Charles E. Wyzanski Jr.

At the time of the trial, Judge Charles E. Wyzanski Jr. of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts wrote a cautionary article anticipating that the rights of the accused would be trampled and a bad precedent would be set for the future. After the trial, he admitted that he had been wrong. In particular, he concluded that failing to create a new legal standard that insured the Nazis would be prosecuted could have opened the door to more arbitrary punishments. Even though the judge was reassured after seeing how the trial was conducted, he still believed it could have been done more fairly by, for example, including neutral parties in the proceedings— though he admits the Russians probably would not have allowed this. Wyzanski also came to appreciate some of the positive aspects of the...