To this sort of celebrity in the audience. This is a book about [applause] tom hanks was my collaborators. As been a lot of time at the Kitchen Table learning about his father and mother and their upbringing in sin louis. For those two reasons this is a very meaningful and special night for me. Thank you both collectively and individually. Abcaeight. Weirded. So friday, june 14th, 1946 was day 155 of the trial of the major war criminals who are commonly now referred to simply as the nuremberg trial, though no one in court room 600 n. Nurembergs power of palace of justice knew it, the trial is about halfway over. On day 155 franz von papen, hitlers former chancellor was on the witness stand. As he testified, the third reich radio propaganda chief, a sublieutenant of jussive kerrvilles wrote a letter which the former leader of the Hitler Youth Movement then translated into english. It was addressed to 3204 holiday avenue. Holding nazi leaders accountable for world war ii was an experiment. At the time there was no legal precedent for bringing criminal charges against the perpetrators of the war of aggression. As early as 1944 allied leaders thrashing of the best way to punish people is criminal activities or so are ran this that it did not technically exist. Nuremberg was an improvisation. Never before had the International Community held the states major leaders accused and convicted them of conspiring to commit crimes against demanding. The trial of the major war criminals was, and the words of one of the american prosecutors, a benchmark in International Law and the lodestar of debate on the great moral and legal question of war and peace. Existing within the larger nuremberg improvisation was another that has never been told and fall. It is a historical for what was called the trial of the century. It was an experiment and have good confronts radical evil. At its center was a farm kid from missouri. Those organizing the trials new to that if there were going to try some of the worlds most notorious criminals for war crimes they also had to follow the geneva convention. Article 16 of the conventions regulation regards the treatment of prisoners of war and states, prisonersofwar permitted complete freedom in the performance of their religious duties including attendance at the services of the faith. Ministers of religion or prisoners of war, whatever may be their denomination, shall be allowed freely to minister to their coreligionists. But norbert was not the average pow camp. The world was watching, and it was deputies answer for the holocaust. The allies did not trust my chaplain to do the job, so they brought in two of their own instead. Chaplain henry guericke of san louis and chaplain oconnor pskov of oxford, in new york. So for the first time in history u. S. Army chaplains would ministered to the enemy. And the enemy included some of the 20th centurys most man hermann goring, hitlers number two, commander of germanys air force and the force behind the third reich final solution. Albert speer, hitlers architect and theyre rights on the minister who took advantage of concentration camp labor in places like matt allison to mind granite used in germanys grand building plans. General will entitle, field marshal and second only to hitler in germanys military hierarchy even, the reichs labor minister in charge of what one historian has called the greatest slave roundup in history which included by the end of 1942 for a half million foreign workers. And hans frank, hitlers personal lawyer and eventually the governor general poland where he earned nicknames such as layer of the polls and the butcher of krakow. On that friday in june 1946 pop and testified in court room 600. There wrote a letter. When finished all 21 of them not to prisoners, including the keflex and those who had refused any Spiritual Council signed it. It read in part, your husband, pastor guericke has been taking religious care of the undersigned defendants during the nuremberg trial and has been doing so for more than half a year. We now have heard, that you wish to see him back, after his absence of several years. Because we also have wives and children, we understand this wish of yours very well. Our dear chaplain is necessary for us not only has the minister but also has a fairly good man that he is. Surely we need not describe him as such is on life. We simply have come to love him. In the fall of 2007i was writing a story for the newspaper right down the streets, the st. Louis postdispatch right cover the religious be. The store was about operation,a program that the Lutheran Church had recently begun to help chaplains who were returning from iraq in afghanistan more smoothly ran to their congregations banco, but they needed some help. It went to in korea seminary, the schools Historical Institute happens to have an exhibition on the history of the American Military chaplain at the time. Under one of those pieces of glass was a letter. I read that allowed. Just above the signatures of the perpetrators of genocide and thought, that could be a story. I found his eldest sun and sat at his Kitchen Table. The told his story of his father and mother. Six years later year we are. Hank and his younger brother were already in uniform in 1943 when theyre father raised his hand and said he would like to be your job when. The first part of his career was passed during a church in south san louis. Then during the depression he had been a measure with the same lutheran city mission traveling the broken city and ministering to those on the streets and hospitals and in city jail. Now he wanted to do his part for the war effort. He was 50 years old. The army has signed into the 98 General Hospital which in 1944 landed 60 miles west in the south of england. Dead and 98 set up to 1,000 plus bed transit hospital where doctors and nurses would literally just up the bleeding has wounded gis were drawn in from the front lines in europe before putting them on a train to larger muscles and london. When