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International Law in the Third Reich

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Detlev F. Vagts
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What justifies asking American readers to take time in 1990 to review German international law during the Third Reich, which ended in 1945? First, it is a dramatic story. People who hold certain views on international law are dismissed, exiled, imprisoned and even hanged. The penalties for disagreement are far more severe than tenured faculty members of the 1990s would even dream. Second, the peculiarities of the period enable one to develop some hypotheses about the interactions in the law among people, institutions, ideas and policies in a way that is starker and clearer than the path one must try to trace in calmer times when movements are more gradual and subtle. It is in a sense a not-to-be-repeated laboratory test of how far a ruthless regime can impose a radical change in thinking on a community of legal scholars. The very repulsiveness of some of the concepts enables one to distance oneself from them and regard them as objects of disinterested scrutiny. Finally, the period is widely ignored, even in Germany, in the literature on the history of international law and in many other subsequent studies that seem to demand some reference to events and writings of that time. Although a few highly useful works have appeared, mostly on limited aspects of the scene, the field is clearly understudied. It is perhaps most strikingly so in the work of those authors who since 1945 have not mentioned what they themselves wrote in the period 1933-1945. In general, the German legal community has only recently started to investigate what happened to law in that period.

Type
Research Article
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American Journal of International Law , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , July 1990 , pp. 661 - 704
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1990

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References

Since this article is aimed at an English-speaking audience, I have cited works in English whenever they were comparable to sources in German and have referred to translations whenever available. Where no translator is named, the translation is my own. Very helpful research work was done for me by students: Brian Ganson, Greta Husemoller and Carlo Kostka. Important comments on earlier versions were made by Jost Delbriick, Karl Doehring, Jochen Frowein, Bardo Fassbender, Leo Gross, John Herz, Norbert Horn, Theodor Meron and Christian Tomuschat. Bardo Fassbender furnished both comments and quantities of materials not available here. The Harvard Law School library staff performed heroically in finding difficult sources.

1 After a half century, the most valuable work is still E. Bristler, Die Völkerrechtslehre Des Nationalsozialismus (1938) (written in fact by John Herz, and in Geneva, not, as stated in the book, in Paris). This was done to protect the author's family, then still in Germany. See J. Herz, Vom Überleben: Wie Ein Weltbild Entstand 111 (1984). Portions of the 1938 book were published as Herz, The National Socialist Doctrine of International Law and the Problems of International Organization, 54 Pol. Sci. Q. 536 (1939); and Bolshevist and National Socialist Doctrines of International Law, 7 Soc. Res. 1 (1940) (with J. Florin). Just as this article was being completed, I was sent a copy of an anonymous piece, Nationalsozialismus und Völkerrecht, in 6 Deutschland-Berichte Der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (Sopade) (1939); this was the voice of the Social Democratic Party in exile. A more recent discussion of German international law in this period, D. Fischer, National Socialist Germany and International Law (1974), seeks to normalize Nazi treatment of international law, criticizing Bristler’s “all to [sic] frequent degeneration into anti–National Socialist polemics” (p. 3), and retains some coherence only by firmly excluding from consideration everything published after 1939. A contemporary work in French was J. Fournier, La Conception nationale-socialiste du droit des gens (1939). See also Preuss, La Conception raciale nationale socialiste du droit international, 42 Revue Générale du Droit International Public [RGDIP] 688 (1935); Gott, The National Socialist Theory of International Law, 32 AJ1L 704 (1938).

Three postwar German articles have looked at Nazi international law theory: Messerschmidt, Revision, Neue Ordnung, Krieg; Akzente der Völkerrechtswissenschaft in Deutschland 1933–1945, Militárgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, No. 1, 1971, at 61; Paussmeyer, Die Grundlagen nationalsozialistischer Völkerrechtstheorie als ideologischer Rahmen für die Geschichte des Instituts für Auswärtige Politik 1933–1945, in Kolonialrechtswissenschaft, Kriegsursachenfor-schung internationale Angelegenheiten 115 (K.J. Gantzel ed. 1983) [hereinafter 1 Gantzel]; Diner, Rassistisches Völkerrecht: Elemente einer Nationalsozialistische Weltordnung, 37 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 23 (1989).

2 The only recent sources on National Socialist law available in English are J. Bendersky, Carl Schmitt, Theorist for the Reich (1983); Kaufmann, National Socialism and German Jurisprudence from 1933 to 1945, 9 Cardozo L. Rev. 1629 (1988); and Reimann, National Socialist Jurisprudence and Academic Continuity: A Comment on Professor Kaufmann’s Article, id. at 1651. In 1990 a translation of I. Müller, Furchtbare Juristen (1987) is due to appear. Some of the contemporary American work on Nazi law is still of value. See Loewenstein, Law in the Third Reich, 45 Yale L.J. 779 (1936), and the other sources cited in his The Law and the Legislative Process in Occupied Germany, 57 Yale L.J. 724, 733 n.40 (1948).

A striking example of omission of one’s own works comes from Festschrift für Hermann Jahrreiss 503-08 (K. Carstens & H. Peters eds. 1964), which lists only one work during the Third Reich, omitting the author’s most imperialistic studies, Wandel der Weltordnung, 21 Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht [ZÖR] 513 (1941), and Völkerrechtliche Grossraumordnung, 6 Zeitschrift der Akademie für deutsches Recht 608 (1939).

3 For a chronicle of German foreign relations in this period, see G. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe, 1933–1936 (1970) [hereinafter 1 G. Weinberg]; The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937–1939 (1980) [hereinafter 2 G. Weinberg].

4 K. Bracher, The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure and Effects of National Socialism 319–29 (J. Steinberg trans. 1970). There is a lively dispute about the degree to which Hitler was able to impose a consistent and systematic order on German affairs, as opposed to a rivalry of systems or, in the term the specialists use, “polycracy.” See K. Hilde-brand, The Third Reich, ch. 4 (P. S. Falla trans. 1987); I. Kershaw, The Nazi Dictator-ship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, ch. 4 (2d ed. 1989).

5 As to overlapping functions in the foreign affairs field, see H. A. Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistiche Aussenpolitik 1933–1938 (1968); I. Kershaw, supra note 4, ch. 6. Of course, none of this puts into question Hitler’s moral and legal responsibility for what happened in the Third Reich. Hitler occasionally involved himself in the details of controversies when international law issues were at stake, as in the Jacob case with Switzerland. See sources cited in note 144 infra.

6 2 G. Weinberg, supra note 3, at 151, analyzes the reality and perceptions of German military power in relation to other European states.

7 Hitler’s speeches asserting Germany’s peaceful intentions are collected in A. Hitler, Des Führers Kampf um den Weltfrieden (1936).

8 I. Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich 121–47 (1987); D. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life 61–68 (R. Daveson trans. 1987).

9 For thorough treatment of Versailles from a German point of view, see the articles under the caption “Versailler Frieden,” in 3 Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts und der Diplomatie 36 (K. Strupp ed. 1929).

