{"id":168133,"date":"2025-11-07T15:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/168133\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:50:11","slug":"the-irish-journalist-in-the-room-at-nuremberg-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/168133\/","title":{"rendered":"the Irish journalist in the room at Nuremberg \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Hermann G\u00f6ring and other leading Nazis entered a grand Nuremberg courtroom 80 years ago, watching eight yards away was Belfast<\/a> man Seaghan Maynes.<\/p>\n

Not yet 30, Maynes had moved from Belfast to London and joined Reuters the previous year, travelling through Europe with Gen George S Patton\u2019s Third US Army. He witnessed the Normandy landings and, alongside Ernest Hemingway, the liberation of Paris \u2013 and the Buchenwald concentration camp.<\/p>\n

On November 20th, 1945, though, Maynes was in courtroom 600 for what was billed as the trial of the century. An international military tribunal was, for the first time, placing individuals on trial for the most serious crimes during the second World War<\/a>, in particular by the Nazi regime\u2019s industrialised killing machine.<\/p>\n

\"SeaghanSeaghan Maynes. Photograph: Alamy stock photo via PA <\/p>\n

Eight decades on, the so-called Nuremberg trials are seen as the birthplace of international criminal law where the worst type of crime possible was defined: crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

Sitting today in the courtroom \u2013 wood panelling and high coffered ceiling \u2013 the air is dry but cool. At the stroke of noon, it\u2019s showtime: the high curtains close automatically and a transparent gauze screen, the entire width of the courtroom, unrolls from the ceiling before the visitor gallery. <\/p>\n

Projectors superimpose on today\u2019s courtroom black and white newsreel footage from the moment 80 years ago when Nazism went on trial. The court chamber is empty but back then it was packed with people, the air humid and hot, thanks largely to huge floodlights necessary for the newsreel cameras.<\/p>\n

Even 80 years on, the solemn concentration is palpable. With the entire 30,000-word indictment read out on day one, Irish Times readers learned in a Reuters front-page story the next day that the opening day had been \u201cdominated by dullness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"IrishIrish Times front page on November 21st, 1945, the day after the Nuremberg Trials began <\/p>\n

A \u201crestless\u201d Joachim von Ribbentropp, former German ambassador to London, fainted. To his left, \u201cgaunt and impassive\u201d former Hitler confidant Rudolf Hess collapsed with abdominal cramps. <\/p>\n

Only Hermann G\u00f6ring, number two in the Nazi hierarchy, remained focused, offering \u201ca smile for the pressmen and paternal glances for his fellow prisoners\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seemed in good spirits, and had an air, real or assumed, of confidence,\u201d continued the first Nuremberg trial report. Heading Reuters coverage throughout the Nuremberg trials was Maynes. Born in Belfast in 1916, he worked for Reuters for most of his life, covering the foundation of the state of Israel, the Suez crisis and the McCarthy trials.<\/p>\n

\"HermannHermann G\u00f6ring offered ‘a smile for the pressmen and paternal glances for his fellow prisoners’. Photograph: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Eight years before he died of a heart attack in 1998, Maynes told his story to Hilary Gaskin for her book, Eyewitness at Nuremberg. Maynes recalled the tedium of the first five months of prosecutor testimony, the boredom broken occasionally by tinny jazz music echoing up from the transistor radios of military police outside the courtroom.<\/p>\n

Things got interesting with the cross-examination of G\u00f6ring, where the wily former Reichsmarshall \u201cwent on the offensive immediately\u201d. Maynes remembered G\u00f6ring, unlike others in the dock, offering \u201cnone of this craven, \u2018I didn\u2019t do it, I\u2019m terribly sorry, it wasn\u2019t my fault\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis attitude was, \u2018What the hell do you expect? We were fighting a war for our survival\u2019\u201d, said Maynes. G\u00f6ring remained a dominant figure in the trial, and Maynes remembered him as \u201cshrewd, very intelligent, extremely quick on the uptake\u201d, often reducing the cross-examining US justice Robert H Jackson to \u201ca state of impotence and fury\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, G\u00f6ring was so \u201cflummoxed\u201d by the \u201cpoliteness and deference\u201d of British prosecutor Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe that he answered all questions put to him. <\/p>\n

\"HermannHermann G\u00f6ring during cross-examination at his trial for war crimes in Room 600 at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1946. Photograph: Raymond D’Addario\/Galerie Bilderwelt\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Of the 20 on trial in Nuremberg over 218 days, 10 were sentenced to death, seven were jailed (and many released early by German courts) while three were acquitted. G\u00f6ring remained one step ahead of the tribunal, killing himself with cyanide after he was sentenced to death but before he was hanged. Subsequent Nuremberg hearings tried judges, doctors, diplomats and industrialists. <\/p>\n

