A 91-year-old German-born American citizen who served
in both the German and U.S. armies in World War II said he can find little
to convince him America is ready to follow the example set at the Nuremberg
War Crimes Trial where German leaders were tried for their wartime crimes.
The conviction was expressed by Werner H. Von Rosenstiel who as a U.S. Army
second lieutenant served after the war as an interpreter for Hermann Goering,
German Nazi field marshal.
The speaker’s views were presented at an extemporaneous talk early Monday
afternoon at the Robert H. Jackson Center before an audience of Jamestown’s
two Rotary clubs.
“To be real specific,” Von Rosenstiel said, “we had committed
ourselves to be for an international organization to stand against aggressive
war.”
He said that when the Nuremberg Court was rebuilt after the war crimes trials,
it was restored largely to its original form after it had been extensively
remodeled for the trials.
Von Rosenstiel said when the time came to select the site of an international
court for war crimes trials, Nuremberg was suggested, but it was established
at The Hague in the Netherlands.
He said the United States was not interested in having judges represent it
in the court, declaring, “America has done nothing.”
The speaker said that despite this, such a court “represents a ray of
hope for the future.”
Von Rosenstiel, introduced by Center President Gregory L. Peterson, now lives
in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Peterson said the speaker was born into nobility, with his father serving
in the Kaiser’s army, with Von Rosenstiel posing the highest grades
in law school in Germany and being drafted into the Wehrmacht.
He was reported as later being sent to the United States to perfect his English,
remaining here, graduating from Fordham Law School, being drafted into the
U.S. Army and returning to his native land with the invading troops six years
later.
A video introduction, An Afternoon with Werner Von Rosenstiel, was presented
by Peterson and included scenes from the actual war crimes trials, described
as “a system for bringing war criminals to justice,” under a system
advocated by Jackson, although the highest ranking offenders committed suicide.
Von Rosenstiel said in October 1945 he was an assistant as indictments were
served on the defendants, with Jackson later giving the opening statement
at the trials. The speaker termed it the greatest speech he has ever heard.
The visitor became an advertising executive in the United States, before returning
to the practice of law in the United States and Germany. Described as a prolific
writer, his latest book is Tails of an American Soldier.
Von Rosenstiel said he first met Jackson shortly after Pearl Harbor when he
(the speaker) was classified as an enemy alien, was registered as such and
had his records checked, with a tribunal to determine how he was to be dealt
with.
“I was not at all disappointed in the least” on meeting Jackson,
the speaker said.
Von Rosenstiel said that at war’s end, he was near his birthplace, was
promoted to second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and en-route to Paris and the
office of the judge advocate of European operation, then on to Frankfurt where
German administrative records were kept in a camouflaged munitions factory.
He said his assignment was to try to find records that could lead to hanging
Hitler’s top officials and to translate such records into English.
Von Rosenstiel said among those found were those of two high officers who
had ordered the death of all American prisoners, while others related to a
Jewish ghetto where about 5,000 men, women and children were killed indiscriminately
and buried in a mass grave. “I was actually devastated,” he said,
but this documentation was not presented at Nuremberg.
Of Jackson, the speaker said, “I did not see very much of him but it
was obvious he was running a tight ship.”
Von Rosenstiel said he was authorized to go anywhere and talk to anyone, noting
Jackson’s chief examining attorney had prosecuted infamous Mafia linchpin
“Dutch” Schultz.
The speaker said of Goering, at whose interrogation he translated, “He
was arrogant, aggressive and hostile.”
Von Rosenstiel said “resettlement” was used as a word to describe
the deaths of thousands of civilians, later noting he was the lowest ranking
officer to meet Jackson in a reception line for a formal dinner.
He said the time after the indictments were served was the high point of his
life as a lawyer, with representatives of defense counsels complaining they
received only one copy of the charges while agreeing most of the defendants
would be hanged, with Jackson directing that additional copies of the documents
be made available.
The speaker related that on October 10, 1946, those found guilty were hanged,
except Goering who had committed suicide.
“He (Jackson) was something America had not seen for a long time,”
Von Rosenstiel said, “and will never see again for a long time.”