(article is
from the news section of the Jamestown Post Journal)
7/25/2004 - By JOHN WHITTAKER
As a 15-year-old, Richard Sonnenfeldt fled Germany amid increasing anti-Semitism
in his home country.
Seven years later, Sonnenfeldt found himself sitting across a table from many
of the men held responsible for the war crimes of World War II - Hermann Goering,
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolph Hoess and other notorious figures from Adolf
Hitler's inner circle.
In his position as chief interpreter and an interrogator for the American
prosecution of the accused war criminals, Sonnenfeldt was a key figure in
the work of former Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg chief prosecutor Robert
H. Jackson.
''I only had a 10th-grade education and I'm no lawyer or historian,'' Sonnenfeldt
said.
''But, he represented the finest in the legal profession. I think that he
was the finest protagonist of democracy. His opening remarks will stand out
in my memory forever, as will his closing remarks, but his opening remarks
set the tone for the whole trial.''
Sonnenfeldt will speak at 4 p.m. Monday in the Chautauqua Institution Hall
of Philosophy as well as a dinner later on Monday for members of the newly
founded Robert H. Jackson Society. Sonnenfeldt also said he will donate many
of his manuscripts and records to the Robert H. Jackson Center archives.
''I'm very interested in helping the Center in any way I can,'' Sonnenfeldt
said. ''I recently wrote an article for the Albany Law Review in connection
with the 50th anniversary of Jackson's death. That will appear in the law
review next month. It's really a tribute to Jackson.''
After returning from Nuremberg, Sonnenfeldt returned to civilian life and
became a principle developer of color television and ground-breaking computer
technology. He recently published a best-selling book Surviving the Nazis
- the Many Lives of a Nuremberg Interrogator in Germany, with a manuscript
soon to be released in the United States.
The book presaged a busy speaking and writing schedule for Sonnenfeldt. While
there are many surviving lawyers from the Nuremberg trial, he is the only
surviving person who had intimate contact with many of the trial's most controversial
figures.
Many of the lawyers worked from records of Sonnenfeldt's interrogations or
other documents - rarely from a personal interaction with the defendants.
Those attending Sonnenfeldt's speech Monday at Chautauqua will hear not only
his impressions of Jackson, but recollections of those rare personal conversations.
''While we still have a number of survivors who were lawyers and prosecutors
and a couple of newspaper correspondents, it turns out I'm the only one who
actually talked to the Nazi's personally,'' he said. ''When it became more
widely known, I got a lot of invitations to speak because nobody knew what
the people were actually like. In addition to official conversations with
them, I had personal conversations with them.''
Sonnenfeldt said he also wants to use his experiences at Nuremberg as a teaching
tool about war crimes. There is a discernable road map that can be used from
the experiences of England and France prior to WWII as well as recent accused
war criminals Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
''What they have in common is they had to conquer their own country first,''
he said. ''One of the things I describe in my book is how Hitler conquered
Germany in order to enable him to do all the things later for which the defendants
at Nuremberg were prosecuted. The question is, what can we learn from the
fact that every war criminal had to conquer his country first.''
One of Sonnenfeldt's favorite quotations belongs to famous philosopher George
Sunday, who once said ''Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat
it.''
It is an unattributed quote that most troubles Sonnenfeldt, however - ''History
only teaches us that people don't learn from history.''
It is paradigm Sonnenfeldt said he looks forward to disproving with a little
help from Robert Jackson.
''I'm here to try to prove we can learn a little bit,'' Sonnenfeldt said.
''That's why I talk about Nuremberg, because it's relevant. And Jackson, because
he's relevant.''
Send comments to jwhittaker@post-journal.com