Nuremburg

[20eyes]

Watched it last night and liked it. Didn't blow me away but it was entertaining.

But I had a question for WWII history buffs regarding Admiral Karl Donitz, Supreme Commander of the Kriegsmarine (Navy). He was one of the 22 defendants and got the lightest sentence, 10 years.

But from my (very little) knowledge of the guy he was career Navy way before Hitler came to power and never joined the Nazi Party. He seems a little like Erwin Rommel (who the Nazi's murdered), in that he was a career guy who loved and fought for his country.

Apparently, he ended the Kriegsmarine's policy of rescuing overboard enemy sailors after one of his U-boats got attacked by a US B-24 while rescuing survivors of a ship they'd just hit. And the US had a similar policy.

I assume it was because he became president of the Third Reich after Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler had all offed themselves. And according to the movie, Hermann Goring was Hitler's number two since the 1930's or before. Seems to me Donitz kind of got left holding the bag. His only line in the movie is (paraphrasing), "I've been here (in custody) for 76 days and not charged with a crime".

Was this guy doing some awful sh*t I haven't heard about?

 

[FarmerCy1]

Watched it last night and liked it. Didn't blow me away but it was entertaining.

But I had a question for WWII history buffs regarding Admiral Karl Donitz, Supreme Commander of the Kriegsmarine (Navy). He was one of the 22 defendants and got the lightest sentence, 10 years.

But from my (very little) knowledge of the guy he was career Navy way before Hitler came to power and never joined the Nazi Party. He seems a little like Erwin Rommel (who the Nazi's murdered), in that he was a career guy who loved and fought for his country.

Apparently, he ended the Kriegsmarine's policy of rescuing overboard enemy sailors after one of his U-boats got attacked by a US B-24 while rescuing survivors of a ship they'd just hit. And the US had a similar policy.

I assume it was because he became president of the Third Reich after Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler had all offed themselves. And according to the movie, Hermann Goring was Hitler's number two since the 1930's or before. Seems to me Donitz kind of got left holding the bag. His only line in the movie is (paraphrasing), "I've been here (in custody) for 76 days and not charged with a crime".

Was this guy doing some awful sh*t I haven't heard about?

He was charged primarily for the unrestricted sub warfare and the Laconia Order refusing to pick up survivors after action had ended (in this particular incident, 3 U boats torpedoed a hospital ship flying the Red Cross flag, then the subs refused to surface after said sinking and aid the survivors). It really didn’t have much to do with him being named President of Germany in Hitler’s will.

His attorney mitigated a good portion of his guilt due to those two orders when they threatened to put Adm. Nimitz on the stand basically saying US Subs in the Pacific operated under the same rules. The tribunal refused to seat Nimitz as a witness and I’m guessing the trade off was the light sentence.

I saw it in theaters as well as rewatched it on Netflix. It wasn’t a bad movie, but I preferred the TNT one produced years ago with Alec Baldwin as Bob Jackson and Brian Cox as Goering- it focused more on the law side of it and presented more of the trial piece of it rather than focusing on the psychiatrists.

 

[FLYINGCYCLONE]

He was the guy who ran all the U Boats. Then stepped up to run the whole Navy later. Hitler liked him and wanted him as his successor at the end, but things were done by then.

 

[DesertClone1]

The ending was... something. And now i want to read his book.

 

[Kinch]

Donitz was a dedicated Nazi, don’t let people downplay his role.

 

[FarmerCy1]

Donitz was a dedicated Nazi, don’t let people downplay his role.

Absolutely- he was responsible for normalizing Nazism within the Kriegsmarine. But it is a decent legal strategy from a defense perspective to put the prosecuting allied countries on trial in the court of public opinion for having the same strategy. Putting Nimitz on the stand would have been a disaster, and a pretty significant blow to the prosecution.

 

[Kinch]

Donitz had foreknowledge of Hitler’s plan to invade Poland. I didn’t watch the show, but Donitz, I’ve heard, sailed prior to the invasion. I think you can surmise from what we learned that he was part of the “conspiracy”, if you will, to start World War II, as much as his attorney sought to deny it.

 

[cyclone13]

He was a NAZI and was unrepentant even after being sentenced. His defense was better than the others except Speer’s.

