is whether those crimes should rePeal, year after year, to the putrescent grati- ation of ignoble emotions. It has been said tat excessive attendance at gladiatorial displays the Colosseum marked the decline of the
Romans, and the British have maintained that excessive frequentation of brothels did the French no good. The English preoccupation with books about repellent crimes, like the English passion for semi-obscene newspapers, may be less damaging to the moral fibre of the Island Race, but it's pretty unattractive, all the same, and it seems obvious that a connection must exist between such constant titillation of sadistic appe- tites and the almost incredible emergence of a British Nazi Party capable of staging a demon- stration in Trafalgar Square in July, 1962.
CONSTANTINE FITZGIBBON
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