War crimes
Camden legal journal looks at rare Nuremberg documents
Archived article from Feb 15, 2002
By Michael Sepanic
Previously unseen documents prepared for -- and, in some cases, entered into -- the Nuremberg war crimes trials more than 55 years ago are open for public scrutiny via an online legal journal published by students at the School of Law-Camden.
The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion is publishing an electronic version of the Nuremberg Project, which will spotlight the archives of Gen. William J. Donovan, who served as special assistant to the U.S. chief of counsel during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
The International Military Tribunal was convened following the conclusion of World War II to hold accountable the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust. The tribunal addressed four counts: conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes (including genocide) and crimes against humanity.
Through a special agreement with the Cornell University School of Law Library, the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion -- one of the nation's very few legal journals dedicated to the intersection of law and religion -- will post the Donovan Collection online. Moreover, the journal will solicit commentary on the posted articles from scholars around the world.
The first installment includes a detailed 120-page document titled "Nazi Master Plan: Persecution of the Christian Churches," which offers a glimpse into Nazi Germany's horrific plan for persecution and genocide by spotlighting the Third Reich's attitudes toward non-Aryan Christian faiths.
The document is accompanied by an original article, "The Nazis' Persecution of Religion as a War Crime: The OSS's Response within the Nuremberg Trial's Process," drafted by British legal scholars Claire Hulme and Michael Salter.
"This is the first time that a lot of this top-secret information from a landmark era of world history is available for public review," said Nuremberg Project editor Julie Seltzer Mandel, a third-year student at the Camden law school and the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. "Gen. Donovan kept extensive, detailed records of Nazi atrocities. Some of his work was not entered into the Nuremberg proceedings, but will be available for public review for the first time ever through this project."
"The Nuremberg Project is exactly the type of innovative and exciting publication that the faculty hoped the students creating the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion would pursue," said law Dean Rayman Solomon.
"The project could not be published in a conventional journal without losing the international accessibility that it demands. This student initiative will make a significant contribution to legal history scholarship while being of great interest and importance for the general public, especially at this time in our history," he added.
To view the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion and the Nuremberg Project, visit www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion.
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