The Bernays boys

[Christopher Marlowe]

From: "THE LEGAL AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND"by Ben S. Austin
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/trials1.html

"[T]he U.S. Office of the Chief of Staff appointed Lt. Colonel Murray C. Bernays to head up the investigation on Nazi war crimes against U.S. servicemen. Bernays, a naturalized American Jew of Lithuanian origin, and a graduate of Harvard Law School, was practicing law in New York at the time of his appointment. A brilliant lawyer and meticulous investigator, he began the task of collecting information.

"Very early in the process, it became evident to Bernays that it would not be enough to try specific individuals for specific offenses. In his view, it would be a travesty of justice to try individual Nazis and leave the Nazi movement out of which they emerged unpunished. Accordingly, Bernays began looking for a philosophical and theoretical rationale for unmasking the bestiality of the Nazi plan and program as well as its implementation through the instrumentality of accused war criminals. According to Robert E. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, 1983:12, Bernays found the inspiration he needed in Raphael Lemkin's book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Lemkin had argued that organizations like the SS were criminal conspiracies. In that context, the murder of 6 million Jews and nearly 6 million additional civilians by the Nazi government could be viewed as a monstrous conspiracy against humanity -- a conspiracy based upon the doctrine of racial purity.

"The second prong of Bernays' approach was the concept of international law which, in his view, represents the conscience of humanity. If, in fact, the Nazi program was a gigantic conspiracy against humanity, carried out in violation of international law, any legal proceedings against Nazi war criminals should be, first and foremost, a trial of the entire Nazi conspiracy. If the Nazi organization is found guilty of atrocities against humanity, that conviction should also extend to any of its members.

"Bernays' ideas were presented to President Roosevelt in late November, 1944, in a memorandum from Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, and Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, entitled "The Trial and Punishment of European War Criminals....

"In the course of the trial it was Justice Jackson and the other prosecutors who emerged as the principal actors, along with the defendants. Colonel Telford Taylor is generally credited with designing the procedure for gathering evidence and organizing the preparation for the trial. But it was Colonel Murray C. Bernays who first conceived of the trial and identified the fundamental bases upon which it was to be constructed."

Now you're thinking...."Bernays?  That sounds familiar."  That's because Lt. Col. Murray Bernays was the brother in law of Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, who was responsible for the advanced form of American propaganda known as "Advertising" and "Public Relations".  

From Wikipedia:

"Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995), was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda along with Ivy Lee, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".[1] Combining the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Dr. Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious.
He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described."

Now you're thinking...."But how could they have the same LAST name if they were brothers in law?"  That is because Murray Bernays (nee Cohen) took his wife's last name when they were married.  Look: 

From: New York Times, October 16, 1917.

"BRIDEGROOM TAKES NAME OF HIS BRIDE; Murray Cohen, Who Wed Miss Hella F. Bernays Aug. 19, Is Now Murray C. Bernays. COLUMBIA BOARD MEMBER His Wife, a Graduate of Radeliffe and Bernard, Is a Niece of Prof. Freud, Noted Psychologist."

 So what have we learned today?  That the man who invented the Nuremberg trials was related by marriage to the man who invented American propaganda.  Interesting.  

[Panoptimist]

Great post. Thanks.