Today, the former press gallery in the Nuremberg court has been transformed into a thoughtful and immersive museum, with a few exhibits including the original defendant benches and chipped wooden US document crates, painted military green.<\/p>\n

The Allies chose Nuremberg for the tribunal because, while much of the medieval city was in ruins, the city\u2019s sprawling court complex from 1916, just outside town, survived the war largely intact. It also had an adjoining prison \u2013 now replaced with a modern facility \u2013 and there was an airport nearby. It was a fitting coincidence in other ways: Nuremberg hosted the largest Nazi rallies while, a decade earlier, eponymous laws legalised the exclusion of Jews from German life and began the country\u2019s slide into moral ruin. <\/p>\n

\"CourtroomCourtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. Photograph: Filip Singer\/EPA \"VisitorsVisitors observe an exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany. Photograph: Filip Singer\/EPA <\/p>\n

Visitors learn of the legal and procedural innovations established in Nuremberg, from the charge of crimes against humanity to the logistics of simultaneous in-court translation, involving a team of 350 linguists and technicians, radio headsets and nerves of steel. <\/p>\n

Tucked discreetly in a corner, visitors can watch the same newsreel footage from Nazi camps shown in the Nuremberg courtroom: lifeless bodies with tortured faces being loaded into lorries and dumped in mass graves; a crematorium containing half-burnt bodies; naked survivors with stick-thin limbs and wary eyes.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The \u2018enthusiastic\u2019 Nazi who went to Donegal to learn Irish – and spy – in 1937Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Nuremberg museum attracts 160,000 people annually, three-quarters from outside Germany. Museum director Nina Lutz hopes visitors leave with a better understanding of the so-called \u201cNuremberg principles\u201d and the post-1945 determination of the international community to \u201cwork through crimes through the means of law and not revenge\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"FlagsFlags of USA, Great Britain and the Soviet Union in front of the Memorium Nuremberg Trials building in Nuremberg, Germany. Photograph: Filip Singer\/EPA <\/p>\n

In 2002 the International Criminal Court<\/a> (ICC) was established to do just that and is seen as the child of Nuremberg. But it has faced sustained pressure from non-members such as the US and Israel. That pressure has increased after it issued an arrest warrant against Israeli<\/a> prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a> on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity over Israel\u2019s response to the October 7th, 2023 Hamas-led attacks.<\/p>\n

Germany is an ICC member but also feels a Holocaust-related historical responsibility to Israel and has criticised the arrest warrant. So, 80 years after Nuremberg, what will happen if anyone presses Berlin to decide between Israel and the ICC\u2019s Nuremberg inheritance to defend international law?<\/p>\n

\u201cHow things look politically is up to the decisions of politicians but, legally speaking, all members of the ICC are obliged to implement arrest warrants,\u201d said Dr Gurgen Petrussian, director of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, which trains new generations of lawyers and public servants in international and human rights law. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0German president tackles uncomfortable statistic: every second German favours \u2018drawing a line\u2019 under Nazi pastOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Leading international law professor and lawyer Philippe Sands is also author of East West Street, about the Nuremberg trials and some of its protagonists. He concedes that international law faces a \u201cdifficult moment\u201d on this 80th anniversary, but remains a \u201clong game\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dana Abu-Koash: How can we rebuild trust in the idea that even in war there are limits?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe face hurdles right now, but they will be overcome,\u201d says Prof Sands. \u201cNo one ever said it was going to be easy, or the path would be clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Near the end of his life, Maynes was ambivalent about Nuremberg, viewing it as a seriously flawed \u201crevenge trial\u201d but also a necessary \u201cshowpiece\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose was to show crime followed by punishment as an example to others,\u201d he told Gaskin in her 1990 book. \u201cBut the legal process was very suspect. They made a charge to fit a crime, after the crime had been committed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GenGen George Patton, commander of the US third army in Europe, holds a press conference with journalists after Germany’s surrender. Seaghan Maynes is to the left, in the front row. Photograph: Bettmann archive <\/p>\n

Decades later, it was clear Maynes was still not certain that G\u00f6ring and his Nazi allies got a fair trial in Nuremberg<\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility of the German defendants getting witnesses to come forward,\u201d he remarked drily, \u201cwould be as scarce as holy water in an Orange Lodge\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Hermann G\u00f6ring and other leading Nazis entered a grand Nuremberg courtroom 80 years ago, watching eight yards…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[663,6222,9,10,13,14,6621,6,12467,71,11,12,15,16,5,30114,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-168133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-binyamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-international-criminal-court","17":"tag-israel","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-second-world-war","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115509213652630838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}