Nuremberg anniversary should prompt shame not celebration

President Steinmeier at Nuremberg today

Earlier today Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the German Federal Republic, presided over a commemoration at Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, marking the 75th anniversary of the start of the infamous 'Nuremberg trials' on November 20th 1945.

As President Steinmeier put it today:

"Here, in this very room, while the rubble was being cleared away outside, the four victorious powers of World War II laid the foundation for the legal order of a new world."

Yet this anniversary should have been not an honoured occasion but a source of shame for all concerned, as the late Professor Robert Faurisson pointed out at the time of the 65th anniversary.

Right from the start, informed observers recognised that the Nuremberg trials were a travesty. Among many eminent critics was the veteran US Senator Robert Taft, who denounced the trial process as early as October 1946 in a comprehensive critique that included the point that trial of the "vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with forms of justice", and that the process was based on a "Russian idea of the purpose of trials, government policy and not justice, having little relation to our Anglo-Saxon heritage".

By Russian, Sen. Taft of course meant Soviet – and his use of the term "Anglo-Saxon" hinted at an underlying characteristic of many Soviet rulers that was neither Russian nor Anglo-Saxon.

Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone

US Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone was equally contemptuous of the Nuremberg trials, which he described as a "high-grade lynching" and "a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas".

In fact high-level criticism of the Nuremberg charade began right from the moment in October 1941 when the Allies (which in practice at that time meant the British Empire and the Soviet Union, with diplomatic lip-service paid to others) first began discussing the notion of "war crimes trials".

Maurice Hankey (by this time Lord Hankey) was the effective founder of the modern Civil Service, having been Cabinet Secretary from 1916 to 1938 and forged Britain's war-winning government machine during the First World War.

Hankey had a key role in the Versailles peace conferences that followed that war, and during the autumn of 1941 he wrote to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden urging him not to repeat the mistakes of that foolishly vengeful 'peace'.

Eden replied that he agreed with much of Hankey's critique, but warned that Britain's allies (for which we must read the Soviets, Poles and others) were already planning to go ahead with a declaration on "war crimes" that "would go a good deal further than ours".

Therefore, Eden warned Hankey, he should accept the relatively "inoffensive" Foreign Office draft, otherwise "we are likely to find the Allies coming out with something far more embarrassing".

The embarrassment was to last more than 75 years, insofar as Eden and his successors were embarrassable. Despite his initial reluctance and Hankey's even franker opposition, Eden and his government were drawn into accepting a ludicrous catalogue of "war crimes" charges that have become set in stone as unchallengeable history. The Nuremberg judgment even asserted that Germany was responsible for the Katyn massacre of Polish officers and intellectuals – a charge that everyone now accepts as nonsense.

Lord Hankey (formerly Sir Maurice Hankey), one of the earliest critics of the 'war crimes' charade

Yet we are required in 2020 to celebrate and honour the sham justice of Nuremberg that incorporated this nonsense as truth.

Eden's warning about "embarrassing" judicial processes did have one echo almost eight decades later.

Just a few weeks before this 75th anniversary, German prosecutors in Dresden were due to bring Lady Michèle Renouf to court over a speech that she made on an earlier anniversary in February 2018 – the 73rd anniversary of the Allied terror bombing of Dresden.

Among the remarks in this speech – for which Lady Renouf was arrested, charged and faced a possible five-year prison sentence – was a quotation from Lord Hankey, who had opposed the terror bombing as well as the postwar Nuremberg trial travesty.

Eventually German prosecutors realised the embarrassment they would face in having a court (and accompanying press) hear the documented historical truth about Hankey and others quoted by Lady Renouf, regarding Nuremberg, Dresden and other aspects of the Second World War, including the alleged 'Holocaust' of European Jewry.

This was among the several reasons why charges against Lady Renouf were dropped at the eleventh hour.

Over coming weeks and months this blog and associated social media accounts will continue to examine reasons for the Federal Republic's judicial embarrassment.

This week Lady Renouf discussed aspects of her case with Dr Ed DeVries on the TBR History Hour – see link below.

Britain and Germany begin reckoning with historical truth

 

Horst Mahler and Ursula Haverbeck celebrate their release this week

This week two incarcerated Germans – 84-year-old Horst Mahler and 92-year-old Ursula Haverbeck – celebrated their release from jail. The outside world finds it incredible that people of this age should be jailed for anything – still more incredible that their 'crimes' were political: daring to question orthodox versions of mid-20th century European history.

Horst Mahler had been prosecuted for several political offences since 2003, and had been in a Brandenburg prison since June 2017, having earlier been jailed from 2009 to 2015. During his sentence he has suffered increasing ill health including the amputation of both legs.

Ursula Haverbeck had been imprisoned for two and a half years since May 2018 and has faced repeated trials after daring to ask questions of the German authorities about what she terms "the biggest and most persistent lie in history" – the alleged 'holocaust' of European Jewry.