10 For a review of war guilt scholarship in the interwar period, see Wendt, Über den geschichts-wissenschaftlichen Umgang mit der Kriegsschuldfrage, in Wissenschaftliche Verantwortung und politische Macht 1 (K.J. Gantzel ed. 1986) [hereinafter 2 Gantzel]. A typical nationalist polemic of the time was A. von Wegerer, Refutation of the Versailles War Guilt Thesis (E. Zeydel trans. 1930).

11 For contrasting views of Locarno, see K. Strupp, Das Werk von Locarno: eine völkerrechtliche-politische Studie (1926); Locarno, A Collection of Documents (F. Berber ed. 1936) (with preface by Ribbentrop).

12 J. Robinson, Das Minoritätenproblem und seine Literatur (1928), sums up the German learning on minorities during Weimar.

13 Factory at Chorzów (Ger. v. Pol.), 1926–1929 PCIJ (ser. A) Nos. 7, 8, 9, 13, 17, 19.

14 Krüger, Das Reparationsproblem der Weimarer Republik in fragwürdiger Sicht, 29 Viertel-jahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 21 (1981).

15 W. Schücking & H. Wehberg, Die Satzung des Völkerbundes (3d ed. 1931); compare C. Schmitt, Die Kernfrage des Völkerbundes (1926).

16 Point 2 of the Nazi party program called for “equality of rights and the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles.” For a thorough Nazi coverage, see Woermann, Das Diktat von Versailles, in Nationalsozialistiches Handbuch für Recht und Gesetzgebung 143, 176 (H. Frank 2d ed. 1935) [hereinafter Handbuch].

17 Freyberg Eisenberg, Das deutsch-englische Flottenabkomtnen vom 18 Juni 1935, 6 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht [Zaörv] 1 (1937).

18 V. Bruns, Die Volksabstimmung im Saargebiet (1934); S. Wambaugh, The Saar Plebiscite (1940).

19 Stauffenberg, Die Vorgeschichte des Locarnovertrages und das russisch-französische Bündnis, 6 Zaörv 215 (1937).

20 See Customs Regime between Germany and Austria, 1931 PCIJ (ser. A/B) No. 41 (Advisory Opinion of Sept. 5). The importance that Hitler gave to this move is shown by the fact that Mein Kampj starts by asserting that “[c]ommon blood belongs in a common Reich”; quoted in Wright, The Legality of the Annexation of Austria by Germany, 38 AJIL 621, 623 (1944).

21 N. Padelford, International Law and Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil Strife (1939), reviewed by Scheuner, 9 Zaörv 948 (1940).

22 For a contemporary Nazi view of Munich, see Wolgast, Über die Bedeutung des Werkes von München vom 29 und 30. September 1938, 18 zör 415 (1939).

23 See Markus, Le Traité germano-tchechoslovaque du 15 mars 1939 à la lumière du droit international, 46 RGDIP 653 (1939); for a German attempt to square this action with the Munich accord, see note 165 infra.

24 A. Read & D. Fisher, The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1988).

25 A concise history of the July 20 attempt is P. Hoffmann, The German Resistance to Hitler (1988).

26 Bilfinger, Streit um das Völkerrecht, 12 zaörv 1 (1944).

27 The state of German universities before Hitler is reviewed in F. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community 1890–1933 (1969). On the seizure of power at the universities, see K. Bracher, supra note 4, at 266-72; and for the experience at one university, B. Vezina, Die “Gleichschaltung” der Universität Heidelberg im Zuge der Nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung (1982). On Cologne, see F. Golczewski, Kölner Universitätslehrer und der Nationalsozialismus (1988).

28 E. Döhring, Geschichte der Juristischen Fakultät 190–92, 222–23 (3 Geschichte der Christian-Albrechts-Universitat Kiel 1665-1965, 1965).

29 For the founder’s own statement of the purposes of the institute and its journal, see Bruns, 1 zaörv, at iii (1929). See also Borchard, Death of Dr. Viktor Bruns, 37 AJIL 658 (1943).

30 Rabel, Zur Einführung, 1 Zeitschrift für auslándisches und internationales Privatrecht 1 (1927); Dölle, Funfundzwanzig Jahre Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, 16 id. at 337 (1951).

31 The history of the Hamburg institute is detailed in 1 and 2 Gantzel, supra notes 1 and 10. The reader should know that my father, Alfred Vagts, was a member of that institute until 1933.

32 United States v. von Weizsaecker, 12 Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, at 1184 (1949) [hereinafter Trials of War Criminals].

35 Id. at 1184–85.

34 L. Gruchmann, Justiz im Dritten Reich 1933–1940, at 1149, 1151, 1165, 1170 (1988).

35 See part VII infra.

36 D. Acker, Walther Schücking 1875–1935 (1970).

37 The activities of Bruns are listed in his biographical notice to La Cour Permanente de Justice Internationale, 62 Recueil des Cours 547, 549 (1937 IV).

58 For a selection of the decisions of the American-German Mixed Claims Tribunal, with references to the literature, see 7 and 8 R. Int’l Arb. Awards (1956).

89 On minorities, see note 12 supra. On the waterways, see Auburtin, Die neue Rechtsstellung der Europäischen Donaukommission, 9 zaörv 338 (1939).

40 Germans, however, were at a disadvantage in competing for League Secretariat jobs because their country did not enter the League until 1926, by which time many French and English bureaucrats were in place. See Kimmich, Germany and the League of Nations, in The League of Nations in Retrospect, Proceedings of the Symposium Organized by the United Nations Library 118, 122, 124 (1983).

41 For a history of the academy, see Hague Academy of International Law, Livre Jubilaire, Jubilee Book, 1923–1973 (R.J. Dupuy ed. 1973).

42 The first German lecturer was Triepel, Les Rapports entre le droit interne et le droit international, 1 Recueil des Cours 73 (1923).

43 The International Law Association, Report of the 38th Conference Held at Budapest, at cxlix (1934), reports that the “German Branch was seriously affected by the advent of the change of the regime and remained inactive for about a year.”

44 Kürschners deutscher Gelehrten-Kalendar 3829–30 (4th ed. 1931).

45 K. Böhme, Aufrufe und Reden deutscher Professoren im Ersten Weltkrieg (1975).

46 Kempski, Gefährdung der Wissenschaft durch die politische Macht: Reflexionen zum Schicksal der Wissenschaft im Dritlen Reich, in 2 Gantzel, supra note 10, at 427. Academics' anger at Versailles was demonstrated by the refusal of Heidelberg to hear a talk by internationalist James Brown Scott, who had signed the Treaty for the United States. M. Gutzwiller, Siebzig Jahre Jurisprudenz: Erinnerungen eines Neunzigjährigen 96–97 (1978).

47 For a series of biographies of German pacifists, see C. Rajewsky & D. Riesenberger, Wider den Krieg, Grosse Pazifisten von Immanuel Kant bis Heinrich Böll (1987). See further note 182 infra.

48 Thus, Kaufmann served as an artillery officer and was severely wounded; this did not long save him from dismissal by the Nazis. Mosler, Erich Kaufmann zum Gedächtnis, 32 zaörv 235, 237–38 (1972).

