Seventeen months after the end of
World War II, what came to be known as the “trial of the century” convened in
the historic German city of Nuremberg. There before a military jury of some of
the Allies’ most carefully selected legal “Brains”, a group of Nazi Germany’s
most infamous surviving wartime leaders assembled behind the dock of room number
600 in that city’s Hall of Justice.
There were 21 Nazis accused of
having committed “crimes against humanity”; crimes of such an enormity that
there was no other legal term in common use with which to describe them.
Together these prisoners-of-war had presided over a political system and war
machine which had set as its goal to rid the world of an entire racial group
guilty only of having been born with the “wrong” genealogy, national origin, “deviant
persuasion”, or political party, including Jews, Christians and other “Non-Aryans”.
To
place Nuremberg in proper perspective it should be pointed out that there had
been or would be a total of 1676 other Nazis tried in 462 other trials; with
death sentences passed on 36 for Dachau alone.
With Herman Goering perhaps seen as
having the “starring role”, the men held in these 13 by 6.5-foot cells under
the 24-hour observation of highly-trained military police guards of the U.S. Army’s
6850th Internal Security Detachment were in a league apart. They
were largely the decision-makers who either authored or supervised the
execution of the orders and policies which brought about the so-called “final
solution” and the murder of millions.
It was not unusual to provide
religious counselors for military prisoners, and ordinarily civilian pastors
from the surrounding German communities would be recruited. But once again, the
Nuremberg situation was unique because of the requirement of “absolute
security” especially in view of a well-grounded fear of outside aid in carrying
out suicides
At the center of today’s story is a
50-year old military chaplain named Henry Gerecke, a Lutheran pastor from
Missouri whose sense of patriotism led him away from a devoted pastorate of
under-privileged and overlooked members of society, and into the U.S. Army
Chaplain Corps, at the same time as his two older sons were also serving
in Europe. Having grown up in a home where German was spoken, Gerecke was a
perfect fit for the job General Eisenhower had in mind, and he was soon on his
way to Nuremberg to minister to the 21 prisoners and many of the 200 witnesses,
most of whom were of Lutheran background. Together with Fr. Richard O’Connor, a
Franciscan who would labor with the several Catholic inmates, the two would be
the only individuals to have total and confidential contact with those charged
with the world’s most heinous crimes for the year leading up to the executions;
it would be the first time in history America had ever provided such a service
for its enemies.
What makes this story so notable is
the unusual rapport which developed between an “old school” Doctor of Divinity
steeped in the Christian ethic of repentance and forgiveness and a congregation
of men heavy with unimaginable guilt who knew already they were going to be
executed. And that very realization shook Hank Gerecke to the depths of his
soul. Gerecke however was a man possessed of a rare level of love for his
fellow humans, and within a short period of time, he managed to penetrate the
defensive shell erected over a lifetime by most of these reluctant
“parishioners”. His fellowship with Goering led to tearful baptism and eventual
communion eligibility. (Goering though managed to commit suicide to save his
beloved family from the ignominy of the hangman’s noose.) Gerecke continued to
minister to each of his charges right up to the instant of execution, and to
their families long afterward.
At one point, the U.S. Commander at
Nuremberg was about to accede to the demands of Mrs. Gerecke to release her
husband to return home after three years of painful absence. When the prisoners
got wind of it they drafted a letter of appeal bearing the signatures of all 21
which changed her mind; an unprecedented expression of the extent to which the
love of one devoted man of God had touched the hearts of men – most of whom –
would die within a span of 90 minutes on a rainy October day in 1946
In a much-publicized photo of the time,
Nazi leaders being tried for “crimes against humanity” sit in their assigned
places behind the dock in Nuremberg’s Hall of Justice. The first person wearing
headphones on the left is Herman Goering, seen as the most senior of the 21. To his
immediate left is the hapless Rudolph Hess. Number five in that row is Ernst
Kaltenbrunner, a man so brutal and sadistic that even Himmler – his boss –
feared him. All but four of these Nazis would meet the hangman’s noose.
U.S. Army Photo.
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