http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1045238
Walter Rockler
Mar 21st 2002
The Economist
-The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen
international aggression since the Nazis attacked
Poland to prevent ?Polish atrocities? against Germans.
The United States has discarded pretensions to
international legality and decency, and embarked on a
course of raw imperialism run amok...When we, the
self-anointed rulers of the planet, issue an ultimatum
to another country, it is ?surrender or die?. To
maintain our ?credibility?, we must crush any
semblance of resistance to our dictates to that
country.
WHAT people seemed to find most interesting in Walter
Rockler's long career as a lawyer was that he had
taken part in the Nuremberg trials. What were the
Nazis really like, he would be asked, Hitler, Goering
and that lot? Hitler never stood trial, he would
patiently remind those whose knowledge of history many
years before they were born was a bit fuzzy. Goering
stood trial and committed suicide. Ten other
defendants were hanged. But, Mr Rockler would add, he
never saw Goering and co. Their trials were disposed
of in 1946, shortly after the end of the second world
war. Mr Rockler arrived in Germany in 1947.
He had answered an advertisement for lawyers to
prosecute a second group of defendants, those accused
of collaborating in war crimes. During the war Mr
Rockler had served as a marine in the Pacific and had
learnt Japanese. He suggested that he might be sent to
Tokyo to prosecute Japanese war criminals. But the
Japanese trials were coming to an end, and Douglas
MacArthur, Japan's American overlord, was not keen to
prolong the agony. In Germany thousands still awaited
the victors' justice. Walter Rockler, a recent
graduate of Harvard University's law school, was
provided with a German phrase book and dispatched
forthwith.
For two years he took part in trials of bankers and
industrialists who had had a hand in the systematic
murder of millions of people and in the illegal
pursuit of war. In 1995, at a conference to mark the
50th anniversary of the start of the trials, he
expressed mixed feelings about their value. Was it
that Nuremberg law was created ex post-facto to suit
the passion and clamour of the time, a view that had
been expressed by William Douglas, a member of the
Supreme Court? No, it wasn't that exactly. Although
some had criticised the trials, they had an important
symbolic value. But they had had no substantial
impact, Mr Rockler said. ?Wars and savagery have not
been deterred.? There had been frequent violations of
the Nuremberg judgment that ?no political or economic
situation? can justify initiating a war of aggression,
and he believed they would continue. Worse, the
violators had included the United States, which had
taken the lead in setting up the Nuremberg trials.
A visit to Russia
Walter Rockler was not by nature a rebel. After
leaving Germany he made tax law his main expertise,
practising it in Chicago, New York and latterly for 36
years in Washington. He had a brief break from private
practice in the 1970s when Henry Kissinger, then
secretary of state, asked him to go to Moscow to
examine a Soviet dossier on possible Nazi-sympathisers
in the United States. Mr Rockler was more intrigued by
the prospect of visiting the Russia from which his
parents had emigrated than of talking to the KGB.
Nevertheless, on his return to the United States he
dutifully accepted the directorship of a new unit set
up by the government to find American Nazis. Nothing
much came from his Nazi hunt, and he left the unit
after two years to resume his tax battles with the
Internal Revenue Service.
However, reawakened memories of the Nuremberg trials
eventually turned Mr Rockler into a critic of American
foreign policy. His concern came to a head with the
bombing of Yugoslavia by American aircraft acting for
NATO. In May 1999 he sent a letter to the Chicago
Tribune, the newspaper of the town where he grew up
and where he received his education before going to
Harvard. It said in part
"The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen
international aggression since the Nazis attacked
Poland to prevent ?Polish atrocities? against Germans.
The United States has discarded pretensions to
international legality and decency, and embarked on a
course of raw imperialism run amok...When we, the
self-anointed rulers of the planet, issue an ultimatum
to another country, it is ?surrender or die?. To
maintain our ?credibility?, we must crush any
semblance of resistance to our dictates to that
country."
Strong words. Even so, in a world where millions upon
millions of words are published each day, Mr Rockler
was surprised by the impact of a letter in a local
paper. As it was republished hither and thither he
found himself a hero of liberals in America and
Europe, a new personality on television, a guest on
the campus circuit, always introduced as a former
prosecutor at Nuremberg. ?Who gave us the authority to
run the world?? he demanded of an audience at
Princeton University. Bill Clinton had violated the
constitution by declaring war, a power entrusted to a
?supine Congress, fascinated only by details of sexual
misconduct?.
Criticism of Mr Rockler was muted. It was difficult to
knock an obviously respectable and intelligent man
just because he was letting off steam. What he did do
was to create a debate about the importance of the
Nuremberg judgment. How do you define ?a war of
aggression?? Could it be in some circumstances a
defensive war? Discuss.
The United States is now engaged, under another
president, in another war. What would Walter Rockler
have said about that? No one knows. For some time Mr
Rockler had been battling against lung cancer, and
lost.
