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This is from the Tehran Conference in late November of 1943, the first meeting of the Big Three - Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin - and in this discussion of the treatment of war criminals and Nazis on November 28, one is impressed with the moral discretion of Churchill. Considering what the Nazis have done to the English, with their air raids and bombing of civilian London and the attempt to attack and occupy the country, you would think that Churchill might be as cold and ruthless as anyone.
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Stalin continued, “At least fifty thousand - and perhaps a hundred thousand - of the German command staff must be physically liquidated.” Then he raised his glass. “I propose a salute to to the swiftest possible justice for all Germany’s war criminals - justice before a firing squad! I drink to our unity in killing them as quickly as we capture them. All of them! There must be at least fifty thousand.”
What Churchill heard deeply disturbed him. He knew that Stalin’s demand went far beyond October’s three-power Moscow Declaration of War Crimes. He replied, “The British people will never stand for such mass murder.... I will not be a party to any butchery in cold blood.” War criminals “must pay,” but he would hot agree to execute soldiers who had fought for their country: “I would rather be taken out in the garden, here and now, and be shot myself than sully my country’s honor by such infamy.”
Roosevelt said, “As usual, it seems to be my function to mediate this dispute.” In jest, he asked them to compromise on a smaller number - “say, forty-nine thousand, five hundred.”
-- “The Conquerors” by Michael Beschloss
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Stalin continued, “At least fifty thousand - and perhaps a hundred thousand - of the German command staff must be physically liquidated.” Then he raised his glass. “I propose a salute to to the swiftest possible justice for all Germany’s war criminals - justice before a firing squad! I drink to our unity in killing them as quickly as we capture them. All of them! There must be at least fifty thousand.”
What Churchill heard deeply disturbed him. He knew that Stalin’s demand went far beyond October’s three-power Moscow Declaration of War Crimes. He replied, “The British people will never stand for such mass murder.... I will not be a party to any butchery in cold blood.” War criminals “must pay,” but he would hot agree to execute soldiers who had fought for their country: “I would rather be taken out in the garden, here and now, and be shot myself than sully my country’s honor by such infamy.”
Roosevelt said, “As usual, it seems to be my function to mediate this dispute.” In jest, he asked them to compromise on a smaller number - “say, forty-nine thousand, five hundred.”
-- “The Conquerors” by Michael Beschloss
