Haystack
(pronounced hey-stak)
(1) A stack,
pile or bindle of hay (cut grass) with a conical or ridged top, built up in the
mowed field so as to prevent the accumulation of moisture and promote drying.
(2) Any mix
of green leafy plants used for fodder.
(3) In the
slang of weed smokers, (1) a device (pipe or bong) with an untypically large
bowl in which the marijuana is able to be packed in an unusually large quantity
or (2) any device where the weed is stacked above the rim of the cone piece.
(3) In
slang, among disapproving carnivores, a disparaging terms for salads or dishes
made predominately with leafy greens.
Mid 1400s:
The construct was hay + stack. Hay (mown
grass) was a pre-900 Middle English word from the Old English hēg, from the Anglian Old English heg & heig and the West Saxon Old English hig (grass cut or mown for fodder), from the Proto-Germanic haujam (literally “that which is cut” or
“that which can be mowed”), from the primitive Indo-European kau- (to hew, strike) that was the
source also of the Old English heawan
(“to cut” and linked to the modern English “to hew”). Hay’s cognates included the Old Norse hey, the Old Frisian ha, the Middle Dutch hoy, the Gothic hawi, the West Frisian hea,
the Alemannic German Heuw, the Cimbrian
höobe, the Dutch hooi, the German Heu, the
Luxembourgish Hee, the Mòcheno hei, the Yiddish היי (hey), the Danish hø,
the Faroese hoyggj, the Gutnish hoy, the Icelandic hey, the Norwegian Bokmål, the Norwegian Nynorsk høy and the Swedish hö; all meant “hay” although use to refer also to grass (later to
be used as hay) is documented. Hay is
the ISO’s (International Standards Organization) translingual (symbol ISO 639-3)
language code for Haya and, in slang, one of many terms for marijuana (cannabis). A hay is a net set around the haunt of an
animal (especially rabbits or hares).
1962 BRM P57.
In its original configuration the P57's V8 was fitted with “open stack” exhausts. Sadly, the charismatic array of eight pipes proved prone to cracking and was replaced with a more conventional arrangement that sacrificed a few HP (horsepower) at the upper end of the rev-range but proved robust. Built for Formula One's “voiturette era” (1961-1965) and powered by a jewel-like 1.5 litre V8, the P57 in 1962 claimed both the constructer's and driver's championships. Open stack exhausts are still seen in categories like drag racing but there they need to endure only for ¼ mile (402 metre) runs and (baring accidents) are not subject to lateral forces.
Stack dates
from 1250–1300 and was from the Middle English stak (pile, heap or group of things, especially a pile of grain in
the sheaf in circular or rectangular form), from a Scandinavian source akin to
the Old Norse stakkr (haystack),
thought from the Proto-Germanic stakkoz
& stakon- (a stake), from the
primitive Indo-European stog- a
variant of steg (pole; stick (source
of the English “stake”, the Old Church Slavonic stogu (heap), the Russian stog
(haystack) and the Lithuanian stokas (pillar)). It was cognate with the Danish stak and the Swedish stack (heap, stack). “Smokestack” and the derived clipping “stack”
were by the 1660s in use to describe tall chimneys, initially when arrayed in a
cluster but by 1825 it’s recorded also of the “single stacks” on steam
locomotives and steamships. In English parish records, “Stack” is recorded as a surname as early as the twelfth century and there are a variety of explanations for the origin (that may between regions have differed) and in at least some cases there may be a connection with use of “stack” in agriculture (such as peripatetic workers who travelled between farms specifically to “build haystacks”). In societies where so much of the economy was based on farming and populations substantially were rural, such links were common.
Wickes-class four stack destroyer USS Buchanan (DD-131), “laying down smoke” during sea trials, 1919.
