Abstract

AbstractThis essay investigates how Allied postwar planners sought to overcome a set of legal, political, and pragmatic problems in the punishment of Nazi perpetrators by turning to conspiracy law. In doing so, they sought to glean the rhetorical benefits of conspiracy discourse and argument but were largely thwarted due to the specialized burdens of proof required by law. Here, I suggest that while everyday uses of conspiracy discourse can overcome the problem of assigning individual guilt in the midst of dispersed and collective criminality due to its low burdens of proof, the heart of the Western legal tradition—the fault principle—stymies the effectiveness of conspiracy law as a charge. Despite its relative inefficacy, conspiracy law has had a significant legacy in shaping postwar understandings of World War II and in providing a precedent to hold perpetrators accountable in recent postconflict trials. The continued usage of conspiracy law, despite its shortcomings, points to the limits of legal solutions in the wake of mass atrocities and the need for creative mechanisms for dealing with perceptions of individual and collective guilt.

Journal
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published
2021-09-01
DOI
10.14321/rhetpublaffa.24.3.0521
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References (104)

  1. 1. It should be noted that though American press attitudes toward reports of atrocities in Europe significant…
  2. 2. The fullest version of Morgenthau’s plan can be found in Henry Morgenthau Jr., Germany Is Our Problem (New…
  3. 3. Stimson to Roosevelt, “Transcript, 9 September, 1944,” in Smith, The American Road to Nuremberg, 30.
  4. 4. For a detailed description of Bernays’s role in postwar planning, see Bradley F. Smith, The Road to Nuremb…
  5. 5. Bernays to Stimson, “Memorandum, Trial of European War Criminals, 15 September, 1944,” in Smith, The Ameri…
Show all 104 →
  1. 6. Henry Stimson, “Diary Entry, October 24, 1944,” in The Henry Lewis Stimson Diaries in the Yale University …
  2. 7. David Zarefsky’s study of Lincoln’s and Douglas’s use of conspiratorial argument illustrates the use of co…
  3. 8. The pragmatic usage of conspiracy discourse and conspiracy law by Allied officials, as explained in the ca…
  4. 9. Michael Pfau’s definition of conspiracy discourse as both “concrete instances of persuasion as well as the…
  5. 10. Throughout the text, I make a distinction between the everyday and legal use of conspiratorial discourse.…
  6. and Douglas Walton, Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006):…
  7. 11. I take as my texts postwar planning memos from the Roosevelt administration (1944–45), transcripts of del…
  8. 12. Here, I refer to the narrower category of conspiracy argument distinguished by Pfau and Zarefsky—the logi…
  9. 13. For scholarly investigations of how conspiracy discourse motivates action in these movements, see Timothy…
  10. and Brett Bricker and Jacob Justice, "The Postmodern Medical Paradigm: A Case Study of Anti-MMR Vaccine Argum…
  11. 14. A landmark study in the role of conspiracy in historically motivating public action is Bernard Bailyn’s T…
  12. 15. Zarefsky, “Conspiracy Arguments in the Lincoln–Douglas Debates,” 72.
  13. 16. Earl Creps, “The Conspiracy Argument as Rhetorical Genre” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1980).
  14. 17. Gordon Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century,” William…
  15. 18. Zarefsky, “Conspiracy Arguments in the Lincoln–Douglas Debates,” 73.
  16. 19. Marouf Hasian Jr., Celeste Michelle Condit, and John Louis Lucaites, “The Rhetorical Boundaries of ‘the L…
  17. 20. Hasian Jr. et al., “The Rhetorical Boundaries of ‘the Law,‘” 345.
  18. 21. The first instance of conspiracy law was created during the reign of Edward I but developed its distincti…
  19. 22. See Juliet Okoth’s overview of the distinctions between English, American, and continental concepts of co…
  20. 23. Okoth, The Crime of Conspiracy in International Law.
  21. 24. Mohamed Othman, Accountability for International Humanitarian Law Violations: The Case of Rwanda and East…
  22. 25. A helpful overview of this tension is summarized in George P. Fletcher, Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt…
  23. 26. Amy J. Sepinwall summarizes the foundations of criminal law, arguing that the fault principle is one of t…
  24. 27. William A. Schabas, Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Universi…
  25. 28. For more on the development of Western (and particularly American) legal doctrine and legal attitudes reg…
  26. and George P. Fletcher, "The Storrs Lectures: Liberals and Romantics at War: The Problem of Collective Guilt,…
  27. 29. Sepinwall, “Faultless Guilt,” 531–32.
  28. 30. Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style,” 409.
  29. 31. See discussion of actus reas versus mens reas in Okoth, The Crime of Conspiracy, 9–20.
  30. 32. The pedagogical focus of the Nuremberg trials (and its attendant effects) is discussed in Marouf A. Hasia…
  31. 33. Michaela Hoenicke Moore, Know Your Enemy: The American Debate on Nazism 1933–1945 (Cambridge, UK: Cambrid…
  32. 34. An exemplar of this logic within the scholarly literature of the time can be seen in former Yale Presiden…
  33. 35. A good representation of the debate over the causal origins of the war (and of the “hoodwinked” and “thug…
  34. 36. Morgenthau Jr., Germany Is Our Problem.
  35. 37. For example, see Henry Stimson, “Notes of Henry L. Stimson for a Conference with the President, August 25…
  36. 38. Morgenthau Jr., Germany Is Our Problem.
  37. 39. It should be noted that Stimson’s belief that using the legal system was a mark of civilization led him t…
  38. 40. Bernays reflects this concern in his memo, stating that though some of the “worst outrages” were committe…
  39. 41. This concern is articulated succinctly by Attorney General Francis Biddle in a circulated memorandum, Fra…
  40. 42. Stimson to Morgenthau, “Memorandum, 5 September, 1944,” in Smith, The American Road to Nuremberg, 30.
