{"id":1117,"date":"2016-03-23T08:55:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T12:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/?p=1117"},"modified":"2016-03-23T08:55:22","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T12:55:22","slug":"goring-on-the-stand-70-years-after-nuremberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/2016\/03\/23\/goring-on-the-stand-70-years-after-nuremberg\/","title":{"rendered":"G\u00f6ring on the stand [70 Years After Nuremberg]"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Nuremberg Palace<\/p><\/div>\n

March\u00a020th, 1946 marked a more than hectic day in the courtroom, as\u00a0defendant Hermann G\u00f6ring was excruciatingly difficult, even going so far as to\u00a0correcting those who questioned him. The first to question\u00a0G\u00f6ring was Jackson, and Dodd reported his cross examination as,\u201d…[It] continued all day with the Justice looking very good and G\u00f6ring looking very poorly\u201d[p. 267, 3\/20\/1946]<\/i>. Justice Jackson along with the President asked G\u00f6ring, “You have stated that on the Jewish question, some of the members of the government were more radical than you. Would you state who these were?\u201d He replied, \u201cExcuse me, I did not understand the question to mean who were more radical, but in what way they were more radical. If you ask who, then I would say that those were primarily Minister Goebbels and Himmler\u201d [<\/i>http:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/imt\/03-20-46.asp#Goering7<\/i><\/a>, accessed 3\/21\/2016]<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Justice Jackson and Thomas Dodd in the courtroom<\/p><\/div>\n

G\u00f6ring nitpicked everything he was asked, demonstrating his keen\u00a0intelligence and understanding, but in the end he was simply doing his best to antagonize those trying to prove him accountable. This was especially evident\u00a0when General Roman Rudenko stepped up to question him. The obvious hatred between the representatives of the Germans and\u00a0the Russians (or citizens of the Soviet Union), and G\u00f6ring was primed to take it out on Rudenko. Rudenko asked,\u00a0 “Was it your duty to know about these facts?\u201d\u00a0G\u00f6ring countered with, \u201dIn what way my duty? Either I know the fact or I do not know it. You can ask me only whether I was negligent in failing to obtain knowledge\u201d [<\/i>http:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/imt\/03-22-46.asp#Goering9<\/i><\/a>, 3\/21\/2016]<\/i>. G\u00f6ring\u2019s sharp wit enabled him to easily exploit the\u00a0fault in Rudenko\u2019s question, allowing him to subtly mock the Soviet Union, even while on trial for his life. Before completing his testimony, G\u00f6ring left the courtroom with a few memorable words,\u201dI acknowledge my responsibility for having done everything to carry out the preparations for the seizure of power, and to have made the power firm in order to make Germany free and great. I did everything to avoid this war. But after it had started, it was my duty to do everything to win it\u201d [<\/i>http:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/imt\/03-22-46.asp#Goering9<\/i><\/a>, 3\/21\/2016]<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"General<\/a>

General Roman Rudenko<\/p><\/div>\n

As the week\u00a0concluded so did the questioning of\u00a0G\u00f6ring; a week that\u00a0focused on a man the world had heard of but had now heard him describe his actions in his own words.\u00a0Next up was\u00a0the problematic defendant Hess.\u00a0 Further complicating the defendant’s mental state, Dodd was dealing with internal issues.\u00a0 His colleague\u00a0Amen who he described as \u201c…stupid and knows almost nothing about this case, beat a dead horse to death for two hours\u201d [p.271, 3\/26\/1946]<\/i>.\u00a0 Dodd lamented that Amen dragged out his case trying to gain fame and notice, and\u00a0Biddle continued the practice, consuming the rest of the day with his own babbling. Dodd refers to Biddle and his actions by writing, \u201dBiddle was again the difficulty–he has done more to impede this trial than anyone here\u201d [p. 272, 3\/26\/1946]<\/i>. Dodd was fed up with continuous delays and courtroom posturing, and he wasn\u2019t the only one. One could only hope change would come before the tension amongst the staff affected their ability to be effective before the court.<\/p>\n

–Owen Doremus and Betsy Pittman<\/p>\n

\n

[Owen Doremus, a junior at Edwin O. Smith High School, is supporting this blog series with research and writing as part of an independent study.]<\/p>\n

The majority of the letters from Tom Dodd to his wife Grace have been published and can be found in Letters from Nuremberg, My father\u2019s narrative of a quest for justice<\/em>. Senator Christopher J. Dodd with Lary Bloom. New York: Crown Publishing, 2007.<\/p>\n

Images available in Thomas J. Dodd Papers<\/span><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March\u00a020th, 1946 marked a more than hectic day in the courtroom, as\u00a0defendant Hermann G\u00f6ring was excruciatingly difficult, even going so far as to\u00a0correcting those who questioned him. The first to question\u00a0G\u00f6ring was Jackson, and Dodd reported his cross examination as,\u201d…[It] … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[33,31,20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NL7Z-i1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/humanrights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}