April 19, 2019 Friday
Bedtime Story
Robert Kempner and Wannsee Conference
Following his return to the Germany after
the end of the War in 1945 Kempner served as the assistant US chief counsel in
the Nuremberg Trials.
During these trials the minutes and
Protocol of the Wannsee Conference that he had discovered would be used as
evidence.
Kempner had discovered the Protocol while
scavenging through the documents that were obtained from the Foreign Office (in
German it is Auswartiges Amt) of the Third Reich.
This office was largely occupied by the
diplomats who were all men from upper class with a university education and
often with aristocratic background.
All the diplomats during the reign of the
Third Reich had got drunk with the Hitler’s heady brew of giving Germany it’s
much due “world power status” and were sincerely committed to it.
It must be stressed that Kempner discovered
the Protocol as late as in March of 1947 and by then the primary Nuremberg Trials
or the Trial of the major War Criminals before the International Military
Tribunal was over.
This International Military Tribunal opened
in November 19, 1945 and ended with the final sentences being pronounced on the
afternoon of October 1, 1946.
Which means that Kempner’s discovery was
five months too late though that would not be a problem since the trials
conducted by the initial International Military Tribunal would be followed by
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials.
The first session of the tribunal was very
surprisingly presided by a Soviet judge Nikitchenko and the accused party
consisted of 24 major war criminals and seven organizations that included the
Nazi Party as a whole, the entire Reich Cabinet de jure, the Schutzstaffel (SS)
and the Gestapo among others.
Much to my surprise it was not a sham trial
(even though it has been criticized by many as they see it as a form of Victor’s
justice) since of the 24 accused three were acquitted, on two accused no
decision was taken, seven were sentenced to imprisonment for different time periods
depending on the nature of crime and only on 12 were the death sentence
pronounced.
Victor’s justice is a bias form of justice
system which the victorious side applies against the defeated side with the
rules being more harsh against the defeated thereby making it a form of
retributive justice.
Executions of the twelve took place just 15
days after the pronouncement of their sentence.
They were executed by hanging using the
standard drop method (the drop being of 4 to 6 feet) in contrast to the two
other variants of short drop (such as the ones seen in suicides performed over
short stools) and long drop (it is a more scientific method of breaking the
neck by a drop wherein a person’s both weight and height are taken into consideration
to determine the amount of drop needed to break his neck without inadvertently
causing decapitation).
The standard and long drops are supposedly more
humane than the short drops as the break in the neck leads to the fracture of
any of the seven cervical vertebrae.
This in turn is followed by immediate loss
of consciousness.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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