One of the US Navy's 273 World War I (1914-1918) era “four stackers”, in 1940 she was transferred to the Royal Navy under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement and re-named HMS Campbeltown (I42). She was destroyed during the St. Nazaire Raid when, loaded with four tons of explosive, she was used a “floating bomb” and rammed into the gates of the Forme Ecluse Louis Joubert dry dock, putting the facility out of use for the duration of the war.
In naval
use, the official Admiralty term was “funnel” and warships were in some listings
(especially identification charts using silhouettes) listed thus (“three funnel
cruiser”; “four funnel destroyer”) but the sailors’ slang was “two stacker”, “three
stacker” etc. In libraries, “stacks” in
the sense of “set of shelves on which books were arranged) was in use by the late
1870s and in computer software, the “stack” was first documented in 1960 to
describe a collection of elements working in unison, the original idea being
of a stack of things, each subsequent object depending on the one below to run
and by the time all are assembled, the whole can function (ie an early instance
of “granular” software”). Later, the
word was applied to other concepts, notably the LIFO (last in, first out) model
in data structure (LIFO) describing objects added (push) and removed (pop) from
the same end. Stack is a noun
& verb, stackage, stacker & stackback are nouns, stacking is a noun
& verb, stacked is a verb & adjective and stackless, stacky &
stackful are adjectives; the noun plural is stacks. Haystack is a noun; the noun plural is
haystacks.
In Middle
English, the alternative forms were hay-cock and its variants (haycok, hacoke & haycoke),
all synonymous with grass-cock, hayrick & haystack and referencing the same
conical stacks of cut grass. The haystack
was a product of the cutting of grass and subsequently curing it to make hay as
fodder for animals. Just as cheese was
made as a means of preserving milk for later consumption, so the cutting a
stacking of hay was a way to ensure there would be feed for livestock during
the months when the growth of grass was minimal. There are many derived terms associated with
haymaking and haystacks (hayfork, hayknife, haybailer hay mover, hay rake,
hayshed etc) but there’s no evidence “haystacker” was ever used of those individuals
who “stacked hay into haystacks”. The
form “haymaker” exists but this seems to have been coined to describe machines built
for the purpose rather than the workers.
This is likely because it was a seasonal event in which many farm-workers
(although there clearly were some “travelling contractors” who went from
farm-to-farm) tended to be involved and, needed no specialized skill-set, the
term never appeared; it was a task done rather than a job description.
A young lady with hayfork (now better known as a “pitchfork”, building her haystack.
The haystack
was a part of agricultural practice even before the civilizations of Antiquity
(Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etc) developed the process on a grander scale. The objective of stacking the hay in conical formations
was as protection from pests and the elements and farmers paid much attention
to location, the ideal site for a haystack being somewhere slightly elevated, well-drained
and with a foundation not prone to promoting moisture absorption (ideally with
a bottom layer of some coarse material to promote air-flow between hay and
surface. Usually, a pole was pounded
into the ground to prove the structure with a basic structural rigidity and as
each layer is added and compacted, the stack grows upwards and outwards,
assuming the distinctive shape, the angles at the top fashioned to optimize the
shedding of rainwater. In a sense, the
outermost layer is sacrificial in that it will weather and discolour but, if
the structure is well-packed, what lies within will retain its green hue and
smell “sweet” to livestock.
American Sapphic, Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & former special friend Samantha Ronson (b 1977) by Ben Tegel after American Gothic (1930) by Grant Wood (1891-1942). Ms Ronson is depicted holding pitchfork, a tool which, for the manual handling of hay, cannot be improved; like the teaspoon or pencil, it has attained its final evolutionary form. A “Hawaiian
haystack” is a meal of rice with the diner's choice of toppings such as
chicken, pineapple, noodles and cheese; a favorite of resort style hotels and
cruise ship operators, usually the dish is served buffet-style. The slang phrase “hit the hay” dates from at
least the early nineteenth century when literally it meant “to go to the barn
and sleep on an ad-hoc “bed of hay” but by 1903 it was being recorded as
meaning simply “going to bed”. A “roll
in the hay” or “romp in the hay” were both euphemisms for “a session of sexual
intercourse (usually without any hint of subsequent commitment) and that use is
documented only from early in World War II (1939-1945) among US soldiers but
when the expression first was used is unknown.