49 There is general agreement on the rightist tendency of German faculties under Weimar. See, e.g., F. Stern, Dreams and Delusions, ch. 6 (1987); Abendroth, Die deutschen Professoren und die Weimarer Republik, in Hochschule und Wissenschaft im Dritten Reich 11 (J. Tröger ed. 1984).

50 For a sampling of Hitler’s views about justice, see Hitler über die justiz—Das Tischgespräch vom 20 August 1942, 12 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 86 (1964).

51 For careful studies of the relationships between positivism and National Socialism, see B. Rüthers, Die unbegrenzte Auslegung (2d ed. 1973); and his Entartetes Recht (1988).

52 The struggle within the German legal bureaucracy over whether to legalize the euthanasia action, to continue it with only the cover of Hitler’s informal letter to the doctors in charge, or to stop it is described in L. Gruchmann, supra note 34, at 497–534.

53 Quoted in K. Bracher, supra note 4, at 272.

54 Seier, Der Rektor als Führer: Zur Hochschulpolitik des Reichserziehungsministeriums, 1934–1945, 12 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 105 (1964).

55 The career of Martin Heidegger has been the focus of new interest through the publication of V. Farias, Heidegger and Nazism (1987). Several Nazi teachers of international law became rectors. See Walz, Der Rektor als Führer der Universität, 5 Deutsches Recht 6 (1935); Ritterbusch, Kieler Blätter 1815 und 1938, in Grundfragen der Deutschen Universitat und Wissenschaft 27 (Reichsdozentenbund 1938).

56 For example, the Catholic-Conservative internationalist Godehard Ebers had several encounters with student denunciations at Cologne and, after the Anschluss, at Innsbruck. F. Golczewski, supra note 27, at 208–11.

57 K. Bracher, supra note 4, at 271–72; Messerschmidt, supra note 1, at 66; Rüthers & Schmitt, Die juristische Fachpresse nach der Machtergreifung der Nationalsozialisten, 1988 Juristen-zeitung 369. Almost half of the articles submitted in the early Nazi period failed the ideological test. Fischer, Die Arbeiten des Reichsrechtsamtes im verflossenen Kampfjahr, 6 Deutsches Recht 357, 358 (1936). Later Hague lecturers such as Scheuner did respect the prohibition on citing Jewish authors. See Partsch, Book Review, 112 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 129, 132 (1987).

58 R. Grunberger, A Social history of the Third Reich 307 (1971).

59 In 3 F. Berber, Lehrbuch des Völkerrechts, at vi n.1 (1964), we find a reference to criticism of an earlier work of his by Hamel, 5 Deutsches Recht 133–34 (1935), which said: “That Gemeinschaft, politics and law are the results of race and Volkstum and that law-making in the new state belongs to Fuhrerdom is nowhere expressed.” Hamel goes on to point out that Berber gladly cited non-Aryan works, sometimes with words of special praise. Worst of all, Berber cited a non-Aryan author and Adolf Hitler in the same footnote. The rules about references to Jewish authors seem not to have applied to foreigners. See the appreciative review of H. Lauterpacht, Function of Law in the International Community, by Schniederkötter, 21 Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht [Z für VR] 253 (1937). Lauterpacht’s 5th edition of L. Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise (1935–37), was praised at p. 6 of a lecture on the laws of war given in 1938 by Ernst Schmitz, deputy director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and honorary professor at Berlin. (A photocopy of the lecture notes was furnished me by the successor institute in Heidelberg and is now in the Harvard Law School library.)

60 The incorporation of Austria brought into the Reich three law faculties: Graz, Innsbruck and Vienna. The most notable figure was Alfred Verdross. The Zeitschrift für öffentliches Recht became a Nazi journal. The German University of Prague had already been infiltrated by Nazis before 1939, as Kelsen learned during his stay there. R. Métall, Hans Kelsen, Leben und Werk 68–74 (1969). The Reichsuniversität in Strasbourg recreated the Wilhelminic university. The University of Posen in Poland was designed solely for the German population.

61 Law faculties’ enrollments suffered from three factors: (1) a decline in the number of individuals of the age normal for universities due to the fall in the birthrate that began after 1914; (2) a decline in the percentage of those in the normal age range who actually went to universities; and (3) a decline in the relative popularity of law studies among those who did attend universities. In some cases, as in Tübingen, the decline was dramatic—enrollment in the law faculty fell from 478 in 1932 to 40 in 1941. See U. Adam, Hochschule und Nationalso-zialismus: Die Universitat Tübingen im DRITTEN REICH 218–24 (1977). On women law students, see J. Pauwels, Women, Nazis and Universities: Female University Students in the Third Reich, 1933–1948, at 44 (1984).

62 For a cautious expression of misgivings about the Nazi decree depriving international law of its status as a required course, see Walz, Völkerrecht und Reichsjustizausbildungsordnung, 18 Z FüR VR 323 (1934).

63 Thus, Allied bombers claimed the first edition of W. Grewe, Epochen der Völkerrechtsgeschichte 15 (1984), and a treatise by Herbert Kraus on international law. See Mensch und Staat in Recht und Geschichte, Festschrift für Herbert Kraus 462 (H. Kruse & H. Seraphim eds. 1954). On the destruction of both the library and unpublished writings at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, see Makarov, Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1905–1944), 47 Friedenswarte 360, 364 (1947). For a description of the wartime years at Cologne, see F. Golczewski, supra note 27, at 287–97.

64 Paussmeyer, supra note 1.

65 See text at notes 74–76 infra.

66 In particular, the institute did not support Wilhelm Wengler in his internal struggles with Nazi rivals; indeed, its discharge of Wengler was found illegal by a labor court in 1945. See Schlabrendorff, Wilhelm Wengler, Wesen und Gestalt, in 1 Multitudo Legum Ius Unum: Festschrift für Wilhelm Wengler zu seinem 65. Geburtstag 1, 7–8 (J. Tittel ed. 1973). For a very negative view of Bilfinger, see G. Kisch, Der Lebensweg eines Rechtshisto-rikers 91–92 (1975); and more understandingly, Smend, Carl Bilfinger, 20 zaörv 1 (1959–60). For his party membership, see B. Vezina, supra note 27, at 127 n.515.

67 For an extensive study, see D. ANDERSON, The Academy for German law, 1933–1944 (1987). Chapter 6 deals with its foreign and international law work.

68 On Toynbee, see id. at 403–04, and A. Tovnbee, Acquaintances, ch. 22 (1967). On Garner, see D. Anderson, supra note 67, at 402, and Garner, The Nazi Proscription of German Professors of International Law, 33 AJIL 112 (1939).

69 D. Anderson, supra note 67, at 426–29.

70 P. Seabury, The Wilhelmstrasse: A Study of German Diplomats under the Nazi Regime, passim (1954). The tension between Gaus’s participation in drafting the Locarno pact and justifying its cancellation was noted in G. Vogel, Diplomat unter Hitler und Adenauer 22–23 (1969). See also U. von Hassell, the von Hassell Diaries, 1938–1944, at 301 (1947).

