'MAINSPRING OF
EVIL' SHOULD DIE IN ELECTRIC CHAIR, SAID CHURCHILL.
WINSTON CHURCHILL wanted
Adolf Hitler executed in the electric chair if he was captured,
official papers reveal.
The British Prime Minister
also believed senior Nazis should be put to death without trial.
Churchill's uncompromising attitude towards his enemies has been
revealed in records from his War Cabinet meetings.
Taken by Deputy Cabinet
Secretary Sir Norman Brook in his own style of shorthand, the
notes provide the first detailed insight into what was said at
key debates. The documents - released by the National Archives
in Kew, West London - show senior colleagues, such as post-war
Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee, trying to persuade Churchill
to moderate his views.
The Cabinet held a series
of discussions about how to deal with war criminals between 1942
and 1945. At one meeting in December 1942, Churchill commented
: 'Contemplate that if Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly
put him to death. Not a Sovereign who could be said to be in the
hands of Ministers, like the Kaiser. This man is the mainspring
of evil'.
Criminals sentenced to
death in Britain at the time were hanged, but - perhaps tongue
in cheek - Churchill suggested an electric chair could be obtained
from the U.S. through its Lend-Lease scheme for providing goods
to its Allies.
'Instrument - electric
chair, for gangsters no doubt available on Lend-Lease,' the records
said. Two and a half years later, the question of whether Nazis
deserved their day in court was at the fore of Ministers' minds.
In April 1945, Home Secretary Herbert Morrison said a 'mock trial'
for Nazi leaders would be 'objectionable'. 'Better to declare
that we shall put them to death,' he said. Churchill agreed a
trial for Hitler would be 'a farce'.
'All sorts of complications
ensue as soon as you admit a fair trial,' he declared. But within
weeks it had become clear that both the U.S. and Russia backed
court proceedings.
On May 3rd, Viscount Swinton,
the Minister for Civil Aviation, reported that 'the situation
has changed'. 'If we can't agree on procedure for leaders, let
us get agreed procedure on the others,' he said, 'the leaders
are being liquidated anyhow.'
Churchill proposed they
'negotiate' with figures such as Gestapo head Heinrich Himmler
- who had already sought secret peace talks with the British Government
- and then 'bump him off later'. When Secretary of State for War,
Sir Peter Grigg, objected that activities at concentration camps
such as Buchenwald - which Himmler helped to operate - did not
qualify as 'war crimes', Churchill responded sharply. 'Don't quibble.
He could be summarily shot, in respect of some of those in the
camp.'
The documents also reveal
intense discussions in 1942 over possible British reprisals for
Nazi atrocities in Czechoslovakia. On June 15th that year, Churchill
suggested British bombers should wipe out three German villages
for every Czech settlement destroyed. His view was initially backed
by Foreign Secretary and fellow Tory Anthony Eden, but Labour
Ministers Attlee and Morrison eventually won him over by arguing
the attacks were an unnecessary diversion.
Churchill finally abandoned
the plan with the parting shot : 'I submit (unwillingly) to the
view of Cabinet against it.' That disagreement was mirrored later
in the year when a dispute erupted between the warring nations
over manacling prisoners. Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin said
at an October meeting that he feared an escalation in the row
might lead the Nazis to start shooting British prisoners - 'an
example we could not follow'. Churchill insisted : 'I would shoot
in those circumstances.'
The Daily Mail (UK) : 2nd
January 2006.
