Succedaneum

Succedaneum (pronounced suhk-si-dey-nee-uhm)

(1) Something used as a substitute, especially any medical drug or agent that may be taken or prescribed in place of another (obsolete).

(2) One who takes the place of another.

1635–1645: From the New Latin succēdāneum, a noun use of the neuter singular of the Classical Latin succēdāneus (succeeding, following after; acting as substitute), the construct being suc(cēdō) (succeed, follow) +‎ -āneus (the composite adjectival suffix).  The notion of a succedaneum exists in many contexts and there are descriptions which are exactly synonymous and some which are merely similar or functionally overlap to some extent surrogate, backup, understudy, replacement, stand-in, locum, alternate, deputy, expediency, proxy, stopgap, body-double, sub, makeshift, fill-in, delegate, temporary, assistant, nominee, replica, successor and substitute.  Succedaneum is a noun and succedaneous is an adjective, the noun plural is succedanea.

Lindsay Lohan body-doubles: The Parent Trap (1998) (left) and Irish Wish (2023 (right).

The understudy is a term from the performing arts (theatre, ballet, opera et al) and describes someone who rehearses a part and is available to perform if the designated character becomes unavailable (illness, injury, tantrum, death etc).  In some cases an understudy may become a replacement if a temporary substitution becomes permanent.  A backup is essentially the same concept as an understudy but is used more generally.  Locum was a seventeenth century adoption of the Medieval Latin locum tenens (literally “one holding a place”) and has evolved as a class-based description of “a temporary replacement”, being by convention restricted to the professions (doctors, dentists, lawyers, vets etc (and for historic reasons the clergy)) whereas a replacement plumber is simply a replacement.  A body-double is used in film & television production to take the place of an actor for a variety of reasons (dangerous stunt work, scheduling conflicts, nudity scenes etc).  Alternates are usually those appointed to some sort of deliberative body, typically a judge appointed to some sort of enquiry or tribunal expected to last a long time, the idea being that in the case the primary judge becomes unavailable (illness, injury, tantrum, death etc), the matter may proceed without interruption.  In this context a nominee is someone nominated to fulfill some role which is for whatever reason (ex-officio, inheritance etc) in the gift of the nominator.  A proxy is particular example of a nominee who is authorized to exercise some right (usually a vote or votes) on behalf of the nominator.  A stopgap or makeshift is a description of something or someone temporarily substituted until a permanent arrangement is made. A delegate is an appointment made to exercise authority held by another but also carries the special value in that the extent of the delegation can be split.  In granting authority to a delegate, the delegated authority can be restricted to a single instance with all other matters reserved for the delegator.  In many cases a deputy or assistant will be able to exercise all or some of the authority held by the higher office but there are no set rules and things will vary from place to place.  As successor is simply a replacement and such situations the word substitute usually isn’t applied.

The issue of the appropriateness of the notion of succedaneum in legal proceedings was explored in the hearings of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) during the first trial of the leading Nazis at Nuremberg (1945-1946).  The first matter considered was whether others could be substituted if a preferred defendant wasn’t available for trial (ie they were dead or missing).  Because of the teleological nature of the trial insisted on by the Americans (who were providing the bulk of the resources and paying most of the bills) which was best served by a thematic approach to the choice of defendants, at least one representative of each defined area of interest was needed.  In the case of the army and navy that was simple because senior officers were to hand and the matter of the air force was fudged by indicting Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945 and Reichsmarschall 1940-1945) although his role as notional head of the Luftwaffe’s and indeed its role in the war received very little attention during the trial; given the Allies carpet bombing campaign had laid waste to German cities which indisputably were treated as civilian targets, it wasn’t something on which the prosecution wished to dwell although the opening address did include the admission the Germans not alone in reducing European cities to rubble and that “… the ruin that lies from the Rhine to the Danube shows that we have not been dull pupils”.  Despite that prosecutorial gesture however, it was make clear to counsel the defense of tu quoque (best translated as “you did it too” (literally “and you also”)) would not be permitted.

