H6: War Criminals

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Is it too late after 50 years?

Some opinion formers have suggested that there is something revolting about continuing a search for vengeance over such a long period. But, as Douglas Hurd commented, "The crimes which were being talked about were terrible... under our law, the passage of time does not alter that." There is no period of limitation, in English or Scots law, for the prosecution of murder or manslaughter. Unlike study, memorials and resolutions—all of which are important—the bringing to justice of war criminals is one of the few things a Government can actively do after 50 years.

Justice or vengeance?

Lord Coggan, former Archbishop of Cantebury, wrote in The Times, March 1987, that while vengeance appeals to the "baser instincts" within individuals, "Justice demands that society takes note of wrongs committed, and does so in such a way as to ensure, in so far as is possible, that such atrocities do not occur again." People are not being placed on trial as a symbolic gesture, or to serve some larger purpose of conscience. They are being put on trial because they broke the law. They cannot answer for the guilt of the whole Nazi regime, but they can be tried for their own specific conduct during the Holocaust and immediately after it.

Public comments

Unlike the young blood in the House of Commons, many members of the House of Lords lived through World War II and were loathe to admit that not enough had been done to find war criminals. Here are some of their more potent comments:

"...humanity surely pleads to allow the past to bury the past and not to subject a handful of old men - who, as far as we know, have for the past 30 or 40 years led decent respectable lives - to suffer in the last years of their life the horrifying experience of investigation, of trial and very possibly of imprisonment." (Lord Watson, 4/12/89)

"I cannot believe that it is part of the duty of a British Government to hound innocent old men to their graves" (Lord Belhaven and Stenton, 4/12/89)

Should 'old men' be prosecuted?

There is no question of putting 'frail old men' in the dock. As in any other criminal case, if the defendant is unfit to mount a proper defence, it is normal practice not to proceed. Health and fitness, not age, are the determining factors. Many democratic countries choose to elect heads of government who are over seventy years old. If these individuals are thought not too old to govern states then others are certainly not too old to stand trial for war crimes. Again we quote Allan Ryan, whose experience of interviewing and compiling cases against alleged war criminals leads him to observe:

"Many people assume that those who perpetrated the Holocaust have lived for 40 years with the grief and contrition in their hearts. They have paid the price, or so it is believed - why hound them to their graves? My answer is that such an assumption, so far as I can tell, is simply wrong. I see no evidence whatever that any of these men have been even slightly discomforted, let alone tormented, by their actions in the past. To the contrary, they blandly deny they were ever present at the scene, or if they admit that they were there, they minimise the significance of their actions and then rationalise even that...

"I am aware of no Nazi criminal who has come forward accused in legal proceedings, to say, "At last you have found me out. Let me unburden my conscience. Let me atone for the past." It does not happen. Conscience has nothing to do with it and so those who counsel us to refrain out of a humane consideration for the sufferings of the guilty are, to my mind, misinformed."

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