Attempts by Nazi Collaborators of Yesteryear and Warmongers of Today to Escape the Verdict of History
Pauline Easton



The issue of where foreign minister Chrystia Freeland stands vis-a-vis her grandfather's collaboration with the Nazis during World War II has brought a very important matter to the fore -- that of moral choice. As if the millions who gave their lives to save humankind from Nazi-fascism do not know what sacrifices had to be made, one journalist's shameless apologies for Nazi collaborators says that in a war situation one has to do undesirable things to survive. This is a well-known device of the Anglo-American imperialists who use it in films and literature to promote collaboration and divert attention from the heroic deeds of the millions who died and were injured and suffered so greatly defeating the Nazis, fascists and Japanese militarists during the war. In this way, the heroic resistance is eclipsed in favour of the promotion of Anglo-American imperialist aims.

The apologetics, amongst other things, are based on the argument that Chomiak had no moral choice whether to comply with the Nazis or not. This is, of course, precisely the bone of contention. Unless his actions and those of others are put in context within the historical circumstances, the apologists of the Nazi collaborators can even suggest the Nazis and fascists were the "good guys" and the communists the "bad guys." In fact today, in the current political climate, anyone who suggests the opposite was true and the communists were leading the people everywhere to defeat the Nazi scourge, is blithely branded a Russian spy and/or enemy of the state or someone who should watch out lest they play into the hands of "bad guys." This is precisely what Chrystia Freeland did when she ranted against Russian "fake news."

There Was and Always Is a Moral Choice

Partisan forces in Europe in World War II. Top left: Russian women partisans, members of the Antifascist Front of Women. Top right: Jewish partisans in Belarus. Bottom left: Young Yugoslav partisans. Bottom right: Members of the Sydir Kovpak partisan detachment in Ukraine.

In their thousands and millions, Ukrainians, Poles and the working people throughout Europe joined the anti-fascist forces led by the Red Army and the Soviet Union during the war. They sacrificed their lives for peace, freedom and democracy. The brutality and racism of the Nazi regime and its war were not a polite café discussion. The moral choice to resist or collaborate was in the people's face, especially on the Eastern Front. Join with others in the anti-fascist alliance for peace, freedom and democracy or collaborate with the Nazi onslaught in the name of high ideals, which is what Chomiak and others who collaborated with the Nazis did. Who was who and who took what moral choice was sorted out in the battle and plain to see.

Holding Nazis and Their Collaborators to Account for
Their Crimes Against Humanity

For good reason, moral choice was one of the principles established as a criterion by the Nuremberg Trials for judging who had committed war crimes during the war. Excuses for war crimes such as following orders and lack of choice because of harsh circumstances were not accepted by the judges at Nuremberg.

Are we to believe that eminent Canadian journalists, to say nothing of government ministers and MPs who claim to be champions of freedom and democracy, are ignorant about the Nuremberg principles? The significance of those principles cannot be overstated. People paid for them with their blood and tears.

The adjudicators during the 1945 trials at Nuremberg involved all who had fought for freedom against tyranny. Trial proceedings were based on original documents mostly captured from the belligerents. The authenticity of those documents, which laid bare the racist and violent plans of the fascist aggressors to conquer the world by any means possible, was clearly established. The consensus achieved during those trials laid the basis for the establishment of the United Nations, the Geneva Convention, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the World Trade Union Movement.

Whose interests are served to cast doubt on the historic judgment at Nuremberg and the principles and institutions the victory over fascism created with the blood of millions?[1] Whose interests are served by prevaricating over the motives of those who fought and died to defeat Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militarist Japan; casting doubt on the communists who were always in the forefront leading and sacrificing themselves; and suggesting that "minimal" Nazi collaborators did so for some greater cause or because the moral choice at the time was too difficult? The overthrow of the historic judgment of WWII can only be to serve pro-war, racist and imperialist forces running amok today, led by the U.S. militarist state.

How can a journalist worthy of the name not know that a stark moral choice existed in WWII and that many Canadians put their own lives on the line to fight the Nazis and their collaborators who were responsible for heinous crimes against humanity? Can we accept the apologetics for the Nazi collaborators of the past and for the antics of the current foreign minister, as anything other than apologetics for a foreign policy pushing war and aggression today, and in the current context of an aggressive U.S.-led NATO blaming Russia for all the problems of the world in the most irrational way?

Canadians cannot accept such apologetics for collaborators of the past or today. Nobody worthy of calling themselves champions of peace, freedom and democracy can accept such a thing. Canadians are being asked to reverse the verdict of history to allow the imperialists of today to run amok. Canadians must settle scores all over again with those who would seek to embroil humanity in racist division, aggression, war and occupation. Canadians once again will show they are up to the call of history and will fashion an anti-war government and make Canada a zone for peace.

