Liberalis in English

About the cases of Hans Fritzsche and Julius Streicher at the trial of Nazi criminals in Nuremberg.

The trial of the most important leaders of Hitler’s regime in Germany began on November 20th, 1945, in Nuremberg. On the bench of defendant’s at the Palace of Justice – one of the few buildings in the center of Nuremburg, which survived the English and American bombings during the war – served 21 individuals.

After the ten-month long proceedings, the International Military Tribunal rendered the verdict: twelve of the indicted (one of them by default) were sentenced to death by hanging, seven to jail – from ten years to life, three were acquitted. The death sentences were carried out on the night of October 16th, 1946 (Herman Göring escaped the hangman, as, shortly before the execution, he ingested potassium cyanide).

From among the tried and sentenced in Nuremberg high – ranking officers of the Nazi regime, most were accused of crimes such as involvement in the planning of war, the initiation and waging of a war of aggression, but, most of all, the dispensation of criminal orders, the murdering of prisoners of war and of the civilian population, mass deportations, the plunder of property, etc.

Two of the charged appeared before the tribunal not because of what they did, meaning, for example, the dispensation of criminal orders, but for what they said and wrote. They were Hans Fritzsche and Julius Streicher. This note is dedicated to their trials.
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This is a text, which I wrote in 2002 and planned to put it on the American Civil Liberties Union online forum, where discussion about United States Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition case had take place. Alas, shortly after I finished this text, mentioned forum was taken off from ACLU internet site. Since this time I almost forget about this text, but recently (in may of 2007) I find it on my computer, and thereafter I decided to put it on my internet site. Because the English is not my mother language, this text can contain some grammatical errors.

Should virtual child pornography be banned?

A defense of the United States Supreme Court decision

Probably no kind of expression is so much hated, as so called “child pornography”. So, it is not strange, that many people were displeased with the U.S. Supreme Court decision holding, that “virtual child pornography” cannot be prohibited. But pejorative term “child pornography” – and emotions connected with this term – should not make us unable to understand decision of the Court, and to quiet consideration of arguments used to support of criminalization of so called “virtual child pornography” in light of free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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