71 United States v. von Weizsaecker, 12 Trials of War Criminals, supra note 32, at 1186:

I don’t hesitate to say that I would be a great deal happier if, during the Hitler regime I had the strength of mind to decide to resign. … I had already been working for over 30 years in the Legal Division, and had been its head for over 15 years and semi-consciously I had a feeling of this position which I held, that it had its own law and its own basis in itself in a certain sense.

Gaus was in fact removed in 1944 as a result of internal intrigues. P. Seabury, supra note 70, at 133.

72 For a description of the Abwehr by an insider who was also an international lawyer, see P. Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence (R. Stevens & C. Fitzgibbon trans. 1954).

73 K. Abshagen, Canaris: Patriot und Weltbürger (1950); H. Höhne, Canaris (J. Brownjohn trans. 1979).

74 E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Christian, Contemporary (E. Mosbacher trans. 1970). This work also contains references to Dohnanyi, who was Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law.

75 Zeller, Claus und Berthold Stauffenberg, 12 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 223 (1964). See further note 97 infra.

76 Makarov, supra note 63, at 363.

77 The legal office of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was in the charge of Rudolf Lehmann. He was convicted for involvement in preparing the Barbarossa Jurisdiction and Commando Orders, in United States v. von Leeb, 11 Trials of War Criminals, supra note 32, at 690-95 (1948). There was tension between Moltke and Wagner, head of international affairs in the OKW legal office (“the poison dwarf”). Moltke attributed these tensions to Wagner’s being a criminal lawyer, not an internationalist. M. Balfour & J. Frisby, Helmuth von Moltke—A Leader Against Hitler 282–83 (1972).

78 A. de Zayas, The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939–1945 (1989).

79 On Hitler’s departure from the League, announced in 1933, see 1 G. Weinberg, supra note 3, ch. 7.

80 See text at note 104 infra.

81 See text at note 125 infra.

82 At Nuremberg Schacht was represented by, inter alia, the discharged Professor Herbert Kraus, and Admiral Dönitz by a young naval lawyer, Otto Kranzbühler. They later reflected on their experiences in 13 de Paul L. Rev. 233 (1964), and 14 id. at 333 (1964). Professor Jahrreiss represented General Jodl and delivered a general address on the international law aspects of the case. 17 International Military Tribunal [hereinafter IMT], Proc. 478–94 (1947).

83 Nussbaum, La Clause-or dans les contrats internationaux, 43 Recueil des Cours 555 (1933 I); Wehberg, La Police internationale, 48 id. at 1 (1934 II); Strupp, Les Règies générates du droit de la paix, 47 id. at 257 (1934 I); Kaufmann, Règies générates du droit de la paix, 54 id. at 309 (1935 IV).

84 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt 175.

85 The figures on the proportions of German professors who lost their posts in the Nazi period are hard to reconcile in detail because of the use of different populations (professors only, professors and assistant professors, or all university teachers) and of different time periods. Thus, J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 202, says that “before the purges ended over 11 percent of Germany’s professors would lose their chairs.” I. Müller, supra note 2, at 76, says that, of 378 law teachers, 120, almost a third, were discharged. K. Bracher, supra note 4, at 269, gives breakdowns, by specialties and universities that puts law faculties at the top of the list in terms of percentage of losses (21.2%). He also notes wide variations among different universities ranging from 18% to 32%. E. Hartshorne, The GERMAN Universities and National Socialism 94–95 (1937), found that 1,145 faculty members were dismissed, out of a total of 7,000, or roughly 16%. Building on this study, Garner, supra note 68, at 113, concluded that of some 50 or 60 professors of private as well as public international law, 24 lost their posts. Of all the German law faculties, the one most seriously affected was Kiel, where only one full professor survived the purge. E. Döhring, supra note 28, at 202.

86 Wehberg, Professor Max Fleischmann, 46 Friedenswarte 381 (1946); Wehberg, Karl Neumeyer turn Gedächtnis, 41 id. at 256 (1941); Borchard, Professor Theodor Niemeyer, 34 AJIL 334 (1940). On Kurt Perels, see the biography of his nephew who perished as part of the resistance to Hitler. Schreiber, Friedrich Justus Perels (1910–1945), Rechtsberater der Bekennenden Kirche, in Streitbare Juristen, Eine andere Tradition 355, 358 (T. Blanke ed. 1988) [hereinafter Blanke].

87 Appendix A to this article, infra p. 703, attempts to account for all dismissals of tenured professors of international law during the Third Reich.

88 On the case of Herbert Kraus, see Halfmann, Eine “Pflanzstätte bester nationalsozialistischer Rechtsgelehrter”: Die juristische Abteilung der Rechts und Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultät, in H. Becker, H.J. Dahms & C. Wegeler, die Universitat Göttingen unter dem National-sozialismus: Das verdrängte Kapitel ihrer 250 Jährigen Geschichte 88 (1987).

89 See note 85 supra. The only conceivable American comparison is to McCarthyism, but that was on a very different scale. It has proved almost impossible to arrive at any meaningful estimate of the job losses incurred at that time. One study says that on half of the 58 campuses studied, “the appointments of at least two faculty were threatened.” L. Lewis, The Cold War on Campus 38 (1988); compare E. Schreiber, No Ivory Tower 10, 241 (1986).

90 J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 189–91, 206.

91 Wieacker, Das Kitzeberger Lager junger Rechtslehrer, 1 Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft 74 (1936). See also B. Röthers, Entartetes Recht 41–48 (1988).

92 N. Gürke, der Einfluss Jüdischer Theoretiker auf die deutsche Völkerrechtslehre (1938), volume 6 of a series, Das Judentum in der Rechtswissenschaft, produced under the auspices of Carl Schmitt. For background, see B. Rüthers, supra note 91, at 128–31.

93 Reimann, supra note 2. Of those who won chairs in 1933, Scheuner was the most conspicuous in international law after 1945. Maunz and Forsthoff were important in constitutional law but not international law. Several of the newcomers prominent in the 1930s do not reappear, e.g., Ritterbusch and Ruehland.

94 Schmitt’s career after 1945 is dealt with in J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 264–87.

95 See F. Berber, Zwischen Macht und Gewissen: Lebenserinnerungen, ch. XII (I. Strauss ed. 1986).

96 Makarov, supra note 63, at 363.

97 Zeller, supra note 75. Articles by Stauffenberg are cited in notes 19 supra and 177 infra.

98 For the career of one Social Democrat who became a professor after the war, having spent much of the Nazi period in prison, see Wolfgang Abendroth, Eln Leben in Der Arbeiter-bewegung (B. Dietrich & J. Perels eds. 1976); Sterzel, Wolfgang Abendroth (1906–1985), Revolutionär und Verfassungsjurist der Arbeiterbewegung, in Blanke, supra note 86, at 476.

