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Maybe you've seen this Nuremberg Trials analogy making the rounds. It's an important point: we should hold violent extremists responsible, even if those extremists call it "divisive."/thread https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1348827320182730754
But the historical lessons of the Nuremberg Trials are more complicated. Leave aside the overheated debate on whether Trump and MAGA-thugs can compare to Nazi war criminals; for argument's sake, accept the premise and focus on the trial analogy itself: 2/16
The Nuremberg Trials were *very* divisive in Germany. Many Germans refused to accept this "victor's justice"; many rejected the notion that they were complicit with Hitler's crimes; 3/16
many Germans (somewhat understandably) resented the presence of Soviet Russian prosecutors at the trials, and engaged in "whataboutism" re: Soviet atrocities. (on all this and the ff. see scholars Michael Biddiss, Michael Marrus, Tony Judt) 4/16
But because Allied prosecutors concentrated on the charge of a "conspiracy" at the highest levels of the Nazi state, they actually helped perpetuate the convenient lie that the Holocaust was a secretive, top-down affair--letting most Germans off the hook. 5/16
Ironically, then, the trials "worked" and allowed Germany to rebuild precisely because they were scrupulously legal, allowed "ordinary" Germans to use the "just following orders" defense, and didn't go hunting for every rank-and-file perpetrator. 6/16
Even though this strategy perpetuated a false interpretation of how the Holocaust unfolded, it at least allowed Allied forces to hold the leaders accountable, and to begin "reeducating" Germany by publicizing evidence of the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. 7/16
If the Nuremberg analogy teaches anything, it's that most "ordinary" enablers will not admit their complicity. As unsatisfying as this may be, it is still good and right to present all evidence of the 1/6 insurrection and hold its organizers accountable. 8/16
As @schuneke explains in this first-rate essay, Nuremberg illustrates that "we must hold those who have committed crimes accountable" and set decisive precedents to block future insurrection, 9/16
but "avoid talk of collective guilt, for which there is no judicial remedy and which can serve only to alienate those who might yet return to the democratic fold" 10/16 https://tinyurl.com/y6rv9sdz
PS. However, re: "collective guilt," a final heritage of the Trials was that they prompted German philosopher Karl Jaspers to write his famous "Question of German Guilt." Jaspers wanted Germans to accept their guilt, to believe in Nuremberg's ideals. 11/16 https://tinyurl.com/yxqua3al
So Jaspers parsed the types of guilt into four: "criminal," "political," "moral," and "metaphysical": even if you're not criminally liable for breaking an existing law, you're still *politically* responsible for the consequences of who you support and vote for; 12/16
even if you "just followed orders," you're *morally* guilty for violating your conscience; even if all you did was turn a blind eye and allow the crimes to happen--you're *metaphysically* guilty for not doing all you could. 13/16
Essentially, Jaspers hoped his fellow Germans would stop engaging in self-pity and "whataboutism," and instead recognize that they were each guilty in one if not all of these senses. 14/16
An unpopular take at the time, Jaspers' concepts of guilt might still be useful in our own, distorted national conversations about guilt, where any mention of systemic, historic, or collective guilt immediately becomes politicized and defensively rejected. 15/16
For Jaspers, there's plenty of guilt to go around. Punish the criminally and politically guilty of course. But moral or metaphysical guilt cannot be assigned in a court of law or by one's enemies in a political debate; only by oneself, trusted fellows, conscience, or God. 16/16
