60 years ago last year
Jan. 2nd, 2006 10:54 amChurchill wanted Hitler executed. I don't think this is really news - Overy mentions in Interrogations that Churchill's view was that any senior Nazis captured should be taken out and shot as soon as a positive identification was made. It was Stalin's enthusiasm for show trials, trumped by a wish for a proper legal process in Washington, that led to the Nuremberberg trials instead of summary execution. (And this makes the complaints about “victor's justice” hollow in my view - the Soviet and British alternatives would have been much worse in that respect.)