Meanwhile a new era in Anglo-German relations was hailed this same week with the visit of the heir to the British throne – the Prince of Wales – to Germany, the first member of the British Royal Family to attend Germany's National Day of Mourning which began in 1919 to commemorate the dead of the First World War.

The Prince of Wales and German President Steinmeier lay wreaths to commemorate Germany's National Day of Mourning on November 15th

The Prince noted that Berlin "embodies so much of the history of our continent, and all that we have been through". His wish for reconciliation depends of course on a truthful and honest reckoning with the past – which would require Germany to abandon its notorious Volksverhetzung law 130. That law prohibits the normal historical argument and conflicting research that in every other field is regarded as essential to establish truth and falsehood.

Just a month earlier the German state averted severe embarrassment when prosecutors dropped their case against a British citizen who had been arrested while addressing a memorial event in Dresden in February 2018.

Lady Michèle Renouf had overheard a German lady at this event saying that Britons had no right to be in Dresden, because of the Royal Air Force's terror bombing of the city in February 1945.

Lady Renouf with the Prince of Wales at his family residence, Highgrove House

In a brief impromptu speech replying to these comments, Lady Renouf sought to explain why she and fellow Britons had come to Dresden to apologise for the real holocaust of German civilians there and in other German towns and cities during the Second World War.

For this and other comments Lady Renouf was arrested and charged under German laws that prohibit 'Holocaust denial' and generally end in prison sentences.

However for reasons that will be explored on this blog over the next few weeks, Dresden prosecutors eventually concluded (after two and a half years preparing their case) that a trial would be too embarrassing as it risked drawing attention to matters referred to in Lady Renouf's speech that the political establishment would rather forget. They dropped the charges just two days before the trial was to begin in October 2020.

Ursula Haverbeck faces fresh criminal charges this month but increasing numbers of legal and constitutional experts, as well as political and historical commentators, now believe that 'anti-revisionist' or 'historical memory' laws are untenable. As Britain marked the 100th anniversary last week of the burial of the Unknown Soldier at Westminster Abbey – the emblematic victim of 20th century European brothers' wars – is it too much to expect the Second World War and its legacy to be examined as history rather than distorted as theology?

Lady Renouf with Wolfgang Wagner – grandson of the composer – at the 1997 Bayreuth Festival.  As the son of a German father and English mother, Wolfgang Wagner was a symbol of our shared heritage.

In her speech at Dresden for which the German state now seeks to criminalise Lady Renouf, she referred to the mass terror bombing (driven by deliberate murderous policy of Allied governments) which burned alive countless numbers of German civilians in February 1945.  She pointed out the relevance today of the Dresden Holocaust – that this so-called "moral bombing" (having avoided being classed as a war crime), has licensed the targeting of civilians as standard policy ever since – borne out by the powers that ruled the post-1945 world order in their further terror bombings of civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.

A similar "twistspeak" is employed via a compliant mainstream media to mislead the public on a range of issues – ranging from the "weapons of mass destruction" lie that led to the illegal war in Iraq, to lies about 20th century history, including the Second World War, that continue to addle the minds of Britons and fellow Europeans.

In a televised broadcast (above) recorded in December 2007 with sociologist Dr M. Saeed Bahmanpour of the Islamic College for Advanced Studies, Middlesex University, Lady Michèle Renouf alludes to the Iraq War WMD lie and discusses the "fraudulent freedoms" offered by Western "democracy". In particular she focuses on the "twistspeak" that exploits credulous consumers for the benefit of powerful vested interests.

Lady Renouf's analysis of "twistspeak" is informed by her decades of inside knowledge of the advertising industry, following her lifelong career as an international advertising actress and model (see a small sample of Lady Renouf's advertising work in video below).

 

Renouf trial to go ahead on 16th October in Dresden

Lady Renouf's lifelong career as an advertising actress and model included German TV ads for Tchibo coffee – now she will appear as defendant in a Dresden criminal trial

Lady Michèle Renouf's trial will take place next week – Friday 16th October – at the Dresden Amtsgericht (district court).

She is accused under Germany's notorious §130 which defines as criminal Volksverhetzung (public incitement) a wide range of activity that would be perfectly normal in other democracies.

On this occasion the 'criminal conduct' was an impromptu speech by Lady Renouf at a memorial event in Dresden in 2018, commemorating the RAF and USAAF terror bombing of the city and the incineration of countless civilians in February 1945.

RAF Wing Commander Hubert Raymond Allen wrote:
"The final phase of Bomber Command's operations was far and away the worst. Traditional British chivalry and the use of minimum force in war was to become a mockery and the outrages perpetrated by the bombers will be remembered a thousand years hence."
(H.R. Allen, The Legacy of Lord Trenchard (Cassell, 1972), p. 168)

German prosecutors now seek to criminalise memory of that outrage, and have brought a British citizen to trial for the 'crime' of paying tribute to the memory of the dead and for acknowledging the crimes of her own country's leaders.

That's one reason why the trial on 16th October 2020 is so remarkable. Further news and reflections about this case will appear here and on associated social media sites throughout the next fortnight and during the weeks and months to come.