99 A moving attempt to explain the difficulties of emigration in the 1930s to a younger generation, used to greater mobility and less tied emotionally to their home countries, is found in P. Levi, The Drowned and the Saved 161–65 (R. Rosenthal trans. 1988). The harshness of emigration as an experience is indicated by the early deaths of three exile scholars in our sample: Albrecht Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Walther Schücking and Karl Strupp. For a summary of the experience of the German emigration, see H. Pross, Die deutsche akademische Emigration nach den Vereinigten Staaten, 1933–41 (1955).

100 Hans Kelsen’s difficult progress in the United States is described in Gross, Hans Kelsen, 67 AJIL 491 (1973). Both Leo Gross and John Herz, after reading a draft of this essay, urged me to underline Kelsen’s personal generosity to students and even adversaries. For his willingness to support Schmitt’s appointment in Cologne, see F. Golczewski, supra note 27, at 299. Schmitt repaid this openmindedness by being the only full professor not to sign the faculty’s appeal to retain Kelsen. Id. at 117.

101 See Mann, Conflict of Laws and Public Law, 132 Recueil des Cours 107, 131 (1971 I); Schwarzenberger, The Fundamental Principles of International Law, 87 id. at 191, 193 (1955 I); Tribute and Symposium honoring Riesenfeld, 63 Calif. L. Rev. 1384 (1975); Jessup, Introduction to Jus et Societas: Essays in Tribute to Wolfgang Friedmann (G. Wilner ed. 1979). An interesting example of the reflection of that success back across the Atlantic is the German Ius inter Nationes: Festschrift für Stefan Riesenfeld (E. Jayme, G. Kegel & M. Lutter eds. 1983).

102 Thus, after his discharge from Göttingen, Gerhard Leibholz made contact with important members of the British elite and attempted to forge ties between Britain and the German resistance. See Klein, Gerhard Leibholz, in Rechtswissenschaft in Göttingen: Göttinger Juristen aus 250 Jahren 528, 530–31 (F. Loos ed. 1987) [hereinafter Loos].

103 See note 115 infra for Laun as an example.

104 See D. Anderson, supra note 67, at 447–49.

105 I tend to place more weight on opportunism than does, for example, Professor Reimann, supra note 2. An outstanding illustration of opportunism is the case of Carl Schmitt, described in the text at notes 117–20 infra. A striking admission of this is Ulrich Scheuner’s explanation for his writings: “Well, you know, I have a weakness for power,” quoted in Weber, Rechtswissenschaft im Dienst der NS-Propaganda, in 2 Gantzel, supra note 10, at 185, 354. See also the comments of Wilhelm Wengler, 56 Institut de Droit International, Annuaire 318, 322 (1975).

106 J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 229–30, 234–38.

107 Thus, Gaus reports that he felt constrained in his work in the Foreign Office by concern about his partly Jewish wife. United States v. von Weizsaecker, 12 Trials of War Criminals, supra note 32, at 1187. The pressures felt by the commercial lawyer Julius von Gierke because of his maternal grandparents are reported in Müller-Laube, Julius von Gierke (1875–1960), in Loos, supra note 102, at 471, 477–78.

108 Conscience in Revolt 231 (A. Leber ed., R. O’Neill trans. 1957). There were others in the Kreisau resistance circle who could be said to have been influenced by exposure to international law: Adam von Trott zu Solz, Hans-Bernd von Haeften and Paulus van Husen. G. van Roon, Neuordnung im Widerstand, Der Kreisauer Kreis innerhalb der deutschen Widerstandsbewegung 143, 152, 195 (1967).

109 Wengler, Helmuth James von Moltke (1906–1945), 48 Friedenswarte 297, 303 (1948).

110 A. Wegner, Einführung in die Rechtswissenschaft 3 (1948).

111 See the Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts und der Diplomatie, which Strupp edited from 1924 to 1929.

112 N. Gürke, supra note 92, at 19, 35.

113 Wehberg, Zum Andenken an Karl Strupp, 40 Friedenswarte 175, 178 (1940).

114 Strupp, supra note 83, at 586.

115 On Laun, see Weber, Von Albrecht Mendelssohn-Bartholdy zu Ernst Forsthoff: Die Hamburger Rechtsfakultät im Zeitpunkt des Machtübergangs, 1933 bis 1935, in 1 Gantzel, supra note 1, at 166, 171–79. Laun cut back on his teaching of constitutional law, concentrating on international studies as less controversial; when he did teach constitutional law, he emphasized its historical aspects. His only written products during the period were bland: Stare Decisis, 25 VA. L. Rev. 12 (1938); Der Satz vom Grunde: Ein System der Erkenntnistheorie (1942) (on the theory of knowledge). There are two celebratory volumes on Laun: Gegenwartsprobleme des internationalen Rechts und der Rechtsphilosophie: Festschrift für Rudolf Laun zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag (D. Constantopoulos & H. Wehberg eds. 1953); Festschrift zu Ehren von Rudolf Laun (C. Hernmark ed. 1948). In conversations at Salonika in August 1988, Dr. Constantopoulos told me of Laun’s attempts to intercede on behalf of persecuted persons.

116 For a favorable review of Bruns’s contributions, see Borchard, supra note 29. He says of Bruns: “Although never a member of the ‘Party,’ and revolted by much that offended his own elevated principles, he thought it best to carry on, keeping the Institute out of Party control and maintaining its high standards. This was no easy task.” Id. at 659.

See also the note by Triepel, 11 zaörv 325 (1942).

117 J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 263.

118 Id. at 248–49.

119 Id. at 263–64.

120 E. Kaufmann, Carl Schmitt und seine Schule: Offener Brief an Ernst Forsthoff, in Rechtsidee und Recht, 3 Gesammelte Schriften von Erich Kaufmann 375 (1960).

121 The principal sources on Berber are his own autobiographical self-justification, supra note 95, and Weber, supra note 105.

122 Weber, supra note 105, at 253.

123 I G. Weinberg, supra note 3, at 366.

124 See Weber, supra note 105, at 393–409; see also J. favez, Une Mission Impossible? Lecicr, les Déportations et les camps de concentration nazis 346 (1988).

125 Berber is the only figure here discussed whom I have met. It was at an occasion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he genially, but falsely, claimed to have been a friend of my father. There is a lengthy description of an encounter with Berber in A. Toynbee, supra note 68, at 277–78; Berber arranged an audience with Hitler for the Briton. For a kinder, but not uncritical, view of Berber, see Randelzhofer, Friedrich Berber, in Juristen im Portrait: Verlag und Autoren in 4 Jahrzehnten: Festschrift zum 225 jährigen Jubiläum des Verlages C. H. Beck 170 (1988).

126 In general, the most trustworthy accounts of individual careers are those emanating from Hans Wehberg and his circle in Switzerland; Wehberg combined intimate knowledge of German international lawyers and their work with high moral standards and a considerable amount of charity. One attributes higher value to those Festschriften in which Wehberg and such figures as Gerhard Leibholz, Rudolf Laun and Erich Kaufmann were willing to participate.

