Letters from Nuremberg
My Father’s Narrative of a Quest for Justice
By Sen. Christopher J. Dodd with Lary Bloom
Crown Publishing
New York, 2007
I feel that we are doing something so important that it is awesome—it is almost purifying. It has a deep religious meaning, of that I feel certain. Surely it is God’s wish that men not wage wars of aggression. The proof here is absolutely overwhelming. I would never have believed that men could be so evil, so determined on a course of war; of murder; of slavery; of dreadful tyranny. Never before has such a record been written and men will read it for a thousand years in amazement and wonder how it ever happened.
**
It is as ever not easy for me to condemn. I see something worthwhile even in these evil men. And I regret that the greatness that went to evil did not exert itself for good. These men could have made Germany a great nation and thus enriched the rest of the world. The mystery of Hitler grows upon me day by day. I mean simply that I am baffled when I consider that able minds like Kesselring and others were completely under his influence—and they are not weaklings. On the contrary they impress me as men of strong minds and of strong will. Some of them are beyond doubt personally of good character. They are men who fear God. I intend to devote some thinking and some time to this question. For in the answer lies something that we all must know.
Oh, for the days of long letters—and men and women of honor.
When current senator and presidential candidate Chris Dodd and his family stumbled across a treasure trove of letters from his father, Thomas Dodd, written home to his wife during his prosecution of the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, he did the world a tremendous and timely favor by publishing. For if ever we could use a reminder of the necessity of keeping a steady and true moral compass when dealing with seemingly inexplicable human cruelty, it is now.
It is tempting from the plateau of the present-day to look back on historical moments as unfolding in an inevitable order, with obvious outcomes. But as this brilliant collection of letters home to "Grace, my beloved one," reveal, the reality of the living it is quite different, mired in doubt, pettiness, homesickness and preoccupations that can distract from the primary event.
Thomas Dodd didn’t arrive on the scene of the Nuremberg Trials with expectations of serving as one of the lead prosecutors. He was signing on, he thought, as one of the American legal team’s evidence compilers and interrogators. But as the slow-motion, cumbersome process moved forward—beset by difficulties of having France, Britain and Russia as co-prosecutors and blurred lines between military and civilian tribunal techniques—his ability to cross-examine and cut to the chase landed him the position of second in command to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. Distrustful of the Russians, despairing of the bureaucratic and limelight-seeking military, homesick to the core, Dodd writes home nightly over a 15-month period what his son points out is a "first draft of history."
The letters are bright with character sketches, from the major Nazis on trial to his bodyguard. His observations about the littered, ruined landscape of Germany are haunting; his arrival in Nuremberg follows so quickly on the heels of Germany’s surrender that the scent of rotting bodies in the rubble created by Allied bombing is still present in the streets. Incredible moments of historical hope are recounted too, such as the following description of a double-header played between two divisions of the American army:
But the sight and the significance of 40,000 Americans in baseball mood in the Nazi stadium was significant. There, where Hitler corrupted and misled the youth of Germany, I heard thousands of young American soldiers calling the umpire names, I heard players called "bums" and all the old chatter and ribaldry of every American ballpark. It made that arena sing.
Tucked between the grousing about the incredibly slow trial preparation, the "celebrities" drawn to the scene, the parties, the blow-ups over contract bridge games, are the shining, nuanced, philosophical passages reflecting on the meaning of justice, accountability and honor. He exudes the exhilaration of a lawyer well aware that the daunting process of trying the men responsible for the blood lost and the havoc wreaked during World War II is unprecedented, and that care must be taken as the world watches the proceedings.
"What a disordered period of history we live in," he writes in one letter. In another, "Wars bring changes—lasting changes for the worse. I know of nothing good from war. All that silly talk about the advance of science and such leaves me cold. Give me peace and retarded science." And as the evidence is compiled, he remarks, "It is a terrible page in the history of the human race." Frustrated at the questioning, day after day, he writes wearily to his wife: "Well—the same old song. It would be relieving to hear one of them admit some blame for something. They blame everything on the dead or missing."
The passages like the latter go to the heart of why his son and family felt it was time the world saw these letters. Chris Dodd explicitly draws the connection in his opening explanatory chapters between the Bush administration’s disregard for rule of law and current treatment of prisoners, and the monumental undertaking of his father’s generation to set up an international framework that would honor civilization over barbarity, and balance the understandable desire for vengeance with the painstaking weight of moral authority. "Of course we must give these defendants a fair hearing—a most fair hearing," he tells his wife, "otherwise this whole effort is a farce. No decent lawyer feels otherwise." Reading this, it’s impossible not to grieve for what has been lost for America under Gonzales and Bush.
Indeed, as his son points out:
On the morning of December 13, 1945, my father presented to the court an argument that has an eerie connection to the present. He charged the Nazis, among many other heinous crimes, with "the apprehension of victims and their confinement without trial, often without charges, generally with no indication of the length of their detention."
The senior Dodd also displayed a depth of understanding about human character that seems to be out of reach of the administration responsible for Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and "collateral damage." He writes, "Please do not think I am becoming soft about the Nazis—but in this mission, as in most realistic affairs, one knows that things are not all black and white. For nothing ever is. There are always shadings. I have learned such in these few months."
Dodd’s journeys around ravaged Europe and the growing alarm at the Russian territorial and political grabs—presaging the ensuing Cold War—are explored throughout. There are times when he despairs of America’s own ability to deal with, or pay attention to, what evil countries far from us are capable of. He writes, "...I am inclined to believe that our people are too selfish, too shallow, too greedy and too irresponsible. It is, I fear, something that must be changed if we are to prosper and play our proper part in the world."
Yet for all his frequent professions of impatience and despair, he manages to hold on to a belief in humankind’s—and America’s—ultimate ability to honor justice and live up to a higher moral standard than crude barbarity. His final sentences in the following passage are challenges we need to meet as a nation, and it is fitting to reflect upon them in our own dark time.
I think the Reds are predatory and imperialistic. BUT—I do not want a war with Russia or with anyone else. I think midway or thereabouts between Churchill and Stalin there is a good firm bit of ground on which we must stand. It is not a battle ground. It is not a playground. And in time, on this ground, I think we can work out a decent way of living, as neighbors, with other people. It will take time. It will take patience. It will take honor. It requires a high mind as a people. It can be done.