Jews and Communists. C. Funding
Jews and Communists. The presence of female prosecutors was not the only aspect of the OCC’s staff that caused controversy. Many of Xxxxxx’x prosecutors were Jewish, and many of those, such as Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, were German-speaking refugees.86 As the fear of the Soviets undermined U.S. support for the NMT trials – particularly those involving the industrialists – it became increasingly common to explain the trials as being primarily motivated by Jewish “vindictiveness.”87 The following statement by Congressman Xxxx Xxxxxx, a Democrat from Mississippi, on the floor of the House in November 1947, was typical: What is taking place in Nuremberg, Germany, is a disgrace to the United States. Every other country has now washed its hands and withdrawn from this Saturnalia of persecution. But a racial minority, two and half years after the war closed, are in Nuremberg not only hanging German soldiers but trying German businessmen in the name of the United States.88 Similar sentiments were expressed in December 1948 by two Representatives who believed that rebuilding the German economy was being hindered by the industrialist trials. According to Xxxx Xxxxx, a Republican from New York, “the trouble is that they” – OMGUS – “have too many of these people who are not American citizens mixed up in those trials, and they are very hostile to the Germans.” Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, a Republican from Minnesota (who, ironically, had emigrated to the U.S. from Norway), agreed and suggested, “[i]s it not just possible that these aliens who are employed by the Government to prosecute these cases do not want to let go of a good thing?”89 “There is no question about that,” Xxxxx responded. “On top of that, they do not have the right kind of disposition to create good will and get rid of the attitude that some of these people have had.”90 Not even General Xxxx, otherwise a strong supporter of the American war-crimes program, was immune from believing that the supposed excesses of the program were attributable to Jews’ desire for revenge against the Nazis. As he said years later: 84 Xxxxxxx Xxxxx, Impressions of Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx at Nuremberg, 37 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT’L L. 669, 669 (1999). 85 Xxxxx, 44. 86 XXXXX, 27; XXXXXXX, 172. 87 That allegation, it should be pointed out, was not directed only at the Jewish prosecutors. During the Farben trial, Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx was accused of being “anti-German” by an assistant to one of the judges. XXXXX, 358. 88 Quoted in id. at 351. 89 XXXXXXX, 174. 90 Id. The British and French di...