On a side note I had a chance to visit the Palace of Justice where the trial was held several year ago and the court room was and is still used. We were lucky to be able to get into the room as it wasn’t used.

 

[Kinch]

Yamamoto would have been executed for his role in the Pearl Harbor attack, even though there is ample evidence he was against Japan’s entry into the war and Japan’s signing of the Tripartite Pact. In fact, he was executed without a trial when Nimitz himself (with permission from Roosevelt) signed on to the mission that killed Yamamoto in Bougainville. I don’t understand why Donitz wasn’t afforded the same treatment.

 

[FLYINGCYCLONE]

Some of the trials were a mess? Some nasty people never went to trial. Maybe?, the USA didn’t want to create enemies in a country they wanted to stay away from communism?

 

[Kinch]

Netflix needs to do a documentary on Hirohito. We should have used him to get the army to surrender and time for Diugout Doug to get his rule set up and them we should have hanged him. that dude was never been made to account for everything he sanctioned.

 

[FarmerCy1]

Netflix needs to do a documentary on Hirohito. We should have used him to get the army to surrender and time for Diugout Doug to get his rule set up and them we should have hanged him. that dude was never been made to account for everything he sanctioned.

Not sure if it’s on streaming or if you’ve seen it, but there was a movie made in 2012 called The Emporer that went into some of the details as far as MacArthur deciding whether or not to charge Hirohito as part of the Tokyo Trials. Not sure how much of it is fact, but it was an interesting movie

 

[Cyched]

Netflix needs to do a documentary on Hirohito. We should have used him to get the army to surrender and time for Diugout Doug to get his rule set up and them we should have hanged him. that dude was never been made to account for everything he sanctioned.

I haven't read into it much, but MacArthur wanted to keep Hirohito to avoid civil unrest among the Japanese while American and the allies established their occupation regime. The Japanese people truly deified the emperor even then.

Not sure I agree with the decision, as Hirohito was absolutely complicit. But I understand the rationale.

 

[pourcyne]

I haven't read into it much, but MacArthur

My dad was in the Philippines and nearly killed on Feb 19, 1945. I remember taking his Purple Heart to school in 2nd grade for Show and Tell.

To his dying day, my dad loathed MacArthur, so much so that whenever I read MacArthur's name I think of my dad who was a true and honest man. That's always made me think that MacArthur was not such a person. I'm not sure anything will ever change my mind on that one.

Carry on.

 

[Kinch]

My dad was in the Philippines and nearly killed on Feb 19, 1945. I remember taking his Purple Heart to school in 2nd grade for Show and Tell.

To his dying day, my dad loathed MacArthur, so much so that whenever I read MacArthur's name I think of my dad who was a true and honest man. That's always made me think that MacArthur was not such a person. I'm not sure anything will ever change my mind on that one.

Carry on.

He was a snake. He did a good job after the war, but he should have been relieved after making decisions that led to Bataan.

 

[pourcyne]

He was a snake. He did a good job after the war

Interesting. I thought Truman canned his butt for doing such a poor job in Korea.

 

[FarmerCy1]

Interesting. I thought Truman canned his butt for doing such a poor job in Korea.

That, and for disobeying direct orders from Truman several times

 

[Kinch]

Interesting. I thought Truman canned his butt for doing such a poor job in Korea.

I should have said he did a good job in Japan after the war. Sorry. He should have been court martialed for his actions in the Philippines in 1942 and Truman was right for canning his butt for insubordination in Korea.

 

[Kinch]

Seth Paridon, former staff historian at the World War II museum, makes a convincing case that it was a huge mistake that Hirohito wasn’t held accountable. He listed several problems that we still deal with in the pacific from that failure. True, it was believed that he needed to be there in some capacity after the war to help hold Japan together. But that may have been overstated.

 

[pourcyne]

Seth Paridon, former staff historian at the World War II museum, makes a convincing case that it was a huge mistake that Hirohito wasn’t held accountable. He listed several problems that we still deal with in the pacific from that failure. True, it was believed that he needed to be there in some capacity after the war to help hold Japan together. But that may have been overstated.

I wonder. How many Japanese got zapped by A-bombs? Over half a million, counting the radiation sickness that followed. Shouldn't that have been enough retribution?