The term “haywire” (usually as “gone haywire” or “gone haywire”) originally meant “likely to become tangled unpredictably to the
point of unusability or fall apart”; the idea was of items bound together only
with the soft, springy
wire (baler twine) used to bind hay bales.
It’s said first to have been used as “haywire outfit” in New England
lumber camps (circa 1905) to describe collections of logging tools bound in a
haphazard manner and prone to coming adrift.
From that, “haywire” enjoyed some mission creep and came to mean people
or machinery behaving erratically or falling apart. In the modern idiom, the most common use (as “went
haywire”) is to describe some act (such as removing a part from a machine) that results in the whole mechanism becoming “messed up” (although mechanics, farmers and others typically use phrases more earthy than “messed up”).
Cylindrical (“rounds” in the jargon) bales of hay stacked in a field.
The
figurative term “needlestack” summons the idea of a “stack of needles” and is
an allusion to the difficulty in finding a particular object among one of many similar or even close to identical.
The word was a back-formation from the phrase “finding a needle in a
haystack”, a much more commonly used expression. Finding a
needle in a haystack is merely messy and time-consuming whereas finding a needle
in a needlestack can at least verge on the impossible. The popular TV science show Mythbusters
compared methods and found there were techniques that could “speed up” finding
a needle in a haystack”, the use of water most efficient (metal being heavier
than straw, the needle would sink) while fire worked but was slow and messy, a magnet proving ideal (assuming the needle remained ferromagnetic). Obviously, giant magnets, metal detectors or
X-ray machines quickly would find even tiny pieces of metal but the Mythbusters
crew wanted practical, “real world” examples that would centuries earlier been viable when first the phrase came into use. The finding of a “bone needle” was considered
to be more difficult (fire not recommended and a magnet obviously useless), the team concluding that whatever the method adopted, the task remained challenging
enough for the saying still to have validity.
Haystack News, the name an allusion to it being the place users may “find needles in the haystack”. Founded in
2013, what prompted the creation of Haystack TV was that in the US, without a
cable TV subscription, it was difficult to find news content, the idea being
that finding news among the dozens of available channels was like “looking for
a needle in a haystack”. It took until
2015 for the service to start with Haystack TV mission statement saying its
objective was to “stream high-quality, trusted news without sifting through
masses of irrelevant video.” Now known
as Haystack News, the model is a free, advertising supported streaming service
for local, national and international news video available on smart TVs,
over-the-top platforms and mobile apps; in the modern way, data (location,
topics of interest, favorite sources etc) harvested from each user is used to generate personalized
playlist of short news clips. Initially,
the focus was on US news content but in 2019, the vista expanded with clips
from more than 200 local TV stations including overseas content. By 2026, the catchment had expanded to some 400 including Africanews, Al Jazeera, CBC, DW (Deutsche
Welle, Euronews, France 24 and i24 News.
A haymaker
(in the Middle English originally heymakere) was a machine (purpose built or adapted)
used in the production of hay (there's scant evident ever it widely was used of
workers involved in the process) and in informal use was “a very powerful punch”,
especially one that “knocks down an opponent” (on the model of the sweep of a
scythe levelling tall grass). However,
some etymologists suggest a more likely origin is as a reference to the strong,
muscular arms of the men who wielded the scythes when “cutting hay”. Figuratively, by extension, it came also to
mean “any decisive blow, shock, or forceful action” although that use is now less
common. A haymonger (from the Middle
English heimongere, heymonger & heymongere) was “a trader who deals in
hay” and although the practices were never formalized in the manner of modern
commodity markets, surviving documents suggest that as early as the 1500s there
was something like a “proto futures market” in hay as farmers sought to hedge
against variables (flood, drought price movements etc) and ensure they’d have a
stock of fodder available at a known price.
