From: MSalter1-AT-aol.com
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 13:44:16 EST
Subject: Re: works on FS/Neumann/Nuremberg



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Bob

I would agree with some of the points you make but not others. For example, 
the OSS, esp its leader General DOnovan, wanted the economic case for the 
OSS, and it was the US prosecutor jackson that - for internal political 
reasons - wanted this under the control of a personal friend. OShea. One has 
to be careful in claiming that OSS stagemanaged this trial for ulterior 
motives, this is David Irving's thesis but not support by my own arhcival 
work on declassified sources. IN essence, the OSS were used for as long as 
they were needed but when Donovan became a rival, he was forced out.

Neumann was perhaps the only lawyer asked to prepare his opinion on each of 
the 22 defendants, relfecting the esteem in which his empirical knowledge / 
auuthtority was held. Remarkably - and post Behemoth - )the second edition of 
which was written with OSS sourced data - this was greater in US intelligence 
than amongst his FS colleagues Horkheimer or Adorno!

Neumann has pursuaded OSS that German war criminals should be tried before 
German courts according to Weimar law, and - in a kind of immanent critique - 
be condemned as criminal by traditional Germanic standards as an important 
part of the wider denazidication effort. Neumann himself had written aspects 
of the US military's denazification guide togethger with Marcuse's related 
efforts whilst at OSS.

Thanks for your comments Bob

Michael


In a message dated 25/02/2002 02:31:30 GMT Standard Time, rscheetz-AT-cboss.com 
writes:


> Michael,
>     Your article clearly indicates the "religious persecution" area was a 
> red-herring; his brief (as well as the "world conquest conspiracy" brief), 
> a forced business, violently contorting the usual practice of ruling class 
> ideological discipline (as cornwell points out, where concordats were 
> possible institutional integrity could be guaranteed) for optimal 
> propaganda value; that he himself considered it so (the "real work" was 
> economic); and that OSS had every intention of precluding "real work" 
> prosecution.  They were putting on a show, a morality play for the 
> canaille; not validating the rule of higher level law...advancing the 
> spirit of western civ.
>      The question of the OSS motive in chosing Neumann is also apparent 
> within this framework: on account of his stature and real knowledge of the 
> enemy, as part in a great battle of bureaucratic and ideological 
> de/reconstruction, he was an enormous asset,...the technique of the oblique 
> brief, simply a control mechanism.  Perhaps more interesting is the 
> question put the other war round: why did Neumann enlist and contribute 
> mightily to the military destruction and vassallage of his homeland? 
> ...simply need a job?...on orders from kremlin (as you suggest he was 
> dbl'd)? ...or was he perhaps possessed of a naive faith in the dialectic of 
> enlightenment institutionalised in the constructing of law?
>  
> Isn't this much in your article, Michael?...I agree with yer pts re the 
> scientific integrity of his R&A, but his, as well as US, motives and goals, 
> and linked with actual consequences and responsibility, are still an issue, 
> no?... and surely not trivial or vulgar at all?
>  
> respectfully,
> bob
> 
> >> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> 
> 


Professor of Law
Law School
University of Central Lancashire
Preston
Lancs
PR1 2HE
United Kingdom

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