Today's Crimes Against Humanity

The problem surrounding Chrystia Freeland is not her grandfather per se but that she champions the same cause today as he did in his day. She goes about it in a similar way as well and has become the foreign minister of a government embroiling us in committing acts of aggression, war and crimes against humanity. Those who justified their crimes against humanity in the past by arguing they had no choice, moral or not, are similar to those who justify crimes against humanity in the present, with the twist that they have made a moral choice to act in the name of high ideals, such as those espoused by the doctrines "responsibility to protect," and "responsible conviction," which contradict the Nuremberg principles.

The historical fact remains that the Canadian people joined the anti-fascist side in the past and gave up their lives for peace, freedom and democracy and they expressed no doubt as to where they stood. Similar opposition to imperialist war is developing today. The ruling imperialist elite are fearful of this development within the Canadian body politic and are doing everything possible in the media to lend credence to the actions of warmongers such as the Trudeau government and those of other members of the aggressive NATO alliance who are behind the current war hysteria against Russia. The media find Russian hackers under every bed. They find Russians infecting the motivations of all those today who raise the banner of peace, freedom and democracy. They crudely justify CIA hackers, huge increases in already bloated military budgets, the NATO occupation of Eastern Europe, the encirclement of Russia, the provision of arms to Ukrainian neo-Nazis and Saudi Arabia, and inviting U.S. troops and spies onto Canadian soil -- all in the name of high ideals.

Chrystia Freeland should be removed as foreign minister not because of what her grandfather did but because she has taken up from where he left off, which is to rescue the Nazis and their cause in Ukraine and blame Russia for everything she and her associates and collaborators are doing. Even now when the irrefutable truth about her grandfather has been brought to the attention of the public, she had the effrontery to blame the information on Russian "fake news."

Such disinformation about fake news and disruption to democratic institutions has become a weapon of choice of the Trudeau government and the Trump administration, and their retinue in the media and universities. As if surveillance and disruption by intelligence agencies is something hitherto unheard of, they have become the conspiracy theorists par excellence about Russian or CIA hacking and disruption of our "democratic institutions." In doing so, they are establishing governments of police powers, justifying the criminalization of conscience, depriving people of the right to speak, and blocking a way forward for society. The Trudeau government has even abandoned its electoral reform agenda and turned it into support for more spying on Canadians to weed out Russian hackers and Russian disruption of our democratic institutions!

The heroic deeds of the Canadian people during World War II are eloquent testimony of the moral choice Canadians made. They chose to oppose the collaborators of the Hitlerite police powers in the past, just as they oppose the supporters and collaborators of imperialist police powers in the present.

Why would anyone who opposed the Hitlerites and their collaborators in the past support them today? Canada's ruling elite and media think disinformation about what constitutes freedom, democracy and peace will undermine Canadians and fool them into supporting warmongers and apologists for crimes against humanity today. But this false ideological belief is blowing up in their faces.

Canadians are working out how to establish an anti-war government so that those who push unacceptable moral choices and are unfit to govern can be replaced with those whose moral choices are acceptable and are therefore fit to govern.

Note

1. The Nuremberg Trials

The first Nuremberg trial (formally known as the International Military Tribunal) was convened November 20, 1945, in Nuremberg, Germany, to try more than 20 high Nazi officials, including four members of the Armed Forces High Command. The proceedings lasted nearly eleven months and the verdict was rendered October 1, 1946. Legal teams from each of the four allied nations -- the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union and France -- shared responsibility for the prosecution.

U.S. Chief Prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, made the opening statement at the Nuremberg Trial:

"The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason."

In his closing statement Justice Jackson said:

"This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more secure. It constitutes juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally. Nuremberg stands as a warning to all those who plan and wage aggressive war."

The prosecution broke the indictment into four counts, which they decided they could prove based on the evidence:

Count 1: Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War -- prosecuted by U.S. Count 2: Crimes Against Peace -- prosecuted by Great Britain Count 3: War Crimes -- prosecuted jointly by USSR and France Count 4: Crimes Against Humanity -- prosecuted jointly by USSR and France

The Nuremberg Principles On November 21, 1947, one year after the end of the first Nuremberg trial (IMT), the United Nations passed General Assembly Resolution 177 in order to codify the "Nuremberg Principles." The original language reads:

177 (II). Formulation of the principles recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the judgment of the Tribunal.

The General Assembly Decides to entrust the formulation of the principles of international law recognized in the charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the judgment of the Tribunal to the International Law Commission, the members of which will, in accordance with resolution 174(II), be elected at the next session of the General Assembly, and Directs the Commission to:

(a) Formulate the principles of international law recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the judgment of the Tribunal, and

(b) Prepare a draft code of offences against the peace and security of mankind, indicating clearly the place to be accorded to the principles mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) above.

In order to fulfill this mandate, the International Law Commission (which had been created under UN Resolution 174) duly codified seven principles, listed below, and adopted them on July 29, 1950.

The Nuremberg Principles are:

1. Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

2. The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

3. The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

4. The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

5. Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

6. The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

a) Crimes against peace b) War crimes c) Crimes against humanity

7. Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle 6 is a crime under international law.

(TML Weekly No. 9, March 18, 2017)