a witness at the Nurermberg trials

This post has gotten surprisingly little readership. I think the letter posted is of intrinsic interest. I have transcribed the letter, which should make it easier to read.

— Roger W Smith

  September 2024
 

 

 

Bunky Morrisson’s letter

Bunky Morrison letter 2-17-1946

 

February 17 [1946]

Dear Elinor and Smitty:*

When I was in Germany two weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be able to see the Nuremburg War Trials and although my untrained eye as legal matters go missed probably much of what went on, I feel that you would be interested to hear what I heard and saw. Fifty American soldiers are allowed to see the trials at each session there being two a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Those honored enough to go sit in the end of the press gallery in the last two rows, and if someone holding a ticket for the seats in the rear comes in the solider must give his seat up to the individual and step outside the courtroom if there are no other empty seats available. On the morning that I attended there were scads of empty seats and no soldier was bothered to make a readjustment in his seating arrangement. On the left arm of each seat, there is a Watson device† consisting of a pair of earphones and a switch on a small box attached to the arm on which are written numbers 1,2,3,4, and 5. Printed instructions mimeographed on paper tell you that 1 stands for the speaker, 2 for the English translator, 3 for the Russian translator, 4 for the French and 5 for the German. The mimeograph sheets also show you the seating arrangement of the court which you see in the distance below you. Separating the press box from the courtroom is a wall of varnished wood on the other side of which sit the honored guests twenty or so. Farther to the front are four tables at which sit the prosecutors of each country. Over on the right underneath the flags of France, Britain, Russia and United States sit the judges on a raised dais something like the Supreme Court. There are two judges for each country all wearing the law robes that are customary in their respective nations except in the Russians who come in Military Uniform. The courtroom is small and built in the shape of a square. Continuing around to the third side of the square, one comes to the witness stand in front of which there is a microphone. Further along on the same side but raised on a platform sit various Allied military officials who have a job in the trial but I am not able to recall just what. Right alongside them are the interpreters each with a microphone in front of them. On the last remaining side are the defendants or the criminals seated in two rows of ten and eleven the last row being elevated somewhat above the front one. Behind them as you have undoubtedly seen in the newsreels are the line of smart attired MP’s. On the courtroom floor in front of the defendants are their lawyers – quite a crowd of them as numerous as the defendants themselves and dressed in German legal garb which on some run to lavender. That is a brief description of what the court looks like when in session. One must not forget to mention the strong indirect lighting that floods the room just as if the whole scene before you was in a Hollywood studio and all the cameras were just out of view. The lights are so strong several of the defendants wore dark glasses, Doenitz being one of them. In addition when the courtroom is in session, everyone there present wears the earphones to understand what is being said through the interpreters who are only just one sentence behind what the person on the witness stand is saying, I found that listening with the earphones gave one a mild headache after awhile. It appeared that the trial is wearing the defendants down slowly due to the day after day grind of being under the powerful lights and listening through the earphones. Before the trial began that morning the prisoners were quite talkative of koking [sic] with each other. They all carried conversations with each other as if they were the best of friends. All wore civilian clothes with the exception of the military and naval defendants like Keitel, Jodl, Doenitz and Raeder. However no decorations were showing. The prisoners came into the courtroom at around nine thirty the court did not really get into session until ten-fifteen after everyone became settled and the intercommunication handled by U.S. sailors was found in perfect working condition. The witness for the day was Marie-Claude Vaillant Couturier a French Communist and a member for the underground who had been taken into custody by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz in Poland along with two hundred and fifty other French women. In her testimony she related what had happened to her, what she saw, and what she heard from others who were in the same camp she. [sic] The French prosecutor simply let her tell her story only interrupting in the hour and half testimony to ask a question here and there to bring out more strongly the cruelty of the SS and those under them who carried out their orders. It would take too long to tell her story delivered in slow spoken but crystal clear French so perfect and distinct that I could understand her perfectly at times when the vocabulary was in my range without listening to the English translator. It may be French law procedure but much of what she told would be thrown out in our courts at home simply because it was hearsay and was not seen by the witness herself. Her testimony was all that was accomplished at the morning session that I attended. From what I read in the Stars and Stripes the afternoon session tried to attach guilt on some of the defendants for what happened there. The famous criminals did not appear moved by what she said. To them all that she said was undoubtedly repetitious but I should believe that day after day of hearing of such horror and bestiality would wear them down. Franz von Papen was the only one out of the twenty who did not wear earphones and he was bent over his face in his hands. Others had their eyes closed but their earphones on and whether they were listening I could not tell, The solider next to me had a pair of field glasses which enabled me to get a closeup of the faces of the men and of the witness so close that you thought they were speaking to you. Goering’s face was very creased and his eyes sunken in his head while his overflow of flesh lay loose and slack on his face. He has of course lost much weight. Ribbentrop looked quite old as his hair had turned gray and Hess looked ill with a very drawn and ashy visage. I could not tell much about the rest, Von Neurath appearing the handsomest and Speer seeming to be in very good health. The witness appeared to have a pleasant face but very full of sorrow and several times her eyes filled with tears and her voice broke when she related about such things as Jewish babies being thrown into furnaces alive because they had run out of gas. At other times she was talking in a very tired voice repeating as if for the thousandth time that which she told. Such was the morning session that I saw which folded up abruptly at eleven thirty.

