Show will a trial of the war criminals be aftermath of unconditional surrender they hang kaiser in 1918 but will adolf be as lucky by ELMO SCOTT WATSON released ne by western newspaper union T TN CONDITIONAL sur unconditional 1 J render is the watch word of the allies and after r that has been brought about the axis leaders who plunged lunged the world into war will be es placed upon trial for the crimes against humanity which they and their followers have committed such is the promise of pre president si roosevelt and prime minister churchill and it is not likely 1 that ahat there will be any objection to that program from joseph stalin and generalissimo chiang kai shek certainly if the people of poland france belgium holland norway denmark greece and czechoslovakia have anything to say about it hitler mussolini hirohito and their fellow international gangsters will not escape punishment as did kaiser wilhelm a quarter of a century ago back in 1917 18 hang the kaiser was a popular slogan in the allied countries even after the german monarch lind had abdicated and found refuge in holland that slogan helped continue prime minister lloyd george in power in the british elections of november 1918 and that the tha promise in it might be made good was indicated by article of the treaty of versailles which was signed a few months later the article said the allied and associated rowers powers publicly arraign wilhelm 11 II of formerly german emperor for supreme offenses against international morality and the sanctity of treaties the allied and A associated powers will address a request to 0 the government of th a he e netherlands for the surrender to them of the ex emperor in order that lie he may be put on trial i I 1 accordingly it was proposed that a tribunal consisting of five judges one each from the united states great britain franci france italy and japan should be organized to serve as a court of justice for the and in january 1920 a formal demand was made upon holland for his surrender but immediately the plan struck a snag for the dutch government announced that it was not a signatory to the versailles treaty therefore not bound by its terms and moreover its national honor forbade the surrender of the royal refugee expressing the tear fear that the kalser kalber might flee from holland the allied governments repeated their demand but queen wilhelmina and her ministers announced that this fear was groundless since by royal decree the kaiser would be restricted to a certain section of utrecht and forbidden to leave it warning the dutch government that the responsibility is now that of the netherlands er lands the allies left the matter there and so co the prussian war lord retired to hf his wood chopping at doorn doom where he lived to see an austrian house painter revive his old dream of world domination and german aggression plunge the world into another holocaust the kaiser however was not the N J napoleon at st helena I 1 r i i A 7 von hindenburg and von ludendorf Lud endorf their names headed the th list of german war criminals of 1914 18 only olly getman german leader whom the v victorious ic allies had marked for punishment ish ment another article in the versailles treaty stipulated that the german government recognizes the right of the allied powers to bring before military tribunals persons accused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war the german government shall hand over to the allied powers all persons accused of such offenses lenses of A list of names which included almost all of the military and political leaders of germany during the war was prepared in accordance with this article the publication of this list which was headed by the names of field marshal von hindenburg and general Lud ludendorf Luden endorf dort stirred up a violent protest among the people of germany ind and the new rulers of that country pleaded with the allies not to force them to hand over these war criminals declaring KAISER WILHELM 11 II that it would mean the overthrow of the government and the resultant chaos farcical trials in response to this plea the allied governments cut the list down to 45 persons and permitted the germans to conduct the trials the result was a foregone conclusion the germans stalled as long as possible on the matter and it was not until three years after the war ended that a court in leipzig went through the motions of staging a trial all of the war criminals were freed either cither because their innocence was proved or because their misdeeds were not covered by german law by this time the allies were no longer allied and public sentiment among their peoples was largely indifferent to the idea of retribution As a climax to the whole farcical affair the outstanding war criminal von hindenburg was elected president of the republic of Ger germany ninny and the weakness of this hard bitten old warrior as the head of a civil government paved the way for the rise of adolf gruber so the war criminals section of the versailles treaty remained as the only dead letter in it until this same gruber made the others dead letter also by tearing up the whole treaty and hurling it in the faces of germanys germanas Germ anys conquerors will the war criminals of 1939 get away with it the same way that those of 1914 did will schick el gruber emulate the kaiser and find sanctuary in some 11 neutral country the list of such possible havens is small indeed sweden switzerland portugal spain and turkey and it is doubtful if any of these would welcome the arch crim inal of all history the present fas cist minded government of argentina might if he could get across the atlantic either by U boat or airplane but that is a remote possibility so it looks as though the austrian house painter has little chance of living to a tipe ripe it if dishonored old age in exile perhaps like napoleon he would exclaim 1 I prefer death that was what the french dictator said when told that the british government was sending him to the barren rock of st helena after his defeat at waterloo he surrendered to the captain of the british mano man o war be and threw himself u upon pon the mercy of the prince regent who later became king george IV napoleon believed that he would be allowed to settle down in some comfortable for table little place in england and great was his dismay and indignation when he learned that his captors had other plans for him A dictator in exile it was then that he declared hla his preference for death and it is said that lord liverpool the british prime minister was quite willing to accommodate him just as millions today would be glad to accommodate adolf if he ha expressed a preference for death to exile or imprisonment however delegates from great britain russia austria and prussia who formed the convention of paris in 1815 to pass bass upon napoleons war guilt overruled the wish of the british prime prima 1 minister and the exile to st helena was the result on that cheerless little island in the south atlantic he spent the next six years as a military prisoner with the rank of a british general out of employment under instructions from the british government he was treated as gen napoleon bonaparte not as the emperor of france a fact that was particularly galling to the ego of a man who had dreamed of world conquest one of the horrors of civil war la Is the bitterness of feeling between citizens of the same country which frequently transcends the bitterness the people of one nation fe feel el toward foreigners with whom they are at war during the revolution many patriots had a greater hatred for foi their former fonner friends and neighbors who were loyalists or tories than they had for the british soldiers or 01 the hessian mercenaries similarly four years of war which began in 1861 engendered animosities thal thai were to linger for generations it if many southerners hated that thai ape in the white house there were wera an equal large number of northerners whose favorite song was wa S a promise roni se to hang J jeff eff dav davis is s to a sour apple tree for the north which could admire the military genius of a lee or a stonewall jackson alpar antly could not jefferson davis concede that thatchat that jefferson davis had a single admirable trait so their wrath for all rebels was concentrated on the head of the president of the confederacy after lees surrender davis with members of his cabinet fled south and he be was captured in georgia ile he was imprisoned in fortress monroe and subjected to urt unnecessary necessary indignities through the influence of certain revengeful members of the radical wing of the republican party who were determined to bring him to trial for his war guilt finally after two years davis was released with horace greeley and other northerners who had been his bitterest enemies during the war providing his ball bail bond his health broken by his prison experience and the public outcry for revenge having died down no further effort was made to prosecute him |