  41. 43. For more on Stimson and Morgenthau’s efforts to secure Roosevelt’s endorsement of their respective plans,…
  42. 44. Bernays to Stimson, “Memorandum, Trial of European War Criminals, 15 September 1944,” in Smith, The Ameri…
  43. 45. The benefit of the conspiracy plan, Stimson explained to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, was the “prosec…
  44. 46. For a description of this period, see Smith, The Road to Nuremberg, 54–55.
  45. 47. For an example of how it was reported, see “Nazis Massacre Captive Yanks in Belgium, Survivors Report,” W…
  46. 48. Robert H. Jackson, “Minutes from July 2, 1945, London Conference,” in Report of Robert H. Jackson, United…
  47. 49. Six organizations were ultimately tried, to include the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi P…
  48. 50. Robert H. Jackson, “Minutes from July 2, 1945, London Conference,” in Report of Robert H. Jackson, 130.
  49. 51. Jackson, “Minutes from July 2, 1945, London Conference,” in Report of Robert H. Jackson, 130.
  50. 52. Robert H. Jackson, “Minutes from July 25, 1945, London Conference,” in Report of Robert H. Jackson, 375.
  51. 53. As Gros argued: “I should think that in consequence our differences are more or less this: the Americans …
  52. 54. For a full list of charges, see “Agreement and Charter for the International Military Tribunal at Nurembe…
  53. 55. Robert H. Jackson, “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Second Day, November 21, 1945,” in Trial of the Major Wa…
  54. 56. Jackson, “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Second Day, November 21, 1945,” in Trial of the Major War Criminals.
  55. 57. Twenty-four individuals were ultimately selected to stand trial. Out of the 24, only 21 were tried in per…
  56. 58. Jackson, “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Second Day, November 21, 1945,” in Trial of the Major War Criminals.
  57. 59. Otto Stahmer in Trial of the Major War Criminals, 17:514.
  58. 60. Walter Siemers, defense counsel for the Grand Admiral of the German Navy Erich Raeder, capitalized on thi…
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  63. 65. For analysis on how Jackson’s documentation-based strategy influenced his description of Nazi atrocities,…
  64. 66. Zarefsky notes that one of the strengths of conspiratorial rhetoric is its reliance on inferences versus …
  65. 67. Stahmer in Trial of the Major War Criminals, 17:514.
  66. 68. Franz Ecner in Trial of the Major War Criminals, 18:507.
  67. 69. Gustav Steinbauer in Trial of the Major War Criminals, 19:51.
  68. 70. Due to the odd wording of the conspiracy charge in the final charter for the IMT at Nuremberg, the docume…
  69. 71. For a fuller account of the atrocities committed by German businesses, particularly those committed by IG…
  70. 72. Helpful here is Doreen Lustig’s analysis of the two different images of Germany that emerge from the IMT …
  71. 73. See also Spicka’s description of the American prosecution of I.G. Farben in “The Devil’s Chemists on Trial.”
  72. 74. Fritz Wecker as quoted in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control C…
  73. 75. Eduard Wahl as quoted in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, 8:966.
  74. 76. James Morris as quoted in Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals: Selected and Prepared by the United Nat…
  75. 77. Hu Anderson as quoted in Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, 9:414–15.
  76. 78. This is discussed at greater length in Donald Bloxham, Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Forma…
  77. 79. See, for example, Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (London, UK: Odhams Press Limited, 1952); and …
  78. 80. A. J. P. Taylor, Origins of the Second World War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 12.
  79. 81. Taylor, Origins, 11.
  80. 82. Richard Bessel, “Functionalists vs. Intentionalists: The Debate Twenty Years on or Whatever Happened to F…
  81. 83. Bessel, “Functionalists vs. Intentionalists,” 18. One of the best examples of early intentionalist schola…
  82. 84. Waitman Wade Beorn, “New Paths, New Directions: Reflections on Forty Years of Holocaust Studies and the G…
  83. 85. A good example of early structuralist scholarship is Martin Broszat, German National Socialism, 1919–1945…
  84. 86. See also Osiel’s description of how knowledge and responsibility are depicted under charges of Superior R…
  85. 87. Jens Ohlin, “Incitement and Conspiracy to Commit Genocide,” UN Genocide Convention—A Commentary, ed. Paol…
  86. 88. Donald Bloxham, The Final Solution: A Genocide (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009).
  87. 89. For example, after the Rwandan genocide, accusations of conspiracy abounded. The official report conducte…
  88. 90. For example, the court, in The Prosecutor v. Bagosora et al., ruled that despite the prosecutorial attemp…
  89. 91. See also Jens Ohlin’s analysis of the role of intent in the trial in “Three Conceptual Problems with the …
  90. 92. For more on the rise of criminal trials in the transition away from illiberal regimes, see Kathryn Sibbin…
  91. 93. Jens Ohlins, “Attempt, Conspiracy, and Incitement to Commit Genocide,” Cornell Law Faculty Publications, …
  92. 94. Mark Osiel writes, “Criminal law” in the wake of mass atrocities, “has generally insisted on shoehorning …
  93. 95. Mar A. Drumbl, “Pluralizing International Criminal Justice,” Michigan Law Review 103 (2005): 1309.
  94. 96. Osiel, “The Banality of Good,” 1765.
  95. 97. Commentators such as Fletcher and Drumbl have suggested that personal culpability may have to be abandone…
  96. 98. For specifics on how alternative methods of conflict resolution could be used in conjunction with crimina…
  97. 99. Hasian Jr. and Hasian compellingly make the argument that at least in the case of Holocaust trials, the d…
  98. 100. Osiel, “The Banality of Good,” 1860.
  99. 101. Teitel, Transitional Justice.