Much love

[signed] Bunky

How is Peter?‡ And Smitty what are you doing now? Are you going to Harvard or what are you doing? Drop a line, let me know as I am interested. Quinn§ wrote me telling me that you and himself were discharged and giving me a lot of news of the rest of the gang. Will see you all when I arrive in Boston – which may not be until Jully – so still drop a line.**

* Alan W. and Elinor H. Smith.
† A reference to Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM.
‡ Firstborn child of Alan and Elinor Smith.
§ This might be Thomas Francis Quinn (1911-1983) of Somerville, MA.
** The postscript is in Bunky’s own hand.

 

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Posted here is a letter to my father Alan W. Smith (“Smitty”)  and mother, Elinor Handy Smith, from my father’s good friend “Bunky” Morrison, dated February 17, 1946. Morrison witnessed Nuremberg trial proceedings on the morning of Monday, January 28, 1946. In his letter he mentions the testimony of Marie Claude-Valliant-Couturier, a former member of the French Resistance who spent three years at Auschwitz. She provided testimony concerning atrocities she observed at the camp. She was examined by French prosecutor Charles Dubost. The date of her testimony was January 28, 1946.

My father served in the U.S. Army from April 1942 until January 1946 with the rank of First Lieutenant, He served in Panama.

Also posted here below is a photo of my father with his Army buddies taken in New York City in September 1942. Bunky Morrison is the furthest to the right; to his left is my father.

Bunky was a nickname; I do not know Bunky’s birth name.

Since I do not remember or know Bunky’s full name, I have been unable to find his military record, Morrison being a common surname. I am still trying by searching sites such as ancestry to identify him. I have a memory of his being a good friend of my parents. I probably met him when I was young, but I cannot recall.

–– posted by Roger W. Smith

   June 2021

 

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Addendum, September 2024

I have discovered “Bunky” Morrison’s identity. He was Frederick Albert (Fred) Morrison (1913-1973) of Somerville, Massachusetts, a town between Cambridge (where my father lived in the 1940s and 50s) and Arlington (where my father was born and raised and graduated from high school).

Fred Morrison graduated from Somerville High School in 1932.

Around the time of his enlistment, Fred was working in a cigar store on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge.

It took painstaking detective work to find this information. My wife helped me confirm that the Fred Morrison of the high school yearbook photo was the same person in the photo of my father with his Army buddies in 1942. Confirmation was also made through handwriting analysis (a comparison of a note. in his own hand, at the end of Morrison’s letter, and his signature on his draft registration card) .