Talk:Fritz Sauckel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| Start | This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] | ||
 |
This article is supported by the Politics and government work group. | ||
 |
This article is part of WikiProject Maritime Trades, a group of editors working to improve Merchant Shipping topics. To learn more or join the project, please visit the project page. | |
| Start | This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale. | |
| Mid | This article has been rated as mid-importance on the assessment scale. |
Generbevollmächtigter sounds like a misspelling of Generalbevollmächtigter. Someone who knows where to look could check this fact.
[edit] Later Contoversy Over Sauckel's Sentence
While Justice Jackson described Sauckel as 'the greatest and cruellest Slaver since the Pharoahs of Egypt' in his closing speech, there has since been some debate over whether Sauckel deserved his sentence. Sauckel, deeply implicated as a leading Nazi, certainly deserved punishment for his involvement, but there exist questions over whether his actions merited the death sentence. Airey Neave covers this controversy in depth. For example (taken once again from Neave's book Nuremberg):
- "Sauckel was given wide powers to carry out the mobilisation of German and foreign workers, including prisoners of war, in the Reich and in occupied territories. He was appointed by Hitler personally and promised to work with 'fanatical devotion'. He carried out his task to the letter. in 1945, he seems to have been genuinely surprised to discover the war was lost and that he was considered a criminal.
- Does Sauckel deserve the title of 'the greatest Slaver of all time?' Speer was a much stronger candidate and Goering, too, as the boss of the German Four Year Plan. Sauckel was a simple man who believed that the German armed forces had to be supplied to win the war. He therefore assumed that the task given him by Hitler had the highest purpose. Sauckel did not waver in this illusion till he died on the gallows. Early in the trial, he told Gilbert, the psychologist, 'About the misuse of foreign workers. I am not really responsible for that. I was like a seamen's agency - if I supply hands for a ship, I am not responsible for any cruelty that may be exercised aboard ship without my knowledge'." (p. 135)
Neave continues:
- "Hitler never cared about anyone, even his own soldiers, whose suffering he ignored. But Sauckel, ingenuous though he was, wanted to be human. His own records produced at Nuremberg bear this out. He intended that foreign workers should have the same treatment as ordinary Germans. Unfortunately, he had no authority over the ghastly conditions in many labour camps." (p.136)
- "I am glad I did not witness his death. Sauckel did not deserve to hang. He was a stupid but genuine man, who never read a book. He accepted Nazi doctrines without question and believed that his actions were justified by moral principles. In this terrible self-delusion, the thousands who died in the transports and camps were forgotten. But not at Nuremberg. There in the courtroom, their sad ghosts overwhelmed him and he bowed his head. Sauckel said to Dr Gilbert on receiving the indictment, 'The abyss between the ideal of a social community which I imagined as a former seaman and worker, and the terrible happenings in the concentration camps has shaken me deeply'
- Sauckel and many others fell into that abyss, still believers in the myth of a chivalrous Germany." (p.137)
On the subject of the verdict, Neave later writes:
- "Albert Speer, who in my opinion, was the real architect of the slave labour programme got twenty years imprisonment. His unattractive working-class lieutenant Sauckel went to the gallows on the night of Goering's suicide.
- It is true that Speer made a favourable impression on the judges though whether Professor Smith is right to accuse them of 'class bias' and 'social prejudice' is doubtful. I found that they were convinced of Speer's sincere repentance but this did not prevent Biddle and Nikitchenko from recommending that he be sentenced to death. His twenty year sentence was a compromise. (p.312)
- "What has most troubled me is the comparison with the fate meted out to the wrteched Sauckel. Why should Sauckel, who procured foreign workers for Speer as Armaments Minister, be the more guilty? I was struck by the contemptuous attitude of many at Nuremberg to the proletarian Sauckel. The judges dealt with his case in record time and unanimously sentenced him to death. After hearing this, he said, pathetically, 'I have never been cruel myself'.