Walter Rockler
Mar 21st 2002
The Economist
-The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen
international aggression since the Nazis attacked
Poland to prevent ?Polish atrocities? against Germans.
The United States has discarded pretensions to
international legality and decency, and embarked on a
course of raw imperialism run amok...When we, the
self-anointed rulers of the planet, issue an ultimatum
to another country, it is ?surrender or die?. To
maintain our ?credibility?, we must crush any
semblance of resistance to our dictates to that
country.
WHAT people seemed to find most interesting in Walter
Rockler's long career as a lawyer was that he had
taken part in the Nuremberg trials. What were the
Nazis really like, he would be asked, Hitler, Goering
and that lot? Hitler never stood trial, he would
patiently remind those whose knowledge of history many
years before they were born was a bit fuzzy. Goering
stood trial and committed suicide. Ten other
defendants were hanged. But, Mr Rockler would add, he
never saw Goering and co. Their trials were disposed
of in 1946, shortly after the end of the second world
war. Mr Rockler arrived in Germany in 1947.
He had answered an advertisement for lawyers to
prosecute a second group of defendants, those accused
of collaborating in war crimes. During the war Mr
Rockler had served as a marine in the Pacific and had
learnt Japanese. He suggested that he might be sent to
Tokyo to prosecute Japanese war criminals. But the
Japanese trials were coming to an end, and Douglas
MacArthur, Japan's American overlord, was not keen to
prolong the agony. In Germany thousands still awaited
the victors' justice. Walter Rockler, a recent
graduate of Harvard University's law school, was
provided with a German phrase book and dispatched
forthwith.
For two years he took part in trials of bankers and
industrialists who had had a hand in the systematic
murder of millions of people and in the illegal
pursuit of war. In 1995, at a conference to mark the
50th anniversary of the start of the trials, he
expressed mixed feelings about their value. Was it
that Nuremberg law was created ex post-facto to suit
the passion and clamour of the time, a view that had
been expressed by William Douglas, a member of the
Supreme Court? No, it wasn't that exactly. Although
some had criticised the trials, they had an important
symbolic value. But they had had no substantial
impact, Mr Rockler said. ?Wars and savagery have not
been deterred.? There had been frequent violations of
the Nuremberg judgment that ?no political or economic
situation? can justify initiating a war of aggression,
and he believed they would continue. Worse, the
violators had included the United States, which had
taken the lead in setting up the Nuremberg trials.
A visit to Russia
Walter Rockler was not by nature a rebel. After
leaving Germany he made tax law his main expertise,
practising it in Chicago, New York and latterly for 36
years in Washington. He had a brief break from private
practice in the 1970s when Henry Kissinger, then
secretary of state, asked him to go to Moscow to
examine a Soviet dossier on possible Nazi-sympathisers
in the United States. Mr Rockler was more intrigued by
the prospect of visiting the Russia from which his
parents had emigrated than of talking to the KGB.
Nevertheless, on his return to the United States he
dutifully accepted the directorship of a new unit set
up by the government to find American Nazis. Nothing
much came from his Nazi hunt, and he left the unit
after two years to resume his tax battles with the
Internal Revenue Service.
However, reawakened memories of the Nuremberg trials
eventually turned Mr Rockler into a critic of American
foreign policy. His concern came to a head with the
bombing of Yugoslavia by American aircraft acting for
NATO. In May 1999 he sent a letter to the Chicago
Tribune, the newspaper of the town where he grew up
and where he received his education before going to
Harvard. It said in part
"The attack on Yugoslavia constitutes the most brazen
international aggression since the Nazis attacked
Poland to prevent ?Polish atrocities? against Germans.
The United States has discarded pretensions to
international legality and decency, and embarked on a
course of raw imperialism run amok...When we, the
self-anointed rulers of the planet, issue an ultimatum
to another country, it is ?surrender or die?. To
maintain our ?credibility?, we must crush any
semblance of resistance to our dictates to that
country."
Strong words. Even so, in a world where millions upon
millions of words are published each day, Mr Rockler
was surprised by the impact of a letter in a local
paper. As it was republished hither and thither he
found himself a hero of liberals in America and
Europe, a new personality on television, a guest on
the campus circuit, always introduced as a former
prosecutor at Nuremberg. ?Who gave us the authority to
run the world?? he demanded of an audience at
Princeton University. Bill Clinton had violated the
constitution by declaring war, a power entrusted to a
?supine Congress, fascinated only by details of sexual
misconduct?.
Criticism of Mr Rockler was muted. It was difficult to
knock an obviously respectable and intelligent man
just because he was letting off steam. What he did do
was to create a debate about the importance of the
Nuremberg judgment. How do you define ?a war of
aggression?? Could it be in some circumstances a
defensive war? Discuss.
The United States is now engaged, under another
president, in another war. What would Walter Rockler
have said about that? No one knows. For some time Mr
Rockler had been battling against lung cancer, and
lost.