Hayseeds literally were “seeds from grass that has become hay” and the
word was applied generally to the cruft from bits of hay (ie not actually seeds)
that sticks to clothing etc. By extension,
a “hayseed” was “a yokel or country bumpkin” (ie a person thought rustic or unsophisticated).
Bales of hay, stacked in a hay shed.
Manufacturers list hay sheds as specific designs (classically, two or three sides (facing the prevailing weather) and a roof) so if a hay shed is used for another purpose it's a “re-purposed hay shed” whereas if hay is stored in a different type of shed, it might be described as “my hay shed” but its really a shed in which hay is being stored. Being practical folk, this distinction is unlikely to be something on which many farmers much dwell.
Originally,
haystacks were “stack of hay” that might vary in size and shape but the
general practice was to create something vaguely conical; rather than being a choice,
this was dictated by the physics in that a cone allowed the largest volume to
be stacked with the smallest footprint as well as minimizing moisture intrusion. The modern practice however is for hay to be bound into bales either cylindrical (“rounds”) or cuboid (a rectangular prism) in shape and which is chosen is a product of the
machinery available, available storage capacity, heard size and, in some cases, whether the hay is to be transported by road. By
virtue of their shape, cylindrical bales tend to shed water reaching the
surface during rainfall so any spoilage usually is restricted to the inch (25 mm) or so
of the outermost layer, making them suited to outdoor storage; their density
also makes them more efficient for fermenting silage. The cuboid bale, because of the upper surface
area, acts in the rain like a sponge, meaning they should be stored under cover
and the advantage of the regular shape is that when stacked, the cuboids create
no waste space, unlike rounds (costing as much a 15-20% in unused space). The same equation
means cuboids are best suited to be transported by truck. The modern practice (bales now produced in
standardized sizes using machines that sometimes will as part of the process
wrap them in waterproof plastic sheeting) means the word “haystack” now
more accurately reflects a number of bales “stacked” in a shed or on the land
while the original conical “stack” would more accurately be called a “pile”. However, because of centuries of use, the
term continues to be applied to both although “bale stack” does exist in the
jargon of farming.
Bales of hay being trucked to somewhere. Both cuboids and rounds can be transported thus but, as with storage, the space efficiency of the former is superior, there being fewer gaps (ie “wasted space”)
The proverb
“make hay while the sun shines” is now used figuratively to mean “one should act
while an opportunity exists and take action while a situation is favourable”
but the origin was literal. Until very
recently, weather forecasting was most inexact and because the moisture content
of hay was of great significance (spoilage and the risk of spontaneous
combustion), it was important for farmers to avail themselves of sunny, dry
condition to cut, dry and gather the grass to be assembled into haystacks. Dating from a time when weather forecasting essentially
was “tomorrow the weather will be much the same as today, two times out of
three”, the proverb seems to have originated in Tudor times
(1485-1603) and the first known reference is from 1546. Since the mid seventeenth century, it has
been used figuratively. Phrases like “carpe diem” (seize the day), “grasp the
nettle” & “strike while the iron is hot” impart a similar meaning.
Defendants in the dock at the first Nuremberg Trial, the right-hand side of the glass-fronted interpreters' booth seen at the top right corner.
