Winning the Peace Part I

‘There’s a famous slogan in the United Kingdom…From after the Second World War -

That is that we have to "win the peace" And that's what we must do now'

Sir Keir Starmer, at the press conference after his meeting with Donald Trump

The White House February 27th 2025

This is the first of a short series by Tom Blackmore that looks at how the peace was won after the Second World War through the eyes of a Nuremberg prosecutor who went to champion and draft the ECHR. They look forward to commemorative performances of Sue Casson’s Dreams of Peace & Freedom later this year which will remember its birth from the ashes of a decimated Europe and celebrate the protections of the Convention in this its’ 75th anniversary year.

Sue Casson begins by describing Dreams of Peace & Freedom, and in particular movement VI which sets the scene for the events that are explored in this blog :

‘Dreams of Peace & Freedom is an intimate telling of epic events – what steps were taken in the messy aftermath of World War II to return order to chaos – through the eyes of one who was not only there, but had a seat at the table in deciding what the future would look like. David Maxwell Fyfe left behind papers and letters exchanged with his wife Sylvia that enable us now to understand what this looked like. The way he, and those in the UK and Europe who he worked alongside, ultimately ‘won the peace’ peace that we have now enjoyed for 80 years, was not with a single grand gesture, but with a series of incremental steps that boiled down to practical logistics, all recorded here.

‘David was very fond of the war sonnets of Rupert Brooke which came out whilst he was still at school, and one of which he quoted in his closing against the Nazi organisations at the Nuremberg Trials. In the song cycle, for the moment when the cross-examinations get underway in the trial we chose to set the idealistic first sonnet in his series – Peace – for in a real sense the Nuremberg Trials were a first step on the road to winning the peace – a radical attempt at recalibration, to reassert natural justice and the rule of law by trying the leading figures who had been instrumental in the world becoming out of kilter. For a trial that succeeded in making the ‘monsters’ of the public imagination human it begins with a very human prayer – Now God be Thanked – the conflict is over and a new beginning is heralded, one where ‘the sick hearts, that Honour could not move’ can be left aside and the world washed clean ‘like swimmers into cleanness leaping.’

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In February 1946, five months after IMT Nuremberg got underway, David Maxwell Fyfe, a British prosecutor, was visited for the first time by his wife, Sylvia:

Darling, this is from the plane just to say I am thinking of you and all we have done. I know you understand and feel the same about not saying much when one says goodbye so I do not usually worry that I should have said more. If we dislike something very much we have always said as little as possible. However I can now picture your life and surroundings which make them seem less remote and we are on the last lap. I hope and pray it will not be too arduous for you but I am now completely satisfied that you are making history in a real way and without any self-seeking. You will get a reward.

In the absence of reliable telephones David and Sylvia exchanged letters two or three times a week throughout the Nuremberg Trials. Predominantly a way of staying in touch and reiterating their love for one another, David took the opportunity to keep an informal record of the progress of the trial. After Sylvia’s departure, and months of establishment and introductions, the trial moved towards the cross-examination of the defendants. David wrote:

We have jumped into the preparation of the cross-examination with a bang. I have been reading transcripts and preparing notes every night. It is rather a good thing because it makes the change from your presence to absence easier when there is work. You were absolutely right about the tempo of the trial suddenly changing. We have got three matters which are making us work 1. The preparation of the cross examination 2. The pruning of the dft’s (defendants) applications for witnesses 3. The organisation

The preparation of the cross-examination

On the first of these, preparing for cross-examination, the prosecutors divided up the defendants:

Jackson will do the main cross examination of Goering and I shall do the main one of Ribbentrop, Hess, and Keitel. Mervyn will do Streicher, I shall do Doenitz and Raeder, Khaki Jodl and I von Papen and von Neurath. I shall also have to do any subsidiary cross-examinations of other dfts (defendants) on points with which we specially concerned.

David did not foresee the importance of his cross-examination of Goering, noting only that he would have to provide ‘subsidiary cross-examination.’ The rigour of the British prosecutors and the way in which they worked as a team is conjured through his description:

I have directed the team prepare the cross examinations in 3 stages (i) a cameo sketch to show what they are driving at (ii) a full note of the facts (iii) a short note of what they consider the unanswerable & unescapable points Mervyn has done the whole of Hess. I have worked the passages in the transcript which Miss Kentish collected into a work on Goering. I have done the cameo sketch and am halfway through dictating the long note on Ribbentrop and Khaki has produced something on Keitel. I am going to finish Ribbentrop this afternoon.

