Nuremberg chief prosecutor Thomas J. Dodd wrote privately that the overly Jewish staffing of the prosecution team would make people say WW2 had been fought for their benefit alone

SENATOR Christopher J. Dodd, running for U.S. president, is out with a book. But it's not a conventional candidate biography or blueprint for change.

It's about the Connecticut Democrat's late father, Thomas J. Dodd (above), who preceded him in the Senate. In fact, most of it was written by his father -- and it is fascinating.

The book, which the senator put together with the assistance of Larry Bloom, is Letters from Nuremberg: My Father's Narrative of a Quest for Justice.

The senior Dodd wrote the letters in 1945-'46 to his wife, Grace, back home in Connecticut, while he was abroad, mostly in Germany, as a prosecutor in the Allies' war crimes trial of 22 top Nazis, including Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Albert Speer. (All but three were convicted; 12 were sentenced to hang.)

Consider these Sept. 25, 1945, observations from Tom Dodd, who would emerge as second in command on the American prosecution team:

"You know how I have despised anti-Semitism. You know how strongly I feel toward those who preach intolerance of any kind. With that knowledge -- you will understand when I tell you that this staff is about seventy-five percent Jewish. Now my point is that the Jews should stay away from this trial -- for their own sake.

"For -- mark this well -- the charge 'a war for the Jews' is still being made and in the post-war years it will be made again and again.

"The too large percentage of Jewish men and women here will be cited as proof of this charge. Sometimes it seems that the Jews will never learn about these things. They seem intent on bringing new difficulties down on their own heads. I do not like to write about this matter --it is distasteful to me -- but I am disturbed about it. They are pushing and crowding and competing with each other and with everyone else."

Chris Dodd tells me that when he reads this letter, "I first of all cringe a little bit because I wonder what he's driving at."

Source: Complete article

David Irving: "Nuremberg, the Last Battle" (free download)

Harvard Law School Nuremberg Documents Project

Our Nuremberg Trial dossier

Dossiers on key Nazis: Hitler | Himmler | Goebbels