127 Dieseroth, Kontinuitätsproblem der deutschen Staatsrechtlehrer: Das Beispiel Theodor Maunz, in Ordnungsmacht? Über das Verhältnis von Legalität, Konsens und Herrschaft 85 (D. Dieseroth, F. Hese & K. Ladeur eds. 1981); see also Reimann, supra note 2, at 1652–53. Maunz’s Nazi writings in defense of aggressive war without regard to laws are reprinted in Maunz im Dienste des Faschismus und der CSU (L. Elm, G. Haney & G. Baranowsky eds. 1964). This publication by the East German University of Jena contributed to Maunz’s deposition as Bavarian Minister of Culture.

128 See sources cited in note 91 supra.

129 Walz, Prof. Dr. Gürke, 25 Z FüR VR 129 (1940).

130 Id.

131 Messerschmidt, supra note 1, at 62–63.

132 See text at notes 56–59, 91.

133 The lack of awareness by German internationalists of Hitler’s short-run aggressive plans is stressed in Messerschmidt, supra note 1, at 78–79. It is generally thought that the meeting of November 5, 1937, memorialized by the so-called Hossbach Protocol, provided the first warning of these plans even to the military/government elite. Wright & Stafford, Britain and the Hossbach Memorandum, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, No. 2, 1987, at 77.

134 Helpful works on the changes Nazism wrought in the German language are: C. Berning, Vom “Abstammungsnachweis” zum “Zuchtwart”: Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus (1964); and V. Klemperer, LTI, Notizbuch eines Philologen (4th ed. 1987).

135 See sources cited supra note 1 and book reviews by Kunz, 29 AJIL 554 (1935) (Wolgast); by Kopelmanas, 42 RGDIP 517 (1935); by Engelberg, 46 id. at 37 (1939) (on Verdross); and by Kunz, 34 AJIL 173 (1940) (on Schmitt and others). But F. Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 151 (2d ed. 1944), says, “What is surprising is that outside Germany, especially in England, experts in international law were seemingly unaware of the game that was being played.” The Austrian A. Verdross, Völkerrecht 29 (1937), accepted Nazi international law at face value.

136 Restatement (Third) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States § 201 (1987) [hereinafter Restatement].

137 The matter was thus put by Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler’s chief deputy:

National Socialism no longer proceeds from the state as a starting point but from the Volk. Hitler pointed the way as early as Mein Kampf. He characterizes the state as a “means to an end,” as a “structure for the Volkstum,” for the maintenance of a “Gemeinschaft of physically and spiritually similar human beings.” (footnote omitted)

Heydrich, Die Bekämpfung der Staatsfeinde, 1 Deutsche Rechtswissenschaft 97, 97 (1936). See generally E. Jäckel, Hitler’s W eltanschauung, A Blueprint for Power, ch. IV (H. Arnold trans. 1972).

138 For the usage of Gemeinschaft in Nazi thought, see Stolleis, Gemeinschaft und Volksgemeinschaft—Zur juristischen Terminologie im Nationalsozialismus, 20 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeit-Geschichte 16 (1973). And in international law, F. Giese & E. Menzel, Vom deutschen Völkerrechtsdenken der Gegenwart 34–35 (1938).

139 See F. Giese & E. Menzel, supra note 138, at 37, 58–61.

140 Important works on equality of the early Nazi years are Bilfinger, Gleichheit und Gleichberechtigung der Staaten, in Handbuch, supra note 16, at 99; and Bruns, Deutschlands Gleichberechtigung als Rechtsproblem, 1933 Juristische Wochenschrift 2481.

141 See Bilfinger, supra note 140, at 99 (“Equality and equality of rights & form a basic law of the state that is inextricably tied to its existence as a state and therefore is inalienable”).

142 Morvay, Unequal Treaties, in [Instalment] 7 Encyclopedia of Public International Law 514 (R. Bernhardt ed. 1984), surveys the history of the idea of unequal treaties. There does not seem to have been any significant cross-fertilization among German, Turkish and Chinese attacks on treaties regarded by those states as unequal. However, at least one German item reports such attacks and treats them with respect. Tabouillot, Das Ende der Exterritorialitätsrechte in Mandschukuo, 3 Völkerbund und Völkerrecht 459 (1937).

143 Schwendemann, Die Abrüstungsfrage, in Handbuch, supra note 16, at 194.

144 For contemporary analysis, see Preuss, Settlement of the Jacob Kidnaping Case, 30 AJIL 123 (1936). More detail appears in H. Tutas, Nationalsozialismus und Exil: Die Politik des Dritten Reiches Gegenüber der deutschen Politischen Emigration 1933–1939, at 191–94 (1975); D. Bourgeois, La Troisième Reich et la Suisse, 1933–1941, at 53–57 (1974).

145 For a participant’s account of the affair, in which two British agents were lured to the Dutch border and kidnaped, see S. Payne Best, The Venlo Incident (1950).

146 The accuracy of Mein Kampf as a guide to Hitler’s foreign policy is emphasized in K. Bracher, supra note 4, at 238, 288–89; and E. Jäckel, supra note 137, ch. II. As early as 1933, Herbert Kraus had observed that the idea of legal equality of states was hard to reconcile with the National Socialist program, in particular with the idea of a “middle Europe” under German leadership. Die Krise des zwischenstaatlichen Denkens (1933), reprinted in Internationale Gegenwartsfragen—Völkerrecht—Staatenethik—Internationalpol1tik, Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften von Herbert Kraus 230, 247 (1963). It is there stated that some of his thinking in this paper contributed to the removal of Kraus from his chair a few years later.

147 C. Schmitt, Völkerrechtliche Grossraumordnung mit Interventionsverbot für raumfremde Mächte: Ein Beitrag zum Rechtsbegriff im Volkerrecht (1939). F. Neumann, supra note 135, pt. 1, ch. V, finds the sources of the Greater German Realm idea in references to the Holy Roman Empire (First Reich), geopolitics, population pressure theory and the new international law.

148 Hitler used the analogy to the Monroe Doctrine in an address to the Reichstag on April 28, 1940. Hans Frank warned Schmitt not to claim authorship of the idea. J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 258–59. See comments in F. Neumann, supra note 135, at 156–60.

149 On Schmitt's rivals, see J. Bendersky, supra note 2, at 259–61. Leading works on the Lebensraum idea were Best, Völkische Grossraumordnung, 10 Deutsches Recht 1006 (1940); Spanner, Grossraum und Reich, 22 zör 28 (1942).

150 On the translation of international law concepts of Reich and Grossraum into military propaganda, see Messerschmidt, supra note 1, at 89.

151 Küchenhoff, Grossraumgedanke und völkische Idee im Recht, 12 zaörv 34 (1944).

152 The thesis that the Weimar Republic was so illegitimate as to cause its acts, including its treaties, to be void was advanced by Helmut Nicolai, before 1933 the head of the party’s legal office. H. Nicolai, Die rassengesetzliche Rechtslehre, Grundzüge einer national-sozialistischen Rechtsphilosophie 56–57 (3d ed. 1934).