At the
first Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), an IMT (International Military Tribunal) was
convened to try two-dozen surviving members of the Nazi regime in Germany
(1933-1945), 22 of the accused appearing in court, one having committed suicide
by hanging (with his underpants stuffed in his mouth to limit the noise) prior
to proceedings beginning and one was tried in absentia. The proceedings were conducted in four
languages (English, French, German and Russian) with “simultaneous translation”
provided by a rotating group of translators, all those in the courtroom able to
listen (through headphones) in any of these language. It’s no exaggeration to say it was the work
of the translators and interpreters that made possible the 13 Nuremberg Trials
in the form they took and the implementation of simultaneous interpretation was
ground-breaking, the undertaking all the more remarkable because of the
scale. The main trial was conducted over
ten months with 210 sitting days and so much material was presented the published
transcripts filled 42 volumes, thus the references to “the trial of six million words.” Logistically, the approach was vital because
had the traditional approach been pursued, the trial as conducted would have
been impractical because the usual protocol had been: (1) One speaker would
deliver remarks in German while (2) interpreters took notes. After the speaker was finished, (3) one
interpreter would interpret into French, followed by (4) an interpretation in
Russian, and then (5) in English. Things
thus would have lasted perhaps four times as long but with “simultaneous translation” (in reality there was a lag of 6-8 seconds) it was as close to “real-time” as was possible. Not until the 2020s did advances in
generative AI (artificial intelligence) trained on LLM (large language models)
mean machines alone could improve on what was done in 1945-1946. Of course, an AI powered machine (in the form of a static device such as a speaker) could not add meaning by the use of NVC (nonverbal communication such as gestures or facial expressions) as is possible for a flesh & blood interpreter but as the occasionally disturbing “deep fake” videos illustrate, NVC certainly is possible on screen and with advances in robotics, it will be only a matter of time before such things can be done in three dimensions. Now, we can all carry in our pockets a device able accurately (and even idiosyncratically) to translate dozens of languages as text or voice so the days of the profession of interpreter being a good career choice for a gifted linguist may be numbered.
Wily old
Franz von Papen (1879-1969; Chancellor of Germany 1932 & vice chancellor 1933-1934) wearing
IBM headphones, undergoing cross-examination. He was one of three defendants granted an acquittal.
Before the
13 Nuremberg Trials (the subsequent 12 conducted between 1946-1949), there had
been only limited experiments with simultaneous translation. Historically, the need in international
relations had been limited because French had long been the “official language
of diplomacy” and the first notable shift came with the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920)
and subsequently the League of Nations (1920-1946), the British succeeded in
convincing the participants to conduct the proceedings in English (then less an indication of growing US influence than English being even than the most prevalent “second language” of delegates, many of whom came from politics and other fields rather than being professional diplomats).
At these venues, what was done came to be known as “whispered
interpretation” with an interpreter literally “whispering a translation into a
recipient’s ear.” That was less than
satisfactory and what smoothed the path to simultaneous interpretation was the
development in the 1920s of a technology ultimately purchased by IBM
(International Business Machines) and released commercially as the “IBM
Hushaphone Filene-Findlay System” (more commonly called the “International
Translator System”), first used at the ILO (International Labor Organization) conference
in Geneva in 1927. So what was done at
Nuremberg was not exactly new but it was there the system came to wider
attention and for IBM, providing (at no charge) the four tons of electronic
equipment including 300 headsets (an additional 300 were borrowed from Geneva)
and miles of cable proved a good investment, the publicity generated meaning
one of the corporation’s first sales of the system was to the UN (United
Nations) headquarters in New York. The
technology alone however was not enough and some potential interpreters who had
passed the early evaluation tests proved unsuitable because they found it
impossible to adapt to the demands imposed by the electronics; only some 5% of
the 700-odd evaluated proved viable interpreters with “the interpreters the IMT reject” sent to
what they called “Siberia” (administrative tasks or the dreary job of
translating documents). Those who made the cut spent their shifts in booths behind thick glass although the top was open so the soundproofing was only partial and the booth was located directly adjacent to the dock in which sat the defendants.
Although
there was the odd error, the interpreters were thought to have done an fine job
although not all were impressed, several entries in the diary of the British alternate
judge Norman Birkett (Later Lord Birkett, 1883–1962) revealing his opinion of
the breed: “When a perfectly futile cross-examination is
combined with a translation which murders the English language, then the misery
of the Bench is almost insupportable.” “Dubost
[French prosecutor Charles Dubost (1905–1991)] is at the microphone again,
making his final speech. He is robust and vigorous; but such is the irony of fate
that he is being translated by a stout, tenor-voiced man with the 'refayned'
and precious accents of a decaying pontiff. It recalls irresistibly a late
comer making an apology at the Vicarage Garden Party in the village, rather
than the grim and stern prosecution of the major war criminals.” “But translators are a race apart - touchy,
vain, unaccountable, full of vagaries, puffed up with self-importance of the
most explosive kind, inexpressibly egotistical, and, as a rule, violent
opponents of soap and sunlight.”
