The wartime Prime Minister wanted Germany's leaders to be executed without 'the farce' of facing prosecution
Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday January 1, 2006
The Observer
Winston Churchill believed Adolf Hitler should be executed without trial if he fell into British hands at the end of the Second World War, a view that put the Prime Minister on a collision course with his political allies.
The wartime leader argued passionately in cabinet meetings that Hitler was 'the mainspring of evil' and 'an outlaw', and said trials of top Nazis would simply be a 'farce'. His views contrasted sharply with those of the Russians and Americans who advocated trials to determine the fate of the Nazi leaders.
According to the wartime cabinet minutes, Churchill said the idea of what he believed would be mock trials was objectionable. 'It is really a political act: better to declare that. We shall put them to death,' Churchill said.
During a cabinet meeting on 14 December, 1942, he observed that 'if Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death'. In what appears to be a grim joke, and a nod to executions used by his US allies, he suggested the 'electric chair, for gangsters, no doubt available on lease lend'.
But, as the war reached its climax, the cabinet had become aware of the reservations of the Allies. 'I would take no responsibility for a trial, even though the US want it,' Churchill observes. 'Execute the principal criminals as outlaws - if no ally wants them.'
Viscount Swinton, then Minister for Civil Aviation, was noted as telling the same meeting: 'However much we may favour summary execution, don't believe you will get Allied agreement. US won't and I gather Stalin won't. We must therefore compromise or proceed unilaterally.'
By May 1945, soon after Hitler had committed suicide, the cabinet swung collectively against executions without trial, in part because of what was unfolding in Germany. 'The situation has changed,' Swinton said. 'If we can't agree on procedure for leaders, let us get agreed procedure for the others. The leaders are being liquidated anyhow.'
This prompted Churchill to ask if they should negotiate with Himmler 'and bump him off later', once peace terms had been agreed. The suggestion to cut a deal for a German surrender with Himmler and then assassinate him won support from the Home Office. 'Quite entitled to do so,' the minutes record it as commenting.
The documents shed new light on the darkest days of the war and provide fascinating insights into Churchill's differences with his colleagues as well as the cabinet's views on the strengths and weaknesses of the Allies. In Churchill's eyes, Stalin was a 'large man' who had 'great sagacity'. To the Labour leader and Dominions Secretary, Clement Attlee, General Charles de Gaulle had 'behaved like a fool' during the war. Churchill noted that if de Gaulle tried to leave Britain to visit the Free French army in North Africa he should be arrested. At a cabinet meeting in June 1945, Churchill claimed there was 'no hope of trustworthy relations with France until we are rid of de Gaulle'.
In a chillingly prescient observation of what was to come, Churchill was recorded as saying: 'This advance of Russia into heart of central Europe will be one of most terrible events in history. Don't believe they will willingly go back, at least in this generation.'
Two months earlier Churchill had told the cabinet relations with Russia had 'deteriorated since Yalta' - the meeting of the Russian, US and British leaders in February 1945 which helped shape the new world order. Churchill appears gloomy about the prognosis for the future, according to the contemporary notes. 'Hope we shall get through: but only by unity. New balance (or lack of balance) of power in Europe. These are the dominating world facts. How can we match them? Only by our superior statecraft and experience and above all by our unity.'
The tone of Churchill's comments are in profound contrast to his confidence about Britain's place on the world stage in 1943. At a cabinet meeting in July 1943, the Prime Minister talked about how the English language could be propagated all over the world. 'This will be the English-speaking century,' he declared.
The cabinet notes, which can now be viewed by the public at the National Archives Office in Kew, south-west London, were taken by the then Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, and were considered too sensitive for publication when their release was discussed by a parliamentary committee in 1981. When the matter was discussed a second time in 1993, a further decision was taken to prevent their release for at least another decade.
The minutes fuel the debate over when exactly the Allies were aware of the Holocaust in central Europe. In December 1942, amid reports that thousands of Jews were being transferred to Poland from the German-occupied countries, Churchill asked his cabinet: 'Any confirmation of story of wholesale massacre? By mass electrical methods.' Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, replies there is 'nothing direct, but indications that it may be true. Can't confirm the method.'
