Sociology 4395: Worksheet--"American Experience: The Nuremberg Trials" (Before groups, you also need to read the Raul Hilberg reading on the Nazi Holocaust)

1. What was new about the Nuremberg trials?

2. What were the opinions of the leaders of England, the Soviet Union, and the United States in terms of what should happen to the Nazi leaders after the war? What did they see as the pros and cons of trials vs. execution? If there were to be trials, how did they think trials should be conducted?

3. What was the background of American chief prosecutor Robert Jackson? What were his doubts and concerns about the trial?

4. Who was Hermann Goering and why was he defendant number 1?

5. What was the role of film in the trial?

6. How did Goering support the necessity of concentration camps?

7. Describe Goering's testimony and Jackson's cross-examination of Goering.

Sociology 4395: Groups--"The Nuremberg Trials"

1. Hermann Goering presented an autographed picture to an American general with this inscription: "War is like a football game, whoever loses gives his opponent his hand, and everything is forgotten." Do you suppose Goering could have believed this, and if so, how?

2.Raul Hilberg argues ("The Nazi Holocaust: Using Bureaucracies, Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Genocide") that the bureaucrats who were drawn into what he calls "the destruction process" in Nazi Germany were not different in their moral makeup from the rest of the population. How does he support this argument? How could those who played a role in the holocaust justify their behavior? How did it happen that millions of people could be slaughtered with little or no resistance from the large bureaucracy that was required to plan and organize the killings?

3. Hannah Arendt, in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality fo Evil, says of Eichmann (who organized the transportation of tens of thousands of Jews to the death camps): "The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted no sadistic, that they were and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal." Do you believe that normal people can become involved in organized evil on a large scale? What do you think that implies about human nature?

4. Until 1864, no international rules of war existed. Then in 1864 12 nations signed the first Geneva Convention, establishing neutrality for medical personnel. Later the rules were expanded to protect civilians, the wounded, and prisoners of war, as well as banning weapons or methods of war likely to cause unnecessary losses or excessive suffering. After the Nuremberg trials, Geneva Conventions were again revised and eventually endorsed by 190 countries. Do you think countries at war at apt to obey such rules? Is it even possible, in light of the nature of modern warfare? Can you think of situations in which American military and political leaders have accepted the necessity of killing large numbers of civilians in order to win a war, and how do you assess the rights or wrongs of such situations?