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Volume 19, Fall 2006
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Nuremberg Trials 60th Anniversary
Jackson’s Cross-Examination of Hermann Goering
March 18, 1946
Observers in the courtroom anticipated the encounter of Jackson and Goering as the contest between all that represented civilization and all that epitomized the evil of the Third Reich. The much anticipated event turned out to be a major disappointment for the prosecution. Jackson’s questions led to Goering’s skillful, often drawn out dissertations on the Third Reich. Jackson became so frustrated with the process that he pleaded that the judges remind Goering to respond to questions asked without the elaborations. Despite Goering’s adroit responses, his testimony did not alter the evidence of his complicity in the Third Reich that had been presented in months prior to the cross-examination.
Nevertheless, many observers of the trial saw the Jackson-Goering duel on March 18th as a tremendous blow to the prosecution case and a taint on the overall process of the International Military Trial.
Goering |
18 March. In this long drawn-out trial of the major war criminals at Nuremberg, intense expectation was centered on the moment when Goering . . . was cross-examined.
It was, in a very real sense, the critical moment of the trial. If the leader of the surviving Nazis could be exposed and shattered, and the purposes and methods of the Nazi Government revealed in their horrible cruelty, then the whole free world would feel that this trial had served its supreme purpose; but if, for any reason, the design should fail, then the fears of those who thought the holding of any trial to be a mistake would be in some measure justified.....
The cross-examination had not proceeded more than ten minutes before it was seen that he [Goering] was the complete master of Mr. Justice Jackson . . . [who] despite his great abilities and charm and his powers of exposition had never learnt the very first elements of cross-examination as it is understood in the English courts. He was overwhelmed by his documents, and there was no chance of the lightning questions following upon some careless of damaging answer, no quick parry and thrust, no leading the witness on to the prepared pitfall, and above all no clear over-riding conception of the great issues which could have been put with simplicity and power . . . . Quoted in Taylor, Telford. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. New York: Knopf, 1992. 340-41.
The historian Stephan Landsman points out the Nazi Concentration Camps had an impact on all groups in the courtroom.
The concentration camp film had an electric effect on those who viewed it in the Nuremberg courtroom. The judges were shocked by what they had seen. President Lawrence immediately adjourned the proceedings of the day and, in his dismay, forgot to make his accustomed arrangements for convening the next session. The defendants were overwhelmed. Some openly wept during the screening, and virtually all viewed it as a crushing blow to their prospects for the trial. Taylor concluded that the film “certainly hardened sentiment against the defendants.” Both the prosecution and its Nuremberg audience found Nazi Concentration Camps staggering and unforgettable. Stephan Landsman, Crimes of the Holocaust (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 26. |
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Volume 18, No. 1, Fall 2004
Yehuda Bauer
Volume 17, No. 2, Fall 2003
Using Testimonies for Researching and Teaching about the Holocaust--Part II
Volume 17, No.1, Spring 2003
Using Testimonies for Researching and Teaching about the Holocaust-- Part I
Volume 16, No. 1, Fall 2002
Remembrance and Commemoration of Two Catastrophes:
September 11th and the Holocaust
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