Fifty years ago, the trial of German officer Adolf Eichmann, the "architect of the Holocaust," as he is now called by the Western media, took place. The proceedings, which began 15 years after the Nuremberg trials, made the world once again think about the atrocities of the Third Reich. Let's remember a few more high-profile trials of the past years.
Eichmann's trial
In 1960, Mossad agents, led by agency director Issel Harel, tracked down former SS man Adolf Eichmann, one of the leading instigators of the Holocaust, in his Argentine hideout. A year later, hundreds of journalists gathered for the trial on charges against Eichmann of crimes against humanity. Defending himself, Eichmann declared that he was just a cog in a huge mechanism and only obeyed orders from above.
At the trial, Eichmann looked more like a bank clerk than an executioner. “When he stood, he looked like a stork, not a soldier,” - this was the description given to the ex-officer by Time journalists covering the trial. On December 15, 1961, Eichmann was sentenced to death, and on the night of May 31 to June 1, 1962, he was hanged in the prison of the Israeli city of Ramla.
Nuremberg trials
After years of war that ravaged Europe and claimed the lives of more than six million Jews, the atrocities of the Nazis received widespread publicity. Almost immediately after the end of World War II and the victory of the Allies in Nuremberg, a military tribunal was created, declaring the former Nazi leaders as war criminals.
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The fattest piece was Hermann Goering - the second person in the Nazi Party in Germany. Some of the accused were sentenced to death, some were acquitted, some were sentenced to prison terms, others committed suicide. Be that as it may, the process created a precedent in international law, proving that not only entire countries, but also individuals can be guilty of war crimes.
Spanish Inquisition
Centuries of Arab dominance in the Iberian Peninsula led to the mixing of all kinds of religions and cultures, but all this was destined to end with the strengthening of the Spanish monarchy and the beginning of the Reconquista. In 1483, the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, or Suprema, was created with the aim of restoring Catholic orthodoxy in Spain. The defendants were mainly Jews, Muslims and Christians who had renounced their faith. There was no question of any lawyers: those accused of heresy were tortured, and death sentences were passed in thousands. The Inquisition also infected America, and it was not until the 19th century that Suprema was finished.
The Dreyfus affair
The Dreyfus case was not just a lawsuit, but a scandal that affected all of Europe and the United States. In 1894, 35-year-old Alfred Dreyfus, captain of the French army, fabricated charges of selling military secrets to Germany. Dreyfus declared his innocence, and the evidence against him was weak, but the court-martial recognized him as a military traitor and sentenced him to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. Dreyfus stayed there for five years, despite the emerging evidence of another person's guilt - until the next trial.
While the process was going on, France was divided into two camps: those who were for Dreyfus (Dreyfusars), and those who insisted on his guilt (anti-Dreyfusars). Among the first was the writer Emile Zola. In 1898, he openly defended Dreyfus, writing a letter to the president entitled “I accuse”, in which he accused the court, politicians, military and officials of knowingly “drowning” the captain they did not like. As a result, Zola himself ended up in the dock and was convicted of libel.
During the 1899 trial, Dreyfus was again found guilty, but his sentence was reduced to ten years. Ten days later, the French President pardoned Dreyfus, and the Minister of War announced that the incident was over. In 1896, the captain was fully rehabilitated, reinstated and presented to the Order of the Legion of Honor. However, it was not until 1995 that representatives of the French army publicly declared that Dreyfus was innocent.
Jesus trial
This judgment was perhaps the most important in the entire history of legal proceedings, but we, unfortunately, know about it no more than what is written in the Bible. Jerusalem surrendered to the Romans in 63 BC and suffered from the Roman order for decades. The uprising of the Jews in 6 AD ended with the enslavement of the Jewish people. This continued until the Jews had a new leader, John the Baptist, among whose prophecies was the prediction of the coming of God.
The governor of the Israeli region of Galilee Herod ordered the execution of John, but the people had already learned about Jesus and reached out for him. Tensions between Jews and Romans grew more and more: Jesus expelled the merchants from the Christian temple, and in the temple of Herod in Jerusalem overturned the table, for which he was arrested. Pontius Pilate was assigned to judge Jesus.
Official Rome did not want to provoke another uprising by executing a prominent Jewish leader, so he offered the crowd to pardon Jesus. The deal failed: the townspeople decided to free the robber Barabbas. And what happened next is known to everyone.
South African War Crimes Commission
After decades of apartheid, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission - as it was officially called - held a famous hearing that shed light on what had been happening in South Africa for many years. However, the hearings had little to do with the Nuremberg Tribunal: the main goal was not to punish the guilty, but to find ways to reconciliation. The trial was presided over by the first black bishop in South Africa, Desmond Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Critics of the Commission complained that, they say, it would have been better for restoring justice rather than declaring an amnesty, regardless of what political consequences this might lead to. However, this model gained popularity in the world community, and similar commissions were established in more than ten countries.
Socrates' trial
In 399 BC, the father of Greek philosophy was put on trial and sentenced to death for corrupting the Athenian youth - Socrates was a rather controversial person and was disliked by many. He challenged any belief, being ready to argue with his opponent ad infinitum. Even the existence of the gods worshiped by the Athenians, he questioned, which did not like the "pious" townspeople. Socrates could have escaped from Athens, but he chose to stay in the city. Nevertheless, the thinker respected the law and did not even try to convince the jury of his innocence: he decided to carry out the sentence on his own and drank the poison - hemlock juice.
Monkey process
In July 1925, the trial of 24-year-old high school teacher John Scopes began. The educator was accused of violating Butler's anti-Darwinian act. In the state of Tennessee there was a ban on teaching the theory of evolution, which the young teacher violated. Scopes' interests were represented by a group of lawyers led by renowned attorney Clarence Darrow. The prosecutor was a lawyer and politician who ran for the presidency of the United States three times, William Jennings Bryan - by the way, the ideological inspirer of the very act of Butler and other anti-evolutionary laws.
The trial was short-lived: Scopes was quickly found guilty. However, this is perhaps the most optimistic of all the stories on this list. The teachers were only sentenced to a $ 100 fine. The defense appealed the verdict, after which it was canceled, but Butler's act was waiting for cancellation much longer - until 1967
Martin Luther's trial
This process is called the moment of birth of the modern world. On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X warned Luther, a German monk, that he would be excommunicated if he did not delete from his writings a number of controversial points, namely 41. Luther was not afraid: instead of resigning himself, he continued his attacks on the Catholic Church and, in particular, the Pope. Luther's arguments were iron - a man, they say, has no right to determine what is right and what is wrong when it comes to matters of faith.
As a result, on January 3, 1521, Luther was anathematized. In April of the same year, they decided to give the monk one last chance to appear before the Worms Reichstag and renounce his beliefs. Again Luther refused to obey, after which it was decided to hand him over to the emperor for punishment. This decree was never executed: Luther managed to hide in the Wartburg castle of Frederick of Saxony.
Galileo Galilei vs. Vatican
When one of the founders of modern science was brought to trial by the Inquisition, it marked the beginning of a war between two rival worlds - science and religion. On April 12, 1633, Galileo was arrested: the scientist was announced that he would be tried for heretical beliefs. The Church has declared that its geo-oriented view of the universe is the only correct one and cannot be disputed.
Galileo agreed to repent, but continued his scientific research and presented a number of evidence to support his beliefs. On June 22, the Inquisition announced a verdict to the scientist: he was found guilty of distributing a book with a "false, heretical teaching contrary to the Holy Scriptures" about the movement of the Earth. Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Only three centuries later, the church recognized Galileo's rightness and dropped the charge of heresy from him.
NATALIA SINITSA