The notes also cast new light on Britain's special relationship with the US. The presence of US 'coloured troops' in the UK threatened to become a divisive issue for the cabinet. At one meeting in July 1943, Churchill maintained that the US army's views on the segregation of black and white soldiers 'must be considered', and Britain 'mustn't interfere'. It was decided to allow the US to enforce its own segregation policies on British soil, but to make clear that there would be no restrictions in British canteens, public houses, cinemas or theatres.
Viscount Cranbourne, the Lord Privy Seal, was uneasy about this: 'If it can be said we have advocated [a] "colour bar" all the coloured people here from our Empire will go back discontented and preach disaffection there.'
There was further tension with the US over its drain on the UK's food reserves as Europe was liberated and Churchill contemplated how to feed the Dutch, whose country was flooded.
The 'US are battening on our reserves', he said. 'Accumulated by years of self-denial. Now is the time to say firmly [that the] US soldier eats five times what ours does. Our stocks are always raided in an emergency because that is only practicable source. And it is never therefore brought home to US.' Ernest Bevin, the Minister for Labour, floated the idea of shaming the US population into restricting their consumption: 'Make it clear that only their sacrifice can stop the suffering.'
The notes also show the often brutal decisions the cabinet was forced to contemplate as the war progressed. In December 1942 the cabinet discussed a plea from the Vatican for the Allies not to bomb Rome. Churchill was uncertain. 'Not concluded on this: but no harm in playing game with them,' the notes record.
In the same year, outraged that the Germans had put British prisoners of war captured at Dieppe in chains, Churchill invoked similar measures, only to reach a stalemate with the enemy. 'We've each tied up 1,500. Germans threaten to go up to 5,000,' the Prime Minister notes.
Also in 1942, after a series of massacres by the Germans in Czechoslovakian villages suspected of harbouring partisans, Churchill suggested a series of reprisals - wiping out three German villages for every one that the Nazis had razed.
Sir John Anderson, the Lord President of the Council, noted the 'general feeling of cabinet - against doing this', partly on the grounds it could lead to more atrocities. Churchill, though, wanted blood. The notes record his stubborn belief violence should be met with violence: 'My instinct is strongly the other way.'
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Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday January 1, 2006
The Observer
Winston Churchill believed Adolf Hitler should be executed without trial if he fell into British hands at the end of the Second World War, a view that put the Prime Minister on a collision course with his political allies.
The wartime leader argued passionately in cabinet meetings that Hitler was 'the mainspring of evil' and 'an outlaw', and said trials of top Nazis would simply be a 'farce'. His views contrasted sharply with those of the Russians and Americans who advocated trials to determine the fate of the Nazi leaders.
According to the wartime cabinet minutes, Churchill said the idea of what he believed would be mock trials was objectionable. 'It is really a political act: better to declare that. We shall put them to death,' Churchill said.
During a cabinet meeting on 14 December, 1942, he observed that 'if Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death'. In what appears to be a grim joke, and a nod to executions used by his US allies, he suggested the 'electric chair, for gangsters, no doubt available on lease lend'.
But, as the war reached its climax, the cabinet had become aware of the reservations of the Allies. 'I would take no responsibility for a trial, even though the US want it,' Churchill observes. 'Execute the principal criminals as outlaws - if no ally wants them.'
Viscount Swinton, then Minister for Civil Aviation, was noted as telling the same meeting: 'However much we may favour summary execution, don't believe you will get Allied agreement. US won't and I gather Stalin won't. We must therefore compromise or proceed unilaterally.'
By May 1945, soon after Hitler had committed suicide, the cabinet swung collectively against executions without trial, in part because of what was unfolding in Germany. 'The situation has changed,' Swinton said. 'If we can't agree on procedure for leaders, let us get agreed procedure for the others. The leaders are being liquidated anyhow.'
This prompted Churchill to ask if they should negotiate with Himmler 'and bump him off later', once peace terms had been agreed. The suggestion to cut a deal for a German surrender with Himmler and then assassinate him won support from the Home Office. 'Quite entitled to do so,' the minutes record it as commenting.
