As in most things, Winston Churchill had the right instincts when it came to war-crimes trials for monsters. As World War II raged, he observed that if Hitler fell into London’s hands, there was no doubt that the British government would put him to death. The Führer and his inner circle were among history’s most egregious war criminals. Yet, as the war drew to a close, there was pushback. FDR assessed that Americans would want a trial before death sentences were imposed; and Stalin, of course, was already sold on the value of “trials” that were merely propaganda productions.
Churchill bristled: “The trial will be a farce.” Suddenly, everything that had been crystal clear for years after Nazi atrocities triggered combat operations under the laws of war would become clouded by the vagaries of peacetime due process. The barbarous “defendants” would be presumed innocent. “All sorts of complications ensue as soon as you admit a fair trial,” the prime minister opined. Better to “execute the principal criminals as outlaws.”
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