Test

Nuernberg's most significant contribution to the affairs of man would probably remain the trial's underlying principle: that aggressive warfare is a crime. Last week, the principle was put to two telling tests:

P: Just as the Russian prosecution was winding up its case, Hermann Goering's counsel, Otto Stahmer, rose, loaded down with notes from his client. He asked that the defense be permitted to attempt proof that Germany's violation of the Versailles Treaty constituted "retaliation" against Allied treaty transgressions. Britain's Sir David Maxwell Fyfe retorted: "For the defense to say that other people did the same thing is entirely irrelevant. ... It is no answer, even if true, that someone else committed breaches."

P: In Helsinki, balding, sad-eyed ex-President Risto Ryti and seven other Cabinet ministers had been tried, under special retroactive legislation, for "contributing to Finland's entry into the war on Germany's side." Twelve Finns had tried for 19 days to reach a verdict, with Russia impatiently looking over their shoulders. Last week, the tribunal announced a verdict of guilty. The Finnish court had obviously shared worldwide doubts on whether the responsibility for war was a crime. In relation to the charge, the sentences were fantastically light. Ryti and his colleagues would serve an average of 4.8 years at hard labor. Finland's answer to the question: Is it a crime to lose a war? was a compromise.

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