- Sauckel had certainly operated the slave labour programme with ruthless efficiency, but who was in charge of policy? Albert Speer. The judges deliberated over his case for a long time and to the last were deadlocked about the sentence. Then on September 11th by a majority of three to one, Nikitchenko dissenting, they agreed on a sentence of twenty years." (p.313)
Sauckel certainly deserved to pay a price for his part in the Nazi forced labour programme, stupid and ingenuous though he was. However, it is also appropriate to note that the criticism of the judges by Professor Bradley Smith that Neave cites in his book (Smith's accusation of 'class bias') is probably wide of the mark too, not least because one might reasonably expect Nikitchenko and Volchkov (the Russian judges at Nuremberg) to exhibit, if anything, 'class bias' in reverse of that criticised by Professor Smith. One might expect them to have been particularly suspicious of Albert Speer, and indeed Nikitchenko appeared, by Neave's account, to be thus suspicious of him. It would be interesting to see if any later deliberations have shed more light on this issue - any takers? Calilasseia 14:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Under the terms of the Indictment, the one person in the dock who got a death sentence who should not have was Julius Streicher. Also under the terms of the Indictment, the one person who was not senteced to death who should have was Albert Speer. Why Speer got his twenty years while Streicher got death was simply how they presented themselves to the court. Streicher was a loathsome and unrepentant Nazi. He was also a private publisher uninvolved in the war effort, either in the planning or executing of a plan to wage aggressive war. Speer was an urbane, educated and charming man who told the International Military Tribunal how he had tried to kill Hitler, had disobeyed his orders to lay waste to Germany, how evil Nazism was, and how sorry he was to have been a part of it. He was also the head slavemaster, who directly or indirectly sanctioned any means necessary to increase production. The fact that Sauckel, the labor minister, was hung while his boss (Speer) got a relatively light sentence was one of the great mis-justices of the IMT. 58.169.75.206 13:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Neave covers this - as I have outlined above. I've also mentioned that both Chief Justice Biddle and Chief Justice Nikitchenko were in favour of Speer being sentenced to death (again cited above). Indeed the case remains a contentious issue for students of international law.
As for Streicher, his death sentence wasn't merely the by-product of him being a 'loathsome and unrepentant Nazi', but because he was, as cited in the British prosecution team's case, responsible for the psychological preparation of the German people to accept the Final Solution. There is also ample evidence (produced in the court) that he abused his power while touring German prisons to beat inmates for sadistic sexual gratification. Neave covers one particularly egregious example in his book. As for him being a 'private pubisher uninvolved in the war effort', this view is somewhat at variance with the fact that even before Hitler became Chancellor, the Nazi Party exercised considerable effort to protect Streicher and his newspaper, Der Stŭrmer, from penalties under German libel laws, and once Hitler came to power, Der Stŭrmer was not only protected from libel writs by numerous persons, but was virtually the only newspaper that was made available to be read freely in German towns and cities in specially erected glass cases. While Neave was correct in saying that "Politically he was small beer", he was also correct in then saying immediately afterwards "it was his anti-Jewish propaganda that made him feared". Do not forget that he did hold political office within the nazi Party - he was Gauleiter of Thuringia - and thus, even without his other activities, came under the eye of the International Military Tribunal with respect to the judgement that the higher echelons of the Corps of Political Leaders (the top executive of the Nazi Party's political apparatus, including the Gauleiters) constituted a 'criminal organisation'. Admittedly, this is another contentious issue for students of international law, but that judgement was not challenged except of course by the Nazis themselves. All of this is of course on record, and the Neave book is, if a somewhat individual source of information, nonetheless highly illuminating. Calilasseia
[edit] Flag
I noticed that the Nazi flag has been added to the infobox without any surrounding text. I'm not interested in working on this article myself but, if you are, please consult WP:FLAG for guidelines on proper style. – SJL 05:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Controversy About His Execution
He was certainly an war criminal, but the fact that his superior was sentenced to 20 years, and he got the death penalty seems today controversial, from any point of view. I ask someone please to add a chapter to the controversy about his execution.85.244.52.171 (talk) 18:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
