World War Two - last war crimes trial?

In what may turn out to be the last World War Two war crimes trial, 91 year old John Demjanjuk has been found guilty of helping to murder more than 28,000 Jews at the Nazi death camp of Sobibor in what is now Poland.     He was sentenced to five years in prison, but will be released pending appeal.   

Demjanjuk told the court in Munich that he had not served as a guard at the camp, and that he was a prisoner of war.   The case turned on an SS identity card, which the defence claimed was a fake.   In all, an estimated 250,000 people were killed at Sobibor.

In the 1980’s, an Israeli court indentified Demjanjuk as ‘Ivan the Terrible’, a notorious guard at the Treblinka death camp, and sentenced him to death, but the country’s supreme court overturned the verdict after new evidence emerged.

Some of the relatives of those who died at Sobibor said the verdict on Demjanjuk was not the most important thing.    They were satisfied that a court in the city where the Nazi party was born had had to listen to the details of the industrialised murder machine that Hitler’s regime created.    (See also my blog of Nov 30, 2009.)

The final trial?

What may turn out to be the last war crimes trial of World War Two is due to open today in Munich. 89 year old retired US car worker John Demjanjuk is accused of helping to murder more than 27,000 Jews at the Nazi death camp of Sobibor in what is now Poland.

Demnjanjuk, who was born in the Ukraine, was captured by the Nazis while fighting against them in the Soviet army. He denies even being at Sobibor. In the 1980’s he was accused of being “Ivan the Terrible” – a notorious guard at the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, and sentenced to death in Israel, but the conviction was overturned as unsafe by the Israeli supreme court.

The first World War Two war crimes trials started as early as 1943 when the tide of war in the east turned, and the Soviets began to drive back the German army. The Allies set up a War Crimes Commission in October of that year hoping that it might cause the Nazis to hesitate over their mass murder project, but it did not.

The most famous of the war crimes trials began at Nuremberg in November 1945. Goering managed to cheat the hangman by swallowing poison in his cell, but another ten defendants were executed.

Munich + 51

For some Munich means 1938, but for a Mancunian like me, it will always be associated with 1958. Fifty-one years ago today, an aircraft carrying the Manchester United team home from a European Cup tie in Belgrade crashed at Munich, killing 23 people including 8 Manchester United players. (Above is the memorial at the old Munich airport which was beautifully maintained when I saw it last year, and a great credit to local people.) In addition to the eight killed, two others – Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry – would never play again, and two more – Kenny Morgans and Albert Scanlon – would never be the same again.

It truly was – in the title of a famous book by crash survivor Frank Taylor – The Day a Team Died. One of the most striking things about the players who perished was how young they were – Eddie Colman – 21, David Pegg – 22, Mark Jones – 24, Billy Whelan – 22. Then there was the England triumvirate – the captain Roger Byrne – formidably experienced, but still only 28; Tommy Taylor, 26 – scorer of 16 goals in 19 internationals, and Duncan Edwards – just 21. Duncan was as brave as George Best, he could read a game like Bobby Moore, tackle like Tommy Smith, shoot like Bobby Charlton and was almost certainly destined to be one of the greatest players of all time.

Young though they were – they were already being challenged for their places by the next generation of talent – notably Bobby Charlton, who was to become perhaps the finest footballer England has ever produced, but also Morgans and Scanlon. You could expect the team to go on improving for at least the next five years, and yet they had already won the League Championship (the equivalent of today’s Premiership) for the past two seasons, and had just reached the semi-final of the European Cup (the equivalent of today’s Champions’ League) for the second time. I rarely watch a football match without pondering the unanswerable question of how good they might have become.

So a great team died, but the club didn’t, and today Manchester United stand top of the Premiership.