Speer And Ribbentrop's Analysis

This week’s reading focuses on the trial from Christmas 1945 through February 1946. The reading focused primarily on the two defendants who were extremely opposite in nature; Speer and Ribbentrop as well as what I would call the deterioration of the American prosecutorial team. The other interesting fact is that Hess was still feigning (?) his inability to remember. I disagree with some of the statements made by the author; I believe Hess, will suffering from a form of dementia (hallucinations of greatness), knew that by feigning mental illness, would not suffer the hangman’s noose. The war in Europe had ended almost eight months prior; the American soldiers (as well as the public) were tired (or interest was waning) of what remained in

He is portrayed as whining and a believer in his own importance. Ribbentrop was considered in a far different light by his fellow contemporaries. Ribbentrop was far worldlier than his fellow Nazi’s and obtained his power through his connections with von Papen as well as being the consummate “yes man” for Hitler.
Ribbentrop’s efforts during the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocols detailing the various spheres of influence each of the powers would have. Once war began with Russia – Ribbentrop was effectively walled off from the inner circle. With his self-styled importance gone, Ribbentrop suffered in affect a mental breakdown. As the trial proceeded after the Christmas recess; it was apparent the some of the prosecutors (on the American side) were ill prepared or ill equipped to conduct a prosecutorial form of the trial. Persico made note of Colonel Storey who re-opened the criminal-organizational case against the Gestapo. More importantly, there appears to be a degradation in the separation of the Americans from the ordinary Germans. The “non-fraternization” policy appeared to be aimed at the lower ranking enlisted personnel rather than the American staff. This may have tempered the view of the lawyers who escaped from Nuremberg during the weekends. More importantly was the rapid shift of combat veterans to the draftees who had not experienced the war directly. This rankled

Yet, many Southern states had similar laws regarding inter-racial marriage. It has only been in the last several decades that these laws were finally stricken from many Southern state’s legal code (I think Georgia was the last state to nullify inter-racial marriages). The Allied Powers condemned the slaughter of women and children in the various locations in the Baltic States and Russia; yet less than fifty years earlier the United States had the “Sand Creek Massacres” as well as “Wounded Knee.” The United States condemned the wholesale resettlement of Jews into the various ghettos in Poland, but was that any different that the forced resettlement of the American Indian (First Nation) to the various reservations? Where we condemned the forced sterilization of many, was that any different from what many states such as California and Michigan promulgated during the beginning of 20th Century which was continued into the 1970’s? The eugenics programs in the United States served as the model for Germany’s program. While the United States did not conduct experimentation on the scale of Germany and Japans concentration camps; one only has to take a look at the Tuskegee experiments with blacks and syphilis for 40 years and wonders what other experiments have been conducted. Russia condemned the execution of political commissars, yet