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Hitler's Legal Trouble

Added: June 14, 2007

Hitler went through amazing contortions to acquire legal cover for everything he did. From the invasion of Czechoslovakia, to the mass execution of Russian officers, to the extermination of the Jews, he waited patiently for the German legal system to generate complicated briefs explaining how everything the Nazis were doing was as legal as turning right on a red light.

Despite the extremely articulate arguments of Hitler's lawyers, however, the allies were still extremely upset with the whole "enslave Europe" operation. They had their own lawyers write up some paperwork making it legal to send thousands and thousands and thousands of heavy bombers over to Germany and reduce every last one of their cities to rubble. They followed it up with some beautifully written legal cover for the D-Day landings and the ensuing land invasion of Europe.

The Russians, always sticklers for the letter of the law, also came up with an extensive series of legal briefs supporting the encirclement and annihilation of the German 6th army at Stalingrad, and then got the go-ahead from the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union to send 15,000 tanks, 70,000 artillery pieces and 2 million soldiers into the heart of Germany leaving a 250 mile wide swath of complete destruction. Even when the Nazi lawyers pasted their legal briefs on the roof and sides of the Chancellory building in Berlin for all to see, it didn't seem to have a noticeable effect in the number of artillery shells, rockets, high explosives, heavy machine-gun fire, light machine-gun fire, mortars and incendiary bombs raining down on the city day and night.

Finally, Hitler did what any man would do when faced with an enemy with no respect for the law - he shot his dogs, poisoned his wife and mistress and then lit himself on fire.

With this precedent in mind, we can rest assured that all the legal briefs developed by Alberto Gonzales will certainly prevent any prosecution of Americans (up to, and including the President himself) for war crimes. I mean, all you have to do to get away from international law is declare that it doesn't apply to you...right?


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