Read the text and tell about executing of war criminals

V. OVER TO YOU

IV. WRITING

Christianity

Find the information on different views on death penalty and give your own reasons FOR and AGAINST it. Key words below may help you.

III.PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE

Key words: to support, to defend, to revenge, retribution, to punish, (in)effective, to argue against, to maintain human dignity, brutal, alternative punishment, to threat, to (dis)agree, to oppose.

2. What are capital offenses? Name all the crimes that deserve death penalty as a punishment.

3. Capital punishment has been executed in different ways. Here is the list of methods. Divide them into out-dated and still used:electrocution, stoning, beheading, shooting, gassing, hanging, crucifixion, drowning, impaling and lethal injection.Why have the methods changed?

4. Name different types of punishment and present your own view: which punishment fit the following crimes:

- rape

- drug-trafficking

- pick-pocketing

- homicide

- hooliganism

- bribery

- bigamism

- speeding

5. JUSTICE or INJUSTICE? World War II was the bloodiest period of the human history. Massive killing occurred as the resolution of war. Here are some acts considered as crimes by Soviet Union’s military government and punished by death during that period: desertion, cowardice, marauding (мародерство), shirking under enemy fire (to shirk – увиливать). Present your own view on each offense.

6. What is the religious context of capital punishment? Read the following quotes and comment on the religious views of different nations. Explain, if they forbid or permit death as a penalty.

Buddhism:“Everyone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill. Everyone fears punishment; everyone loves life, as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill” (Chapter 10 of Dhammapada);

Islam: “"If anyone kills person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he killed all people. And if anyone saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people" (Qur'an 5:32).

The sixth commandment is preached as “Thou shalt not kill” (Do not kill).

Do researches on “Current Executions”.

NÜRNBERG TRIALS

The most important war crimes trials following World War II were held in Nürnberg, Germany, under the authority of two legal instruments signed by representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1945.

On October 18, 1945, the chief prosecutors lodged an indictment with the tribunal charging 24 individuals with a variety of crimes and atrocities (зверства), including the deliberate instigation of aggressive wars, extermination of racial and religious groups, murder and mistreatment of prisoners of war, and the murder, mistreatment, and deportation to slave labour of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of countries occupied by Germany during the war.

Among the accused were Nationalist Socialist leaders Hermann Göring and Rudolf Hess, diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop, munitions maker Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, and 18 other military leaders and civilian officials. Seven organizations that formed part of the basic structure of the Nazi government were also charged as criminal. These organizations included the SS (Schutzstaffel, German for “Defense Corps”), the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, “Secret State Police”), the SA (Sturmabteilung, “Storm Troops”), and the General Staff and High Command of the German armed forces.

The trial began on November 20, 1945. The judgment of the International Military Tribunal was handed down on September 30-October 1, 1946. With respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the tribunal found overwhelming evidence of a systematic rule of violence, brutality, and terrorism by the German government in the territories occupied by its forces. Millions of persons were destroyed in concentration camps, many of which were equipped with gas chambers for the extermination of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and members of other ethnic or religious groups. Under the slave-labour policy of the German government, at least 5 million persons had been forcibly deported from their homes to Germany. Many of them died because of inhuman treatment. The tribunal also found that atrocities had been committed on a large scale and as a matter of official policy.

Twelve defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, seven received prison terms ranging from ten years to life, and three, including the German politician and diplomat Franz von Papen and the president of the German Central Bank Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, were acquitted. Those who had been condemned to death were executed on October 16, 1946. Göring committed suicide in prison a few hours before he was to be executed.

Subsequent Trials

After the conclusion of the first Nürnberg trial, 12 more trials were held and provided for war crimes trials in each of the four zones of occupied Germany.

About 185 individuals were indicted in the 12 cases. Those indicted included doctors who had conducted medical experiments on concentration camp inmates and prisoners of war, judges who had committed murder and other crimes under the guise of the judicial process, and industrialists who had participated in the looting of occupied countries and in the forced-labour program. Other persons indicted included SS officials who had headed the concentration camps, administered the Nazi racial laws, and carried out the extermination of Jews and other groups in the eastern territories overrun by the German army; and high military and civilian officials who bore responsibility for these and other criminal acts and policies of the Third Reich. A number of doctors and SS leaders were condemned to death by hanging, and approximately 120 other defendants were given prison sentences of various durations. The tribunals acquitted 35 defendants.