Lecturer Enlivens Audience’s Understanding Of Robert H. Jackson
By STEVEN M. SWEENEY
At World War II’s end, Europe was wide open to any 23-year-olds seeking opportunity and adventure.
Nazis were being tried, cities were being rebuilt from the ground up and West-East tensions made Europe the epicenter of the Cold War’s start.
It was a dream for Norbert Ehrenfreund.
‘‘There were so many big stories happening in Europe,’’ Ehrenfreund said. ‘‘It’s where the action was, where I wanted to be.’’
After his 1945 discharge from the Army, Ehrenfreund enlisted as a private citizen in the American government sponsored Stars and Stripes newspaper. There he covered statue unveiling events, the first jet flights across the Atlantic Ocean and the Berlin Air Lift. But most interesting to him were the post-war trials held by the Allies taking Nazis to justice.
In his mind, Robert Jackson, U.S. Supreme Court justice and chief American prosecutor, became a great hero. Ehrenfreund credits Jackson’s performance at Nuremberg and the Jamestown native’s positive personality as reasons why he entered law school in the 1950s and why the trials succeeded.
‘‘He had a passion about justice ... a passion about peace,’’ Ehrenfreund said of Jackson, whom he credits with creating masterminding the entire trial. ‘‘What was the law, what was the court — who was the court, what was the jurisdiction? There were none. They had to write the law and the penalties.’’
The only judicial perversions he saw came months and years after the trials when major industrialists like Alfred Krupp had their sentences shortened from 10 years to time served. In short, Western powers needed rich friends who could work against the Soviets — Nazis or not.
For the 40 or so in the audience in the Robert H. Jackson Center’s Carl Cappa Theater, Ehrenfreund’s insights were eye-opening.
‘‘Sure, he’s excellent,’’ said Arnold Bellowe, a Santa Barbara, Calif. resident vacationing at Chautauqua Institution. ‘‘I didn’t know of the different extensions of that tribunal and no precedent — most informative.’’
Through Ehrenfreund’s words, the audience learned that Jackson was a poor administrator and short-tempered, but good-hearted. Mostly, listeners could sense the importance of Nuremberg through this reporter’s eyes.
‘‘So many of us see this as so much history. To listen to someone who has lived it ... ,’’ said Eugene Pigott, presiding judge of New York’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department, his voice trailing in thought. ‘‘It seems to me he was almost prescient. Nuremberg is now a recipe and a blueprint for what we can do in the future.’’