The pruning of the defendants, applications for witnesses

Shortly after Sylvia’s departure, the court began the process of selecting and organising the witnesses for the defendants/witnesses. David wrote:

We started the pruning of the dft’s witnesses and documents, Saturday, in open court. The other delegations have, strangely enough, left this detailed task to me and I spent the day until 4 o’clock bobbing up and down arguing with German counsel. I thoroughly enjoyed it. We only got their lists about 12 on Friday so it meant a fair amount of work in which John (Barrington) was wonderfully and unselfishly helpful. We continue this pruning tomorrow.

Back in London Sylvia maintained a lively interest:

I cannot tell you how much it interests and stimulates me to hear about the trial. I feel so very much a part of it even after 10 days. I must say I should love to be there to hear you now that you are doing more, but we could not have had so much fun as we did if you had been so busy.

In turn this interest fed David’s drive:

I am terribly glad that you still find news of the trial interesting. It was so wonderful when you were here. The whole thing appeared so much more worth doing. I have however had a very interesting week dealing with the applications for witnesses and documents. Although it has been hard work it has given me a wonderfully comprehensive view of the case and possible line of defence.

Cross-examination

Witnesses agreed, the cross-examination began. David had spent more time in the courtroom than anyone apart from the judges. He was familiar with the difficulties imposed by the arc lights and untested simultaneous translation:

I had my first bit of cross-examination to-day – Field Marshal Kesselring. Everyone was frightfully nice about it. In my own view – after being unnecessarily het up about it, afraid I should not come off – I did rather knock Hell out of a conceited German Marshal. I do not suppose it will get much press as the space will be devoted to Goering going into the box.

Goering was first questioned by his defence counsel, David watching and making a couple of observations:

Actually he, Goering, was extremely clever – very calm, factual and a little dull.

and

Goering has given his evidence quite well except that he was too long and grotesquely egotistical. “I and the Fuhrer” sounds a bit silly when the others main plea – it is no defence- is that they could not argue with Hitler.

And David also watched his American counterpart Robert Jackson as he began to cross-examine. In earlier letters David had expressed huge admiration for Jackson’s introductory speech at the trials. But he was more anxious about his ability in cross-examination:

Goering has in fact pleaded guilty to a great deal of the indictment. I hope that Jackson will say that we shall so argue and restrict his cross-examination to the points where we have really deadly stuff.

and

Jackson is going to start his cross-examination. The oddity about his attempts so far is that they have no form and no follow up, but a wealth of carefully prepared material. Curiously enough for the effete Old Country I get the impression that I have been brought up in a much harder and tougher school. One up for Uncle Starkey!

What distinguished Maxwell Fyfe’s cross-examination from that of the American prosecutor Robert Jackson who preceded him, was the forensic approach to the crimes committed and Goering’s collusion in them, the ‘deadly stuff’.

His principal line of questioning focused on the murder by the police of the airmen who mounted an escape from Stalag Luft III in Sagan. Later to be memorialized and fictionalized in the film The Great Escape, this break-out had taken place two years previously in 1944.

Eye-catching now when international law is seen as elastic, is the number of references made by Maxwell Fyfe to the laws of war drawn up by international treaty without Goering questioning their authority. This reveals the shared understanding between the two men that there were rules and laws that govern the treatment of POWs. Whilst he tried to worm his way out of responsibility and knowledge of the shootings, Goering did not try to hide his horror at the murders, or his knowledge that others shared that horror. He said:

Not only these officers found this matter serious and difficult, but I myself considered it the most serious incident of the whole war and expressed myself unequivocally and clearly on this point.

Given the scope and scale of the war this is an extraordinary statement. It seems to have been forged from the threat of British retaliation, the breaking of the Geneva Convention and Goering’s observation of Hitler’s disintegrating behaviour. Leaving aside any abiding respect for fellow combatants, as head of the Luftwaffe, Goering was of course aware of the risk to authority and morale if the British had murdered German airmen in response.

Maxwell Fyfe wove in the Geneva Convention early on in the exchange:

…..you know as well as I do that prisoners of war is a thing that you have got to be careful about, because you have got a protecting power that investigates any complaint; and you never denounced the Convention and you had the protecting power in these matters all through the war, had you not? That is right, isn’t it?

To which Goering replied:

That is correct.

The Geneva Convention that protected prisoners of war had only been signed in 1929, refining previous international treaties.