The documents shed new light on the darkest days of the war and provide fascinating insights into Churchill's differences with his colleagues as well as the cabinet's views on the strengths and weaknesses of the Allies. In Churchill's eyes, Stalin was a 'large man' who had 'great sagacity'. To the Labour leader and Dominions Secretary, Clement Attlee, General Charles de Gaulle had 'behaved like a fool' during the war. Churchill noted that if de Gaulle tried to leave Britain to visit the Free French army in North Africa he should be arrested. At a cabinet meeting in June 1945, Churchill claimed there was 'no hope of trustworthy relations with France until we are rid of de Gaulle'.
In a chillingly prescient observation of what was to come, Churchill was recorded as saying: 'This advance of Russia into heart of central Europe will be one of most terrible events in history. Don't believe they will willingly go back, at least in this generation.'
Two months earlier Churchill had told the cabinet relations with Russia had 'deteriorated since Yalta' - the meeting of the Russian, US and British leaders in February 1945 which helped shape the new world order. Churchill appears gloomy about the prognosis for the future, according to the contemporary notes. 'Hope we shall get through: but only by unity. New balance (or lack of balance) of power in Europe. These are the dominating world facts. How can we match them? Only by our superior statecraft and experience and above all by our unity.'
The tone of Churchill's comments are in profound contrast to his confidence about Britain's place on the world stage in 1943. At a cabinet meeting in July 1943, the Prime Minister talked about how the English language could be propagated all over the world. 'This will be the English-speaking century,' he declared.
The cabinet notes, which can now be viewed by the public at the National Archives Office in Kew, south-west London, were taken by the then Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook, and were considered too sensitive for publication when their release was discussed by a parliamentary committee in 1981. When the matter was discussed a second time in 1993, a further decision was taken to prevent their release for at least another decade.
The minutes fuel the debate over when exactly the Allies were aware of the Holocaust in central Europe. In December 1942, amid reports that thousands of Jews were being transferred to Poland from the German-occupied countries, Churchill asked his cabinet: 'Any confirmation of story of wholesale massacre? By mass electrical methods.' Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, replies there is 'nothing direct, but indications that it may be true. Can't confirm the method.'
The notes also cast new light on Britain's special relationship with the US. The presence of US 'coloured troops' in the UK threatened to become a divisive issue for the cabinet. At one meeting in July 1943, Churchill maintained that the US army's views on the segregation of black and white soldiers 'must be considered', and Britain 'mustn't interfere'. It was decided to allow the US to enforce its own segregation policies on British soil, but to make clear that there would be no restrictions in British canteens, public houses, cinemas or theatres.
Viscount Cranbourne, the Lord Privy Seal, was uneasy about this: 'If it can be said we have advocated [a] "colour bar" all the coloured people here from our Empire will go back discontented and preach disaffection there.'
There was further tension with the US over its drain on the UK's food reserves as Europe was liberated and Churchill contemplated how to feed the Dutch, whose country was flooded.
The 'US are battening on our reserves', he said. 'Accumulated by years of self-denial. Now is the time to say firmly [that the] US soldier eats five times what ours does. Our stocks are always raided in an emergency because that is only practicable source. And it is never therefore brought home to US.' Ernest Bevin, the Minister for Labour, floated the idea of shaming the US population into restricting their consumption: 'Make it clear that only their sacrifice can stop the suffering.'
The notes also show the often brutal decisions the cabinet was forced to contemplate as the war progressed. In December 1942 the cabinet discussed a plea from the Vatican for the Allies not to bomb Rome. Churchill was uncertain. 'Not concluded on this: but no harm in playing game with them,' the notes record.
In the same year, outraged that the Germans had put British prisoners of war captured at Dieppe in chains, Churchill invoked similar measures, only to reach a stalemate with the enemy. 'We've each tied up 1,500. Germans threaten to go up to 5,000,' the Prime Minister notes.
Also in 1942, after a series of massacres by the Germans in Czechoslovakian villages suspected of harbouring partisans, Churchill suggested a series of reprisals - wiping out three German villages for every one that the Nazis had razed.
Sir John Anderson, the Lord President of the Council, noted the 'general feeling of cabinet - against doing this', partly on the grounds it could lead to more atrocities. Churchill, though, wanted blood. The notes record his stubborn belief violence should be met with violence: 'My instinct is strongly the other way.'
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