Talk:Hartley Shawcross

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This needs to be merged with Hartley William Shawcross, Baron Shawcross of Friston --rbrwr (talk) 06:55, 19 August 2003‎

"Step by step I have arrived at the conviction that the aims of Communism in Europe are sinister and fatal. "At the Nuremberg Trials, I, together with my Russian colleague, condemned Nazi aggression and terror. "I believe now that Hitler and the German people did not want war. But we declared war on Germany, intent on destroying it, in accordance with our principle of balance of power, and we were encouraged by the 'Americans' around Roosevelt. "We ignored Hitler's pleadings not to enter into war. Now we are forced to realise that Hitler was right. He offered us the co-operation of Germany; instead, since 1945, we have been facing the immense power of the Soviet Union. I feel ashamed and humiliated to see that the aims we accused Hitler of, are being relentlessly pursued now, only under a different label." -- British Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, Stourbridge, March 16th, 1984 (AP)--‎ Betoon ((talk) 08:27, 30 March 2006

Do you have a source for this quotation from Baron Shawcross? There is no mention of it in his obituary at the Guardian ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,995910,00.html ), and I did not find anything about it in the Historical New York Times for the dates in question--which would be reasonable to expect if it was written by the AP.Ninarosa 03:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I looked for the quotation by Baron Shawcross in the LexisNexis database, which keeps all news from the Associated Press. From 1980 to 1990 there are only two references to Shawcross, on March 9, 1980 and another on Ausgust 21, 1989. Neither was anywhere similar to the quotation listed in this page.

I've deleted the quotation until a more reliable source can be found.Ninarosa 03:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have found some links via Google:

http://www.geocities.com/gambanreidi.geo/SurprisingRevelation.html

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/witness2.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.40.110.66 (talk) 13:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The alleged quote is a forgery - see [1].--Toddy1 (talk) 22:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, Toddy1. That’s not how it works. Do you understand the concept of journalism? No; beyond that, do you even understand the concept of the discovery of truth? Let’s look at excerpts from your alleged “source.” I apologize for the following formatting, but talk pages are often less constructed than the real ones.

>>The reason that the alleged Stourbridge speech caught the attention of so many people is because seemingly Sir Hartley Shawcross had a complete change of heart in 1984 at the age of 82. Yes, a quote pulling a 180º change in ideology would be worthy of note, particularly of an ideology so important to the entirety of human history over the last 70 years. But guess what? George S. Patton had an identical ideological turnaround, and he did it in only a single year. So neither the scale nor nature of the ideological shift is not operationally implausible. Argumentum ad lapidem.

>>The webmaster of the web site for the town of Stourbridge has no knowledge of a speech made there And this is supposed to mean what? What does a website’s webmaster have to do with a speech from before the Internet existed? Why does this one man’s testimony carry so much weight? It doesn’t. It’s nigh irrelevant.

>>Stourbridge is a college town of 54,000 people. If Shawcross had made such a controversial speech there in 1984, the whole town would still remember it. No. This is argumentum ad populum. And it’s also a little bit of argumentum ad verecundiam, using the nature of being a “college town” to bolster credentials.

>>A search of the Associated Press Archives showed that no such speech had been reported and the story had not appeared in either the London Times or the New York Times. This sounds better for determining factuality, but… where’s the citation for the search? What were the criteria used in finding it? How would one reproduce such a search?

>>At that time, British author David Irving did an investigation The notorious antisemite? You want to use him as part of this?

>>Neither was his alleged speech mentioned in his obituary when he died at the age of 101. Would it have to be? How many speeches did he give in his life? For what (field) was the man best known? Why would this, specifically, have made it there, and why does “not being listed in an obituary” mean it didn’t happen? Did the man not have sex because that wasn’t listed in his obituary?

>>Wikipedia has not been able to verify the Stourbridge speech as authentic. And now you’re literally citing something that is citing you (in general). How do you expect THAT to be taken seriously?

In conclusion, the quote is NOT proven to be a forgery. It is also not, as yet, proven to be true. It remains nebulous, and further study is necessary to make a FACTUAL determination.

~:~ (this to delineate the following statement, which is not mine, from mine above) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.1.119.48 (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The John Bodkin Adams story ... what exactly is being suggested here? I suspect that it's not trivial! Cutler 22:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• It seems likely that Gwynne wanted Shawcross and Goddard to use their influence in Bodkin Adams' favour. Indeed, in the trial judge Devlin's book he mentions that Goddard phoned him up to encourage him to grant bail before a second murder trial - something which was then unheard of. In a book on Adams by Surtees, it's mentioned that Gwynne tried to "bend Manningham-Buller's ear" too. MB was the prosecuting Attorney-General. Hence, this meeting was Gwynne's attempt to help his lover. After the meeting, Gwynne drove home and crashed his car. He hadn't been drinking so I'd assume it was a suicide attempt (though there's no way of proving that - other than various sources saying he was depressed at the time).Malick78 13:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Thus Shawcross's advocacy was instrumental in obtaining convictions against the remaining Nazi leadership, on grounds which were perceived as fair and lawful.[citation needed]"

Are you guys serious? On grounds that were "were perceived as fair and lawful"? You cannot word it like this. "perceived as fair" would maybe be just OK. But you cannot say "lawful": The big well established flaw of the Nuremberg trials was that the legal norm leading to the conviction of most of the Nazis was defined just during the trials. You cannot dare to name it "lawful" since there was no such law before. It is surely the only accepted trial with rules established during the trial, rules that were not known when the deeds were done. The thing what made it acceptable in a way was that immense cruelty needed to be persecuted somehow while this was in some respects a novelty in history. The term is maybe "acceptable".

PS: Even "fair" could be discussed since many interviews were done by soldiers. But that are maybe only bad persons that think that soldiers from the Soviet Union, Britain, USA or elsewhere did ever torture their detainees in Germany '45, Hungary '56, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.64.181.113 (talk) 00:02, 14 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]