Mr Justice Birkitt always made his feelings clear.
The
Passionate Haystack at work: British Army Captain Duncan (later Sir Duncan) Macintosh
(1904-1966, left), Margot Bortlein (1912-2008,
centre) and US Army Lieutenant Peter Uiberall (1911-2007, right).
The
best-remembered for the translators was Margot Bortlin (1912-2008) and her
place in the annals of the trial is due wholly to the nickname bestowed on her
by journalists: “the
Passionate Haystack”, the appellation soon picked by the soldiers
and men on the legal teams. The
“haystack” element in the nickname came from her luxuriant fair hair which, in
court, she would assemble as an “updo” in a shape that (at least in the minds
of the men watching) recalled a haystack and such was the upper volume she was
compelled to wear the headband of her headphones around the back of her head
rather than atop as was the usual practice. These days, observers of such things playfully might describe her hair as “an installation”. The “passionate” part was a tribute to her style of translation, said by
Dr Francesca Gaiba (b 1971) in The
Origins of Simultaneous Interpreting: The Nuremberg Trial (1998) to have
been delivered “with great emphasis,
smiling and frowning, with sweeping gestures and dramatic vocal inflections.” It's not known if the Passionate Haystack had any theatrical training but her use of NVC must have been striking compared with the performances of her colleagues who tended to sit inertly and speak in an unrelenting monotone. Intriguingly, the journalist & author
Rebecca West (1892–1983), no stranger to men's rich lexicon of sexist disparagement, who covered the
trial made only an oblique reference to the drama in the delivery, reporting: “When it is
divulged that one of the most gifted interpreters, a handsome young woman from
Wisconsin, is known as the Passionate Haystack, care is taken to point out that
it implies no reflection on her temperament but only a tribute to a remarkable
hair-do.” Wisconsin produces almost a quarter of the nation's butter and cheese so is a state of many haystacks.
Those in court rise in their places as the judges enter the
chamber, Ms Bortlein (arrowed) looking down at her papers. Although not not a high definition photograph, the angle at which her hair appears does show why the “
updo piled high” contributed to her affectionate nickname.
In
a milieu of dark gowns, military uniforms and grim proceedings, Ms Bortelin clearly
made quite an impression, drawing the eye for a number of reasons. Commenting on
Justice Birkett’s acerbic view of the interpreter’s profession, in On Trial at Nuremberg (1979), the British
Army lawyer Major Airey Neave (1916–1979), who had served the indictment on the
defendants in their cells, wrote: “If this judgement seems harsh, it was the judges who had
to listen to them [interpreting the words of counsel, defendants and
witnesses] for
nine months while junior officials could come and go as they pleased. When I was not following the evidence, my interest
in the interpreters’ box dwelt on a young lady with blonde hair, piled high,
known as the 'Passionate Haystack'...” Margot
Theresa Bortlein-Brant was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany, her family emigrating
to the US in late 1924 when she was 12.
She earned a degree in languages from the University of Chicago, a
background meaning she possessed the most valuable skill a translator could
have: equal
adeptness with both
tongues. Her academic background
obviously contributed to that but leaving one’s native land at a young age to learn
the language of one’s adopted country doesn’t always produce such competence,
one tourist operator at an Australian holiday resort heard to remark of one of his staff: “She does German translation for us which is
good but she left Germany when she was ten so she speaks German like a ten year
old. Of course that’s not a problem
because she also speaks English like a ten year old.”
