New book: Hitler was an indicted war criminal at death

Secret files of U.N. War Crimes Commission revealed

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – A new book that examines previously restricted files from the U.N. War Crimes Commission cites documents showing Adolf Hitler had been indicted as a war criminal for actions by the Nazis during World War II before his death – contrary to longstanding assumptions.

The book, “Human Rights After Hitler” by British academic Dan Plesch, says Hitler was put on the commission’s first list of war criminals in December 1944, but only after extensive debate and formal charges brought by Czechoslovakia, which had been occupied by the Nazis.

The previous month the commission determined that Hitler could be held criminally responsible for the acts of the Nazis in occupied countries, according to the book. And by March 1945 – a month before Hitler’s death – “the commission had endorsed at least seven separate indictments against him for war crimes.”

Plesch, who led the campaign for open access to the commission’s archive, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the documents show “the allies were prepared to indict Hitler as head of state, and this overturns a large part of what we thought we knew about him.”

A Dec. 15, 1944, document sub- mitted to the commission by Czechoslovakia accuses Hitler and five members of “the Reich government,” including his deputy Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler, one of the Nazis most responsible for the Holocaust, of crimes including “murder and massacres-systematic terrorism.” A photocopy is included in the book.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission was established in October 1943 by 17 allied nations to issue lists of alleged war criminals – ultimately involving about 37,000 individuals – and examine the charges against them and try to assure their arrest and trial.

According to the book, legally certified documents, government transcripts and interviews with torture victims “prove beyond doubt” that the U.S. and British governments were told about Hitler’s extermination camps in the early years of World War II.

Plesch said both governments acknowledged their existence but did almost nothing to stop the mass killings.