the war was over the 98 to germany to take over a bond out unit. In the fall of 1945 the commandant of the nuremberg prison heard about a lutheran chaplain in munich who could speak german and you had ministered to man in the st. Louis city jail system. He was given the assignment, also given the chance to turn it down. He prayed hard about the decision and ask himself, how could a preacher from st. Louis make any impression on the disciples of adolf hitler . During his months in unique he had taken several trips and seen the raw aftermath of the holocaust. He returned to his Commanding Officer it was not the only chaplain. The assistant chaplain was a franciscan friar from upstate new york. Fathers successor, had been a chaplain with the 11th on a division now has a thunderbolts during the war. They fought in the battle of the ballwill enter 1944 and 45. Oconnor and a bronze star and suffered from what the army then called battle fatigue. In may 1945 the 11th helped liberate the concentration camp outside have a sound town of when austria where nearly 100,000 people were tortured and murdered in 1939 and 1945. This was a photo of what were called the stairs of death. They led down the Granite Court on by and as as company. Albert speer contacted to supply granted for is great vision of nancy buildings and monuments, many in our bird. The 1,806th steps were badly cat and slippery. When prisoners reach the bottom of the steps they strapped massive granite slabs on their backs and were then sent up the stairway of death. When a man reached the top senior nfl after liberation an ss guard may have directed him to throws lapin the top of the sheer coral 12 stories high back down to the bottom of the pit and then demand to run down and bring the symbol of backup to the top. Throwing prisoners will stories to the death blow was also a cheap, effective murder method for the guard. The ss called the victims of such murder parachutes. Mad as and have 66,005 and the prisoners on may 4th 1945, the day before it was liberated by the 11th armored division. More than 450 die each day during the following week. Father oconnor buried 2,911 people between may to may may 301st. This is a photo. Controlled the gestapo, as b, security police, Security Service and the security police. He had authority first. And as Adolf Eichmanns superior he was responsible for the administrative apparatus spine the entire concentration an extermination camp system. Three months after helping to liberate men house and father oconnor was in nuremberg ministering. This is a promotional shot taken by the army in 1946. 169 square foot chapel in the nuremberg present made by knocking down the wall. The chaplains outfitted with chairs, an altar, some candles, and a small organ. It was in this chapel that kerki and oconnor believe they have been successful to bring as many of the imprisoned not his back to christianity as they could before escorting them to the gallows. It was in this chapel that they celebrate Christmas EveWorship Services with men had murdered millions. Both would return home immediately after the executions and continued a masters in the waste. Oconnor would turn to a teaching philosophy in upstate new york and guericke continue to try and reach people. Murderous and rapists, incarcerated in a maximumsecurity prison in chester, illinois. Few people believe themselves to be capable of extraordinary human evil perpetrated by the nazis trying to figure out how the heart to of holocaust occurred. Philosopher arnie boston has written that it helps as we take ourselves against the doers, not to perpetrators. The doers, we like to think, are not like us. Indeed, they are being none like us, the very quality which explains that they can do what they did, having committed atrocities so outrageous and nature as to explode our faculties of comprehension. They cannot those of the unthinkable must surely be your have been abnormal. To think this way is to turn away from what the holocaust means, to refuse to fully ethnologist scope and what it says about the human condition. It is rose olson del papa took the very conditions. It is attempting to understand human evil create a path toward justifying or excusing the behavior that creates you will . If the perpetrators of genocide can be seen as falling human beings do they deserve empathy or even forgiveness from those of us to choose to lead good lives . The ledges of argued that the existence of more illegal is the corollary of free well. The theology that all there is only one allpowerful god of stows humans with through well must got in some way be responsible for mass annihilation . The medieval christian philosopher and theologian said that either got cannot abolish evil or you will not. He cannot he is not allpowerful if you will not he is not of good. Theyve got to create civil picasso louses creation of free will, it god or man responsible for holocaust . If god is master of both absolute good an absolute evil he must also claim those of us who choose darkness. And what about forgiveness . It the logical point on which christians and jews differ. Christian tradition as consistently said that forgiveness recede precedes forgiveness. Christians believe that has already accepted and forgiveness. Broadly forgiveness and judy is and has two working parents. Extreme opposite ends of the getty the spectrum. Assistant from the evil act and in doing good. Jews who survived the holocaust and later generations of jews have no moral standing. What right does anyone other than those who died in holocaust have to forgive anyone . Only the murder, and that cant happen. So the christian concept of forgiveness must be strained by the idea of genocide. Good christians really believe that there go was crucified to give those . The parachute jump. Because the majority of the augusta victims or jewish it would seem right that the allies should honor their jewish sensibilities about forgiveness. But christians would argue that they have to act in ways