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Hartley Shawcross
Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, GBE, PC, QC (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003), known from 1945 to 1959 as Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal. He also served as Britain's principal delegate to the United Nations immediately after the Second World War and as Attorney General for England.
Hartley William Shawcross was born in Giessen, Germany, elder son of British parents, John Shawcross, MA (Oxon) (1871–1966) and Hilda Constance (died 1942), daughter of G. Asser. At this time, his father was teaching English at Giessen University. His younger brother, Christopher (1905–1973), was a barrister and Labour party politician. Shawcross attended Dulwich College, the London School of Economics and the University of Geneva and read for the Bar at Gray's Inn, where he won first-class honours.
During his initial career as a barrister, Shawcross was part of the legal team hired by the colliery owners at the inquiry into the Gresford Colliery disaster in 1934, Stafford Cripps in counterpart representing the miners' union.
He joined the Labour Party and was Member of Parliament for St Helens, Lancashire, from 1945 to 1958, being appointed to be Attorney General in 1945 until 1951. In 1946, when debating the repeal of laws against trade unions in the House of Commons, Shawcross allegedly said "We are the masters now", a phrase that came to haunt him.
He was knighted in 1945 upon his appointment as Attorney-General and named Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom at the Nuremberg trials.
Shawcross's advocacy before the Nuremberg Trial was passionate. His most famous line was: "There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience".
He avoided the crusading[citation needed] style of American, Soviet, and French prosecutors. Shawcross's opening speech, which lasted two days, 26 and 27 July 1946, sought to undermine any belief that the Nuremberg Trials were "victor's justice" in the sense of being revenge exacted against defeated foes. He focused on the rule of law and demonstrated that the laws that the defendants had broken, expressed in international treaties and agreements, were those to which prewar Germany had been a party. In his closing speech, he ridiculed any notion that any of the defendants could have remained ignorant of Aktion T4, extermination of thousands of Germans because they were old or mentally ill. He used the same argument in respect of millions of other people "annihilated in the gas chambers or by shooting" and maintained that each of the 22 defendants was a party to "common murder in its most ruthless forms".
As Attorney-General, he prosecuted William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") and John Amery for treason, Klaus Fuchs and Alan Nunn May for giving atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, and John George Haigh, 'the acid bath murderer'.
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Hartley Shawcross
Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross, GBE, PC, QC (4 February 1902 – 10 July 2003), known from 1945 to 1959 as Sir Hartley Shawcross, was an English barrister and Labour politician who served as the lead British prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal. He also served as Britain's principal delegate to the United Nations immediately after the Second World War and as Attorney General for England.
Hartley William Shawcross was born in Giessen, Germany, elder son of British parents, John Shawcross, MA (Oxon) (1871–1966) and Hilda Constance (died 1942), daughter of G. Asser. At this time, his father was teaching English at Giessen University. His younger brother, Christopher (1905–1973), was a barrister and Labour party politician. Shawcross attended Dulwich College, the London School of Economics and the University of Geneva and read for the Bar at Gray's Inn, where he won first-class honours.
During his initial career as a barrister, Shawcross was part of the legal team hired by the colliery owners at the inquiry into the Gresford Colliery disaster in 1934, Stafford Cripps in counterpart representing the miners' union.
He joined the Labour Party and was Member of Parliament for St Helens, Lancashire, from 1945 to 1958, being appointed to be Attorney General in 1945 until 1951. In 1946, when debating the repeal of laws against trade unions in the House of Commons, Shawcross allegedly said "We are the masters now", a phrase that came to haunt him.
He was knighted in 1945 upon his appointment as Attorney-General and named Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom at the Nuremberg trials.
Shawcross's advocacy before the Nuremberg Trial was passionate. His most famous line was: "There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience".
He avoided the crusading[citation needed] style of American, Soviet, and French prosecutors. Shawcross's opening speech, which lasted two days, 26 and 27 July 1946, sought to undermine any belief that the Nuremberg Trials were "victor's justice" in the sense of being revenge exacted against defeated foes. He focused on the rule of law and demonstrated that the laws that the defendants had broken, expressed in international treaties and agreements, were those to which prewar Germany had been a party. In his closing speech, he ridiculed any notion that any of the defendants could have remained ignorant of Aktion T4, extermination of thousands of Germans because they were old or mentally ill. He used the same argument in respect of millions of other people "annihilated in the gas chambers or by shooting" and maintained that each of the 22 defendants was a party to "common murder in its most ruthless forms".
As Attorney-General, he prosecuted William Joyce ("Lord Haw-Haw") and John Amery for treason, Klaus Fuchs and Alan Nunn May for giving atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, and John George Haigh, 'the acid bath murderer'.