NUREMBERG PROSECUTOR COMMON HOUR SPEAKER

War crimes tribunals are now being conducted for atrocities committed by officials in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. But the roots of prosecuting individuals who commit crimes against humanity under the cover of war goes back to the Nuremberg tribunal in 1945.

"At Nuremberg, for the first time in history, a judicial process was used to bring to justice people accused of waging aggressive war, of war crimes and of crimes against humanity," said Whitney Harris, an assistant U.S. prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Harris was the keynote speaker for Wednesday's Common Hour at Southeast Missouri State University. The speech, along with a panel of Holocaust survivors, was held in commemoration of Holocaust Awareness Week.

During the International Military Tribunal, the first of 13 Nuremberg trials, 22 German officials and members of the Nazi party stood trial charged with the genocide of millions of people and planning and carrying out the war.

"Their defense was that they were just carrying out orders and were not personally responsible for what happened," Harris told the audience of about 100 people in Glenn Auditorium. But that defense did not hold up under the judicial process established by the tribunal composed of American, British, French and Russian justices.

"The tribunal found individuals, not just the government, guilty for the crimes they carried out," Harris said. Those crimes included carrying out the Nazi's "Final Solution" for exterminating European Jews, gypsies and other minorities, he said.

Of the 22 Nazi defendants who stood trial in Nuremberg, 12 received the death penalty, seven received varying terms of imprisonment, ranging from 10 years to life and three were acquitted.

Harris was responsible for the prosecution of the Gestapo and its chief, Ernst Kultenbrunner. In gathering information for the prosecution, Harris sifted through thousands of documents and interviewed many top Nazi officials.

Harris described the business-like demeanor of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp, as he estimated the death toll at the camp at 2.5 million people and told of the crematorium and gas chamber facilities.

"Your emotions get compromised when you deal with those types of figures because it all becomes statistics," Harris said.

Harris scoffs at those who question whether the Holocaust happened, like historian David Irving who on Tuesday lost a libel suit against an author who called Irving a Holocaust denier.

"It's not a question of believing the Holocaust took place, I know it took place. There's not a doubt in my mind," Harris said.

While there have been some investigations of war crimes and crimes against humanities in conflicts since World War II, including ongoing tribunals for atrocities in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Harris said there is no international court to act if crimes are not prosecuted on a national level.

Harris said there have been many efforts to set up such a court. The latest effort was at a conference in Rome in 1998, where a treaty was signed by 90 countries to establish an International Criminal Court.

Harris dubbed the treaty the "primary international document of peace and justice in the last half of the 20th century."

The treaty will require ratification by 60 countries; it has seven so far, Harris said. But he is hopeful that this will be the effort that finally establishes an international court.

He believes it is needed. He pointed out that because no international court was in existence, Saddam Hussein and his military officers were not brought to trial for their aggression in invading Kuwait and crimes against humanity in bombing civilian targets and killing Iraqi citizens.

When such crimes go unpunished, it can lead to more brutality, Harris said.

"It is believed that the failure to punish those who committed crimes against humanity in World War I may have lead to even more horrendous crimes during World War II," Harris said.