Page 336 - The Chief Culprit

Epilogue

Stalin Was a War Criminal

talin was a war criminal who should have been tried at Nuremberg in 1946 along with
the German deputy Fuehrer, Rudolf Hess—so argued Hess’s defense lawyer, Dr. Alfred
S Seidl, who opened the defense for Hess on March 22, 1946. rough a secret proto-
col, Hitler and Stalin had conspired to divide up between them countries conquered by their
armies. Hitler was dead, but Stalin, according to the mandate of the Allied Military Tribunal,
should have been indicted. e charges against him should have been similar to those against
Hess, said Hess’s lawyer.
Hess was charged with:

1. Conspiracy to wage aggressive war
2. Crimes against peace
3. War crimes
4. Crimes against humanity.

Since Hess had flown to England in May of 1941, and had been taken prisoner by the
British a month before Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, Dr. Seidl was confident he could
gain an acquittal on the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since Hess was
in captivity in England he could have had no part in the atrocities against the Jews. e first
two charges would be more difficult to refute since Hess, as Hitler’s deputy, had discussed
with the Fuehrer the events that led to war, and until May 1941 Hess had agreed with all of
Hitler’s decisions.
In Hess: e Man and His Mission (London: David Bruce and Watson, 1970), the
Czech-born journalist, diplomat, and writer J. Bernard Hutton described how Dr. Seidl
learned of the secret protocol to the Hitler-Stalin pact signed by Soviet foreign minister
Vacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, which implicated
Stalin in war crimes. After a long and frustrating interview with Hess, who insisted he did
not want to defend himself with a lawyer, Dr. Seidl was preparing to leave the prison. In the

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