The Post-Journal, February 13, 2002
by Stephen W. Houghton II
The evening before the 110th anniversary of the birth of Justice Robert H. Jackson, the center dedicated to preserving his memory hosted a talk by a Swedish-both journalist Lars H. Ottoson, who covered the proceedings of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg for the Swedish Service of the British Broadcasting Corp.
Ottoson, also famous for his coverage of the Ingemar Johansson vs. Floyd Patterson fight and for being the first person to drive from the North Cape in Norway to Cape Town in South Africa, spoke to an audience of about 100 people after a dinner Tuesday night hosted jointly by the American Scandinavian Heritage Foundation and the Jackson Center.
Ottoson said Nuremberg was "a fair victors' tribunal" and he was impressed by Jackson.
"He was very direct," Ottoson said. "What he did was to lay the foundation of the principle that superior orders is not a defense for a war crime. That is his greatness
"When you looked at the defendants (at Nuremberg), they looked like old men – not different than any others," he said. "They were a pathetic bunch. Only Goering had any dignity. Hess was not with it at all. The others sat stonefaced. They once had been the powers of their day. None of them looked like the power of anything."
Ottoson also spoke about how he had come to report on the Nuremberg trials.
He said he joined the BBC, where he translated the news into Swedish near the end of World War II.
"I can still almost feel the thrill that ran down my spine the first time I sat down in front of the microphone," he said.
In 1946, he decided he wanted to cover the Nuremberg trials for the BBC's Scandinavian audience.
"I had read about Jackson and what he was doing." Ottoson said. "I liked what I had read of him. I told my boss I wanted to go to Nuremberg. He said 'Go ahead, if you can get there and get in.' "
Ottoson said that in any organization there is always some low level manager who can do what you want without the boss knowing. In this case, the person was a Ms. Peacock, who was in charge of issuing tickets and passes for the press."
Ottoson befriended her and found out she was longing for a steak. She could not get steaks due to the rationing still in force in England.
He said he obtained a steak and brought it to her.
He said she said, "Where to you want to go?"
"Nuremberg," he said.
"Nuremberg,” she said. "Oh dear, oh dear. I will have to take the Turk off the list."
This was not the end of his saga. He rode to Nuremberg in the rumble seat of a car.
"It started raining as we left," Ottoson said. "It rained the whole way to Nuremberg while I huddled under a rubber tarp."
Once he got to Nuremberg getting into the trial was not a problem.
"All I needed was one pass with my name on it and no photo," Ottoson said.
He said one guard looked at the pass, then waved him in.
"I could have had guns or explosives in the briefcase I was carrying," Ottoson said. "They didn't look in it."
At Nuremberg he shared a room with five other journalists, one of whom was the young Andy Rooney, then a reporter for Stars and Stripes.
Ottoson said that being a journalist has been wonderful way to make a living because it has given him opportunities to see and do so many interesting things.