The defendants in the dock listening to Kaltenbrunner’s cross-examination, Nuremberg, 1946.

Dead or missing however were three of the most notorious figures from the security apparatus: Heinrich ("Gestapo") Müller (1900-1945 (presumed); head of the Gestapo 1939-1945), Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1939-1942) and Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945).  However it was unthinkable a trial of the Nazis could be conducted without the Gestapo and the SS being represented so Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946; head of the Reich Security Main Office 1943-1945) was substituted and it proved a wise choice because of all the defendants, he was the one with absolutely no defense, his guilt established beyond any doubt by the wealth of documents signed in his own hand (his cross-examination a remarkably brief 2½ days).  He was a trained lawyer and simply denied everything although given the evidence his protests didn’t convince even the others in the dock.  He also wasn’t happy about the use of succedaneum, saying more than once he was not prepared “…to be an ersatz for Himmler” although that did him no good and he was condemned to hang.

Dead too was Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) but the trial was not simply about the armed conflict which was fought between 1939-1945; the Americans in particular wanted the trial to be a platform to explore the role of propaganda in totalitarian societies and the way it was exploited by the Nazis in the 1930s.  Goebbels however had been a dominant figure in propaganda and the only official from the ministry of any status who could be found was Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953) who while not exactly “the newsreader” some claimed, was not someone ever concerned with matters of high-policy and he was available for the trial only because, in the haphazard ways things happened at the end of the war, he’d fallen into the hands of the Russians.  Certainly, his voice was well-known to Germans but nobody on the British or US prosecution teams had heard of him and, perhaps more tellingly, neither had some of his fellow defendants.  Despite this unpromising background however, a case was prepared but compared with the mass-murderers and plunderers which whom he shared the dock, the tribunal wasn’t convinced he could be convicted of war crimes or crimes against humanity and ordered his acquittal.  Unlike the substituted Kaltenbrunner who was guilty as sin of horrific crimes, Fritzsche seemed little more than a clerk, guilty of something but not war crimes.  Arrested shortly afterwards by the German authorities, he was convicted as a “major offender” by a denazification court and sentenced to nine years imprisonment.  In the early Cold War however, attitudes were shifting and like many others, he was soon released.

Courtroom during the Krupp trial, Nuremberg, 1947.

By far the most troubling act of (attempted) succedaneum was that of Alfried Krupp (1907–1967).  Krupp was an industrialist and had been head of the Krupp concern (steel works and related production) which was a major supplier of weapons and other materiel to the Nazi war machine, much of it produced using slave labor under appalling conditions.  It was important to ensure a representative of industry be included in the trial and no operation was more dominant in the Nazi economy than Krupps.  In one of those curious mistakes which just can’t be fixed, although it had been intended to indict Alfried Krupp, at some point in the process, a filing error or something happened and instead his father Gustav Krupp (1870–1950) was listed.  The father had actually been “retired” to the titular position of Chairman because of physical and mental incapacity and the error wasn’t noticed until it was too late and the indictment had been issued.  Were it in any other context, an apology could have been made and the paperwork amended but “substitution” in criminal law is a special case and no civilized legal system permits it.  The court had already been made aware that the elder Krupp was physically and mentally not fit to attend a trial which prompted the suggestion he might be tried in absentia but this the tribunal declined.  The prosecution’s alternative plan was therefore to “add” the name of the son to the indictment but this appalled the tribunal even more because it was so obviously as substitution.  By now it was too late to run the argument that the “addition” was simply to correct the earlier filing error and the trial proceeded without either Krupp.

At things turned out, the mistake merely delayed things.  At the time, it wasn’t certain there would be subsequent trials but the success of the main trial encouraged the prosecutors and twelve hearings (referred to usually as the "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials") were conducted including three concerned with the crimes committed in the course of industrial production (Krupp, Flick & IG Farben).  After the trial (1947-1948), Alfried Krupp received a twelve year sentence and the forfeiture of property although he served only a few years before the sentence was commuted.