153 On Soviet doctrines as to noncontinuity between the tsarist and Communist states, see K. Grzybowski, Soviet Public International Law: Doctrines and Diplomatic Practice 92–95 (1976).

154 Garner, Questions of State Succession Raised by the German Annexation of Austria, 32 AJIL 421 (1938); and more recently, Hoeflich, Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections upon the History of the International Law of Public Debt in Connection with State Succession, 1982 U. Ill. L. Rev. 39, 63–65. The correspondence was published in 1 G. Hackworth, Digest of International Law 543–48 (1940).

155 For a review of these events from an Allied perspective, see Oppenheim, Governments and Authorities in Exile, 36 AJIL 568 (1942). The Nazi position that these states had ceased to exist through conquest (debellatio) is explored in D. Majer, “Fremdvolkische” im Dritten Reich. Ein Beitrag zur Nationalsozialistischen Rechtssetzung und Rechtspraxis in Verwaltung und Justiz unter Besonderer Berücksichtigung der Eingegliederten Ostgebiete und des Generalgouvernements (1981).

156 L. Schecher, Deutsches Aussenstaatsrecht 136 (1933):

In a complete sense the new principle of the state as the organization of a “national body set aside by its folk qualities, closed to outsiders by its race,” is unthinkable without the primacy of state law. The unqualified connection of all members of a Volk with their Volk as the highest value on earth can, as a matter of law, be established only on the basis that the national state is the highest creator of order for its total living relationships, upon which no legal limitation of its competence is binding, (emphasis in original)

157 A whole mass of critiques of Schecher is listed in E. Bristler, supra note 1, at 67–68. See also H. Mosler, Die Intervention im Völkerrecht 77 (1937). In Mosler’s case, this assertion of the reality of international law seems to have been part of an effort to keep Nazism from feeling free from the limits of that law. In his speech at the 50th anniversary of Mosler’s doctorate, Tomuschat noted that Mosler advocated the legitimacy of intervention in cases of extensive religious persecution, etc. B. Knobbe-Keuk, C. Tomuschat & H. Mosler, Reden zum 50. Doktorjubiläum 9, 11 (1988).

158 H. Mosler, supra note 157, at 78.

159 This was the conclusion drawn by Preuss, supra note 1, at 677. F. Giese & E. Menzel, supra note 138, at 35, sought to refute this by pointing to the anti-Comintern pact of 1937 with Italy and Japan.

160 On the European community of nations, see F. Giese & E. Menzel, supra note 138, at 23–25 and 35. They noted Hitler’s use of the term “the European family of nations.”

161 Maurach, Die Sowjetunion—Ein Mitglied der Välkerrechtsgemeinschaft?, 21 z für VR 19 (1937); see also H. Mosler, supra note 157, at 71–72; A. Verdross, supra note 135, at 54,

162 Walz, Der Treugedanke im Völkerrecht, 4 Deutsches Recht 521 (1934).

163 A classic early piece was E. Kaufmann, Das Wesen des Völkerrechts und die clausula rebus sic stantibus (1911).

164 One writer of the Third Reich had the temerity to repeat the 1914 phrase. Keller, Völkerrecht von Morgen, 17 z för VR 342, 366 (1933).

165 A. von Wegerer, Origins of World War II 44 (1941): “It would have been absurd to demand of Hitler that he renounce a policy which was in the interests of German safety, now that conditions were changed. The declaration made at Munich related to the time when it was made … .”

166 Bleiber, Aufgezwungene Verträge im Völkerrecht, 19 z für VR 385 (1935).

167 Restatement, supra note 136, §331 Reporters’ Note 2, referring to Articles 51 and 52 of the Vienna Convention.

168 For a Nazi view of the League as a quintessentially Jewish organization, see N. Gürke, supra note 92, at 18–20.

169 Id. at 17–18, describes the Society as the creation of a pacifist Jew, Oscar Straus.

170 Schoen, Zur Lehre von den Subjehten des Völkerrechts, 23 Z für VR 411 (1939).

171 For reviews of the League minority protection system, see J. Robinson, Were the Minority Treaties a Failure? (1943); P. de Azcarate, The League of Nations and National Minorities: An Experiment (1945).

172 Walz, Neue Grundlagen des Volksgruppenrechts, 23 Z für VR 150 (1939).

173 1 G. Weinberg, supra note 3, at 17; C. Latour, Südtirol und die Achse Berlin-Rom 1938–1945 (1962).

174 The most elaborate exposition of Nazi ideas about minorities (relabeled Volksgruppen or “groups of people”) is in F. Giese & E. Menzel, supra note 138, ch. II. The explanations why Jews were not a minority start at p. 44. For an attack on League of Nations efforts, under the leadership of James McDonald, to assist Jewish refugees as oppressed minorities, see Gürke, Mr. McDonald und die Judenfrage im Deutschen Reich, 2 Völkerbund und Völkerrecht 665 (1935). See also H. TUTAS, supra note 144, at 205–391.

On the language issue, see F. Giese & E. Menzel, supra note 138, at 43: “Yiddish is among the Jews in the German Reich not a means for expressing and developing an independent community life. It is all in all questionable whether it can be spoken by the Jews in the Reich” (quoting H. Gerber, Minderheitenrecht im deutschen Reich 53 (1929)).

On the Jewish desire for assimilation in Germany, see id. at 48–49.

176 Thus, Gürke said that “National Socialism has rejected assimilation with all possible decisiveness.” He quoted Hitler as saying:

For National Socialism sees the forced assimilation of one people into another not only as not a political aim worth pursuing but, as in effect a danger to the inner unity, and hence the strength, of a people in the long run. Its teaching therefore dogmatically rejects the idea of national assimilation.

N. Gürke, Grundzüge des Völkerrechts 50 (1936).

177 Stauffenberg, Die Entziehung der Staatsangehörigheit und das Völkerrecht, 4 zaörv 261 (1934). This article is a response to the denunciation of the legislation in Scelle, A Propos de la Lot allemande du 14 juillet 1933 sur la déchéance de la nationalité, 29 Revue Critique de Droit International 63 (1934). Reluctantly, Garner, Recent German Nationality Legislation, 30 AJIL 96, 99 (1936), concluded that it “probably cannot be successfully argued that [the law] violates any positive prescription of the law of nations.”

178 3 G. Hackworth, supra note 154, at 642–46 (1942).

179 On the origin of the concept of genocide in Nazi practice, see R. Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944).

180 46 Stat. 2343, 2 Bevans 43, 94 LNTS 57. German writers tried to use the Kellogg pact (as they called it, giving no credit to Briand) to argue that Britain and France had acted illegally in coming to the aid of Poland and that it had not changed the rules on neutrality so as to justify U.S. aid to Britain. See Bilfinger, Die Kriegserklärungen der Westmächte und der Kellaggpakt, 10 zaörv 1 (1940); Schluter, Kelloggpakt und Neutralitätsrecht, 11 id. at 24 (1942).