In the extensive photographic record of the
first Nuremberg Trial, what is striking is the often unnamed women
appearing at the periphery, the focus almost always on the defendants, prosecuting
& defense counsel and judges, all of whom were male. That was of course a cultural artefact of the
time but it was also structural, women literally forbidden from speaking in
court unless appearing as witnesses, a rule imposed by the Americans; because
it was the US taxpayer footing most of the bill for the proceedings and
providing the bulk of the security, logistical infrastructure and
administrative support, the will of Washington DC often prevailed. The Talibanesque “women must be silent” rule
was not maintained for the subsequent twelve Nuremberg hearings but even in the
first trial, the contribution of women was significant. Dame Laura Knight’s large canvas The Nuremberg Trial, 1946, an unusual blend
of two aspects realism now hangs in the Imperial War Museum in London and is
one of the most re-produced images from the trial. An unusual blend of two aspects of realism
achieved by a juxtaposition of defendants in the dock and a devastated Nuremberg
cityscape (including corpses), the artist did change a few details to suit her
didactic purposes, Hans Frank (1900–1946; Nazi lawyer and governor of the
General Government (1939-1945) in German-occupied Poland during World War II)
seated not in his usual place but at the painting’s bottom-right, presumably
better to show the wrists damaged by a failed suicide attempt. In court, Frank wore gloves to conceal the
effect but these Dame Laura choose to remove.
Curiously for such an accomplished artist, some of the likenesses
achieved of those in the dock are not impressive but it remains one of the trial’s
most memorable images, despite at the time being received by the critical
establishment without enthusiasm.
As well as
the interpreters, there were many women who contributed to the trial including
journalists, archivists, translators, stenographers, typists and a myriad of support staff. The Passionate
Haystack is untypical in being better remembered than most and, tellingly, that’s
because she attracted the gaze of so many men.
In the proceedings however, some of the most harrowing testimony came
from women who appeared as witnesses, their stories of enduring cruelty and
depravity observed to disturb at least some of the defendants as much as others
were affected. Those tales almost weren’t
heard because the initial US proposal had been for the trial to be conducted based
wholly on documents that alone would have been enough to convict all those charged. The American prosecutors took a teleological
view of the trial and arrived intending to focus on the idea that what had
unfolded in Europe between 1933-1945 was the result of a grand conspiracy; what
the Americans envisaged as the result of the trial was a mechanism with which clearly it would be established that
planning or waging aggressive war was a violation of international law and future
transgressions would be punished. For
that purpose, they had more than enough documents.
It
was the other parties to the trial who insisted on witnesses. The British team wanted them because, as
experienced trial lawyers, they knew the value of a compelling witness and, not
assured the conspiracy charge was as convincing as the Americans asserted,
wanted simply to ensure they won their cases.
The Soviets, the French and representative from other nations that had been
invaded or subject to Nazi occupation demanded those who had suffered be heard and, women
having suffered much, it was their testimony that proved effective in a way the
tabling of documents or reciting of statistics would never have
achieved. In The Nuremberg Women (2026), English historian Natalie Livingstone
has written a series of engaging case-studies of eight women who played some
part in the trial including a German writer, a Russian interpreter, an American
lawyer and a French Resistance fighter, all of which provide different ways of
looking at history’s most extensively documented trial. One interesting passage in the entry on Dame
Laura Knight explored what could be described as a certain moral ambiguity. What Ms Livingstone detected was the artist’s
undeniable fascination with the spectacle of Nazi power, a phenomenon with much
color and movement likely to draw the eye of one trained to look for such
things to depict; that would not have been unexpected but what the author found
“hard to
reconcile” was Ms Knight’s seemingly being more fascinated by the
spectacle than appalled by the barbarity.
She acknowledged that “In order for her to produce the painting that she did she
had to regard Nuremberg as almost a piece of theatre” but, after the
Holocaust, l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake) must have its limits. The Nuremberg Women is a fine and
original contribution to the history of the trial at which international
justice can be said to have begun.
