East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"

by Philippe Sands

Robert Jackson opened for the prosecution on a Friday morning, July 26. Lemkin was still in Nuremberg, eager to hear what might be said about genocide; Lauterpacht stayed in Cambridge. Jackson took the tribunal back to the facts, the war, its conduct, and the enslavement of occupied populations. The “most far-flung and terrible” of the acts was the persecution and extermination of Jews, a “final solution” that led to the killing of six million. The defendants offered a “chorus,” claiming to be oblivious to the terrible facts. A “ridiculous” argument, Jackson told the judges. Göring said he “knew nothing” of any excesses, not suspecting an extermination program despite having signed a “score of decrees.” Hess was merely an “innocent middleman,” transmitting Hitler’s orders without reading them. Neurath? A foreign minister “who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy.” Rosenberg? A party philosopher with “no idea of the violence” that his philosophy incited. And Frank? A governor-general in Poland who “reigned but did not rule.” Among the upper echelons of government, he was “fanatical,” a lawyer who solidified Nazi power, brought lawlessness to Poland, and reduced the population to “sorrowing remnants.” Remember Frank’s words, Jackson told the judges, that “a thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased.”