Even though the war would continue for another two years, the issue of War crimes and the ones who committed them were a topic of discussion. In this episode of The Northwestern Reviewing Stand from Mutual Radio, David B. Jones, Leon Green, Arthur P. Scott, Curtis Mc Dougall and James H.Mac Burney discuss the question: “Should War Criminals Be Prosecuted?”
In the aftermath of World War 1, prosecution of War Crimes and the people who perpetrated them was met with apathy and eventually dismissed by the Allies and the League Of Nations by 1919. The question was whether World War 2 would be a repeat of that war or would things be different, as was starting to become apparent from reports as well as a rising tide in favor of prosecuting War Criminals once the war was over. It was reported from Poland alone that recorded evidence was collected of some 4,000 Germans guilty of committing atrocious and heinous crimes. It was felt the issue needed to be resolved sooner rather than later, out of concern for a serious wave of extra legal retribution in Europe once the conflict was over.
The panel mulled over the question and divided it into three sections: 1. the crime of who started the conflict – 2. the act of atrocities in violation of the civilized conscience 3. a crime involving a violation of a particular article or convention recognized in International law. Evidence of the third section in the form of the shooting of hostages or the bombing of a city which had been declared an Open City, citing Manila as an example. Opinion on the panel was the prosecution of war crimes be based with those three distinctions in mind. The only problem was that no country had adopted any of those three definitions as a starting point.
Even though waging war was easy – the hard part would eventually waging peace.
Here is that discussion “Should War Criminals Be Prosecuted?” from The Northwestern Reviewing Stand as it was broadcast on June 13, 1943 over the Mutual Network.
Note: as is the case with many of these Northwestern Reviewing Stand broadcasts, the quality is pretty rough, although listenable. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience.
