LSU Law Library lends Paul M. Hebert’s Nuremberg Military Tribunal judicial robe to Louisiana’s Old State Capitol museum for ABA ‘Lawyers Without Rights’ exhibit

A panoramic view of the court room used for the I. G. Farben trial. This court room was earlier used for the trials of the surviving Nazi high officials before the International Military Tribunal.

In 1947, Paul M. Hebert took leave from his service as LSU Law dean after being appointed as a civilian judge at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, a series of 12 trials held between 1946 and 1949 following the original Nuremberg Trials brought by Allied powers against Nazi Germany leaders for war crimes committed during World War II.

Between Aug. 22, 1947 and July 30 of the following year, Hebert was one of four judges presiding over The United States of America vs. Carl Krauch, et al. Better known as the IG Farben Trial, the case’s central charge was the use of slave labor by IG Farben, a private German chemicals company aligned with the Nazis that manufactured a cyanide-based gas used to commit genocide during the war.

Beginning Friday, Nov. 1, those who visit Louisiana’s Old State Capitol musuem in downtown Baton Rouge will be able to view the judicial robe that Hebert wore during the trial. Along with a photo of Hebert and his fellow judges on the Nuremberg bench, the robe will be among the artifacts displayed as part of “Lawyers Without Rights: Jewish Lawyers in Germany Under the Third Reich,” a travelling exhibit of the American Bar Association. The exhibit will be featured at the museum through Dec. 21.

“We are excited to be adding Dean Hebert’s judicial robe and several other artifacts to the exhibit at Louisiana’s Old State Capitol museum to make it more specific to Louisiana,” said museum curator Lauren Davis. “Since the exhibit details how Germany declared Jewish citizens’ rights revoked first in Nuremberg, we wanted to circle around and show what happened in Nuremberg after World War II to right the wrongs that began there. Dean Hebert played an important role, and we’re honored to display a piece of that history here at the museum.”

Louisiana’s Old State Capitol is located at 100 North Blvd. and is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The “Lawyers Without Rights” exhibit focuses on the rule of law and how the acts of one government—the Third Reich in Germany—began to systematically undermine fair and just law through humiliation, degradation, and legislation leading to expulsion of Jewish lawyers and jurists from the legal profession.

“As the rule of law comes under attack today in both developed and Third World countries, Lawyers Without Rights tragically portrays what can happen when the just rule of law disappears—replaced by an arbitrary rule by law that sweeps aside the rights and dignity of selected populations,” said the ABA  of the exhibit, which is appearing in Baton Rouge for the first time and has previously been featured at the Louisiana Supreme Court in New Orleans. “The story of the fate of Jewish lawyers in Germany is more than a historical footnote,” said the ABA of the exhibit, “It is a wake-up call that a system of justice free of improper political considerations remains fragile and should never be taken for granted.” Learn more about the exhibit.

Members of Military Tribunal VI at Nurnberg hearing the case against officials of the I. G. Farben Industry included (left to right): James Morris of Bismark, N.D.; Curtis Grover Shake, Vincennes, Ind., presiding; Paul M. Hebert of Baton Rouge, La.; and Clarence F. Merrill of Indianapolis, Ind., alternate.

In the IG Farben Trial that Hebert presided over, 24 defendants were tried on five counts, the third of which related to the use of slave labor. On that count, except in the case of the atrocities that took place at Auschwitz—where the company had constructed a plant adjacent to the concentration camp with the clear intent to use inmates as slave labor—the tribunal accepted the defendants’ “necessity” defense. That is, the judges concluded that the defendants could not be proven to have acted on their own volition and were instead adhering to the orders of the Third Reich.

Hebert rejected the “necessity” defense and authored the lone dissenting opinion.

“I cannot agree that there was an absence of moral choice,” reads Hebert’s 28-page dissent. “…I cannot agree with the assertation that these defendants had no other choice than to comply with the mandates of the Hitler government. … The defense of necessity as accepted by the majority would, in my opinion, lead logically to the conclusion that Hitler alone was responsible for the major war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Nazi regime.”

Hebert’s complete dissenting opinion is among a number of documents and photos available to view via the LSU Law Library’s Hebert Nuremburg Collection, which also includes the judicial robe that is now on loan to the Capitol Park Museum.

Ultimately, 13 of the 24 defendants in the IG Farben Trial were found guilty on at least one of the five counts included in the indictment and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one and one-half to eight years. Ten defendants were acquitted of all charges.

After completing his service in Nuremberg, Hebert returned to Baton Rouge in the summer of 1948 and resumed his tenure as LSU Law dean, which had begun in 1937. A graduate of LSU Law in 1929, Hebert continues to hold the distinction of being LSU Law’s longest serving dean. His decades-long tenure as dean was first interrupted by his own service in World War II, which lasted from the spring of 1942 through the summer of 1945. Following his bench service in Nuremberg, Hebert’s tenure as dean of LSU Law lasted until his death in 1977 (with two small breaks in his service, in 1951 and 1957, during which he briefly entered private practice).

On Feb. 24, 1949—roughly a half year after returning from Nuremberg—Hebert spoke to the Kiwanis Club in Baton Rouge about the historical context of the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, the prosecution of war crimes in general, and his hopes for the future.

“The Nuremberg Trails meant that our moral commitments, expressed in the Moscow Declaration, were carried out,” Hebert said in the speech, which is also included in it’s entirety in the LSU Law Library collection. “These trials should have a great influence on the future development of international law.  … We may expect further developments in the recognition of human rights, and may expect the development of the crime against humanity as part of a system of international law which will know no boundaries as the means of protecting these rights.

“However discouraged we may be at the daily headlines, we must live in the hope that there will be a reassertion of moral, legal, and spiritual values throughout the world and that civilization will somehow develop the wisdom to establish a legal system which will mean the vindication of human rights wherever these are violated, whether in the name of government or not, or whether in peace or in war.”