A very sad question

US Chief Prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg Trials

Scott Horton of the Harper's blog No Comment tells this story in Remembering December 7 12/07/07. For the context of the story, I should point out that Horton is American:

A short time ago, in Germany, I spoke with one of the senior advisors of [Christian Democratic] Chancellor Angela Merkel. I noted that a criminal complaint had been filed against Donald Rumsfeld and a number of others invoking universal jurisdiction for war crimes offenses. How would the chancellor see this, I asked? There was a long pause, and I fully expected to get a brush-off response. But what came was very surprising. "You must remember," said the advisor, "that my chancellor was born and raised in a totalitarian state [Communist East Germany]. She cannot be indifferent to questions of this sort. In fact, she views them as matters of the utmost gravity and they will be treated that way. The Nuremberg process happened in my country. It was painful for us. But we absorbed it. It became a part of our legacy. An important part of our legacy. We will not forget it. But I have to ask you: why has your country forgotten?" (my emphasis)

To answer the question, you would have to look at the evolution of the Republican Party during the last four decades. I've suggested that two key guidelines in doing so would be, "Follow the segregationists" and "Follow Dick Cheney". Tracing those two strands of recent Republican Party history will go a long way toward answering it.

Tags: angela merkel, authoritarianism, nuremberg trials, scott horton

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