Lieutenant General Grosch, an officer working for Goering at the headquarters of the Luftwaffe who provided evidence for Nuremberg, attended a briefing about the plans for the police to shoot the escaped prisoners and reported to his superior, as repeated by Fyfe:

I expressed the opinion that if the British airmen were to be shot, (a) there would be a breach of the Geneva Convention, (b) reprisal measures endangering the lives of German airmen held by the British as prisoners of war would have to be expected. I asked General Forster to bring the matter to the notice of the Reich Marshal even at this very late stage, and to stress those two points.

Goering denied all knowledge of this. But he explained that when he did find out he addressed Hitler on the subject:

I personally pointed out to the Fuhrer repeatedly that it is the duty of these officers to escape, and that on their return after the war, they would have to give an account of such attempts, which as far as I can remember should be repeated three times, according to English rules.

Maxwell Fyfe later points out that the German government issued a statement fabricating events:

You remember that the Government of Germany sent an official note about this matter, saying that they had been shot while resisting arrest while trying to escape? Do you remember that?

To which Goering responded:

……when I learned the contents of the note, I knew that this note was not in accordance with the truth…. I told the Fuhrer in very clear terms just how I felt, and I saw from his answers that, even if I had known of it before, I could not have prevented this decree.

Despite these protestations, there was just too much evidence that those around Goering knew about and deplored the murders. It is inconceivable that Goering himself was not complicit in some way. And that he lied.

By leading Goering through the ranks of those who knew of this crime and had recorded telling the Reich Marshal, by talking him through his diary around the time of the shootings, and testing his attitude to the murders, Maxwell Fyfe spelt out Goering’s guilt to the tribunal and diminished to nothing what Lord Justice Lawrence, the presiding judge described as Goering’s ‘credit.’

And Fyfe went on to grill Goering on his role at the outbreak of war, and his knowledge of the crimes against those imprisoned by the Nazis, in particular the Jewish population.

Rebecca West described Maxwell Fyfe at work:

This gentle and heavily built man, who never exempts himself from the discipline of fairness, drives witness after witness backward, step by step, till on the edge of some moral abyss they admit the truth.

The Aftermath

Later in the trials, Goering was to express his frustration with the way that he had handled this cross-examination, as recorded by David in a way that strangely captures the humanity of Courtroom 600:

Goering let out rather a good crack to the psychiatrist, I’m told by the press. He said, “Of course I know Sir David’s technique now, I can see the way he works up to his point. It was very bad luck on me coming first and being cross-examined before I had a chance to observe.” I must say I take my hat off to the old brigand. He keeps his interest up.

For Sylvia David records his satisfaction with the impact of his confrontation with Goering:

I think that my cross-examination of Goering went all right. Everyone was very pleased. Jackson had not only made no impression but actually built the fat boy up further. I think I knocked him reasonably off his perch.

and

I am sure that you have gathered the position for yourself. Jackson could do very little with slap happy Herman and I had to go in to prevent him being firmly reseated on his pedestal. The English Press have been very kindly.

The press was very enthusiastic. Much of what went on at the Nuremberg War Crimes was not easy to report. The process, with twenty-three defendants and four prosecuting nations, could be long, drawn out, and boring. The evidence was overwhelming and much of it so awful that it was unprintable. But on the afternoon of the 20th March and the morning of the following day they saw a giant of the Nazi regime topple. As the icon fell away, all that remained was a man guilty of murder and lying. It was an important early step in winning the peace.

Unsurprisingly the news of the cross-examination was greeted with real pleasure at home. Sylvia wrote:

Darling, it is a glorious day with bright sun and flowers coming out in the Park so perhaps this long, long winter is going to end sometime. Also the Times and Telegraph (and doubtless ‘all the paper’) say that your cross examination went beautifully. ‘In a few skilful questions’… the Times says. I fear Mr. J.J. felt a little out of it!!

But the letters soon resumed their rhythm of recording the progress of the trials, the day-to-day problems of managing in the alien world of Nuremberg, reports of London life slowly emerging after the war, and Sylvia taking on David’s constituency business in Liverpool. Above all, however, the letters conveyed their love for one another.

The peace was won by an army of peacemakers who turned their back on war to ‘to secure a strong, just and lasting peace’ of the sort described by Keir Starmer in the House of Commons last week, and that is now in danger.

Item 3 on David’s list The Organisations will be the subject of the second blog in this series.