181 But to be seen as active in the policy “fulfillment” of Versailles was to be made a target, sometimes of bullets. See K. Epstein, Matthias Erzberger and the Dilemma of German Democracy 379–89 (1959).

182 On German pacifists, see C. Rajewsky & D. Riesenberger, supra note 47. For data on Schücking, see D. Acker, supra note 36; on Wehberg, see the memorial symposium in 56 Friedenswarte 297 (1962). The hostility of Nazis toward pacifists comes through strongly in their reaction to the grant of the Nobel Peace Prize to Ossietsky, by then in a concentration camp. 3 Völkerbund und Völkerrecht 632 (1937).

183 Thus, T. Maunz, Geltung und Neubildung Modernen Kriegsvölkerrechts 18 (1939), moves from the Grossraum theory of Carl Schmitt to the proposition that a war to establish a Grossraum cannot be an unjust war. But the academic literature never descended to the linguistic violence against, in particular, the peoples of Eastern Europe that one finds in straight Nazi propaganda.

184 Schmitt, Totaler Feind, totaler Krieg, totaler Staat, 4 Völkerbund und Völkerrecht 139 (1937).

185 F. Giese & E. Menzel, Deutsches Kriegsfuhrungsrecht (1940).

186 Grewe, Die neue Kriegsphase, 8 Monatshefte für auswärtige Politik 748 (1941). Grewe later privately acknowledged the error of this analysis, blaming it on inadequate information. Weber, supra note 105, at 365 n.3.

187 For a general overview of efforts to maintain the laws of war, see Roediger, Versuche zur Wahrung des humanitären Völkerrechts nach 1933, in Deutsches Geistesleben und Nationalsozialismus 178 (A. Flitner ed. 1965). On Moltke’s work, see van Roon, Graf Molthe als Völkerrechtler im OKW, 18 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 12 (1970). The argument that the Hague Convention rules became customary international law is the crux of the famous memorandum on treatment of Russian prisoners of war prepared by Moltke. See note 200 infra. The argument was current among German writers in the period before 1940. N. Gürke, supra note 176, at 55. See also the discussion of customary laws of war in Schmitz’s lecture notes, cited supra note 59, at 43–45a. For a historical perspective, see Meron, The Geneva Conventions as Customary Law, 81 AJIL 348 (1987).

188 The chief exceptions were the commando order, the execution of escaped Allied fliers (the Sagan episode) and the Malmédy massacre of prisoners. For a summary of German western front crimes, with a description of the argumentation these—unlike eastern crimes—aroused at higher echelons, see R. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg 307–18 (1983). For a comparison of the treatment of prisoners of war, see A. Durand, Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story 125–41 (1988).

189 The most detailed account as to how the German military leaders were persuaded to accept the standards Hitler set for the conduct of the war in the east appears in M. Messerschmidt, Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat: Zeit der Indoktrination 390–422 (1969).

190 Art. 46, Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Annex to Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, Oct. 18, 1907, 36 Stat. 2277, TS No. 539, 1 Bevans 631.

191 On Poland’s status, see Klein, Zur Stellung des Generalgouvernements in der Verfassung des Grossdeutschen Reichs, 32 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 227 (1940).

192 Mueller, Kriegsrecht oder Willkür? Helmuth James, Graf von Moltke und die Auffassungen im Generalstab des Heeres über die Aufgaben der Militärverwaltung vor Beginn des Russlandkrieges, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, No. 2, 1987, at 125, 138.

193 For Jodl testimony, see 15 IMT, Proc. 341 (1948). The relative adherence to the Hague rules in World War I is demonstrated by the contrast in prisoner-of-war death rates in the two conflicts. C. Streit, Keine Kameraden, Die Wehrmacht und die Sowjetischen Kriegsgefangenen 1941–1945, at 10 (1978). As an example of ignorance, Moltke cited a German general’s answer to a surrendering Dutch officer’s question whether Germany would follow the Hague rules: “General, did you learn about international law in school? I didn’t.” Van Roon, supra note 187, at 17.

194 2 IMT, Proc. at 456 (1947).

195 15 IMT, Proc., supra note 193, at 481, 483–88.

196 United States v. List, 11 Trials of War Criminals, supra note 32, at 1078–1112. See van Roon, supra note 187, at 51–54; C. Rousseau, Le Droit des Conflits Armés 74–75 (1983).

197 A. Seaton, The German Army, 1933–1945, at 209 (1985), describes the treatment of Italian prisoners by the Wehrmacht after the fall of Mussolini. United States v. List, 11 Trials of War Criminals, supra note 32, at 1078–1112, 1291–94.

198 C. Streit, supra note 193, at 296–300; O. Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941–45: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare (1986).

199 C. Streit, supra note 193, at 224–37.

200 The instructions are summarized in 1 IMT, Proc. 229 (1947), and given in full in United States v. von Leeb, 11 Trials of War Criminals, supra note 32, at 13–15. For the text of the Canaris memorandum, see 1 IMT, Proc. at 232; 36 id. at 317 (German original text); United States v. von Leeb, 11 Trials of War Criminals at 2–5. On Moltke’s authorship of the Canaris memorandum, see Helmuth James Graf von Moltke: Volkerrecht im Dienste der Menschen 258 (G. van Roon ed. 1986).

201 19 IMT, Proc. 412 (1948).

202 Id.

203 See, e.g., Schmitz, Sperrgebiete im Seekrieg, 8 zaörv 641 (1939).

204 Interestingly, articles on specific wartime problems tended not to appear in the traditional international law journals but in the more propagandistic output of the Institut für Auswärtige Politik, transformed into the Deutsches Institut für Aussenpolitische Forschung. Thus, the destroyer bases deal was signaled in the Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht merely by the reprinting of the English text of the notes, but by Berber’s institute with W. Grewe, Zerstörer gegen Stützpunkte (1942); and Grewe, Das Schicksal der Neutralität im europäischen Krieg und im zweiten Weltkrieg, 1943 Jahrbuch der Weltpolitik 86, 99. See Weber, supra note 105, at 303–04.

205 For a recent German review of this issue, see Gruchmann, Völkerrecht und Moral: Ein Beitrag zur Problematik der amerikanischen Neutralitätspolitik, 1939–1941, 8 Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 384 (1960). A major contemporary German tract was F. Berber, Die Amerikanische Neutralität im Kriege 1939–1941 (1943). Berber was able to cite such American writers as Borchard, Briggs and Wright in support of his arguments. See id. at 24–25.

206 See A. de Zayas, note 78 supra.

207 See the final judgment of the Tribunal, 1 Trial of the Major war Criminals 313 (1947), 6 F.R.D. 69, 169 (1946), stating that Dönitz was not assessed as to his sentence on grounds of breaches of the international law of submarine warfare. As to Raeder, see 1 Trial, supra, at 317, 6 F.R.D. at 171.

208 One moving testimony to this connection is the emotional reaction of Viktor Bruns’s coworkers at receiving Borchard’s 1943 tribute in the Journal, supra note 29, which “transcended all the battle lines.” Makarov, supra note 63, at 364 n.7.

209 See supra notes 156–57.