that honor their deepest understanding of humanity and its relationship with god. The chaplains believe there duties toward the nazis revolving around how to return them to get. Would not have seen the monsters as children of darkness. The nature of their faith in god , they saw these men as part of a single human community. Once they recognize the man has just man best during them this by doris became a matter of attempting a transformation. The transformations, return mass murderers from darkness to the good of their own light. Serve the last meal and then walked. The executions would begin just after midnight. Order the chaplain not to tell the men are anyone else of the execution plan. They should not know until they were woken up that night that they should proceed normally. In the afternoon as the chaplains visited as whether there would like to accept their cents and receive communion. Theyre eyes through large as they realized why you is asking. What did he know, they demand it . Would it happen at dawn tomorrow . Of carr told them he had not carry any thing. Hes set with each of the six condemned men and delivered a copy of a devotion he had written. He asked them each to join him in a prayer he had written. Only rosenberg refused. No, please to not, he said. Demanded to know what was going on with the execution time table he was also refusing to leave his cell, and he was adamantly against exercising and showering he took all of the family photos that were decorated is lindsay table and put them in a novel of in the early afternoon and requested a visit. What time by the execution scheduled for . He did not answer. Marshall is a likable man command he wished he could have been honest with them. Even the chaplain who had not known and called him a goodnatured charm or with a good sense of humor. Had been surprised that guard knew quite a bit about the bible of all the doomed man he impressed as the most. You felt that with his brain he could have accomplished a lot. He had been fascinated and often discussed in the game during his routine visits. He wanted to know about the dodgers and now baseball worked as a business. Is there money in it . Of carr told him that the dodgers general manager made 90,000 a year. Maybe i should have gone into that business. It was mid october. An ocean away the san those cardinals were battling the boston red sox. He was from upstate new york oconnor had taken boston and at 10 bet. In between visiting printers and aerosols the chaplains heard to the cars boot on the present floor. With the palace of justice lock down for the execution the only way there were receiving updates was there a phone call from an american officer outside the prison wall. Around 7 30 p. M. He returned to the cell and a final attempt to get into except first. He had been a regular at the prison chaplain but had resisted the efforts to bring in more seriously into the folds of the church. He had written a special devotional for him. He told the chaplain to leave it on a stable and he would read it later. What he really wanted to discuss was the execution. He tried again to steer the conversation toward hell on and prepared gasol for death. He asked to join in prayer. No. He would want to preface. He thought he seemed more depressed than earlier which was not surprising. The ast town the other men were doing, in particular concerned about several who he could hear crying and moaning with your. Asking if he might appeal to help them get through this. Then he started in again on the method of execution. Hanging. The most dishonorable way to die given his former position with the german people. There was no response. He had heard the same complaint dozens of time. Silence fell between the. Some want desperately now before be prepared to die, meat is got. Surrender your heart and soul completely. But he was in no mood to listen. For the last time he told the chaplain that he was a member of the christian church, he could not accept the teachings of the christian faith. He began to make fun of the creation story and the Old Testament are ridiculed the idea that the bible was written by scribes, divinely inspired by god. He refused the fundamental Christian Doctrine of the town, that jesus, through his suffering and resurrection dive for the forgiveness of man sense and to reconcile out with his creation. He pled, this was what jesus said. This is not what he was saying. This was got speaking. What you accept this . Just say jesus saves me. No, he barked. I cannot do that. This jesus you always speak of, to me he is just another is what you. This jesus as my savior who suffered, blood, and i that i might go to heaven someday, a page from my sense. Hi, you dont believe that yourself. When one is dead that is end of everything. And a softer tone he continued, pastor, i believe in god. I believe he watches over the affairs of men, but on the big ones. He is too great to bother about little matters. He fell silent for a moment and then looked. Pastor, he finally said to mounty celebrate the lord suffering . Astonished. You plan in the church. You must be familiar with the sacrament. The lords supper, the christian sacrament of Holy Communion was particularly meaningful. As a lutheran chaplain believe that when christ offered bread to the apostles telling them it was his body it actually became his body. Bread and wine were consecrated in the Lutheran Church, those in the pews have been taught to believe that the body of christ was truly presents. In Holy Communion some christians believe god is mitigating their suffering through the sacrifice of price on. Theyre sense disappear each time theyre receive communion and they grow a little closer to god. These convictions stem from christianity central belief in a town in to. Reminded him of the churchs doctrine emphasizing that only the true repents should protect. He had administered communion because they have requested it and had suffered through a great deal of self examination. This is the way it is. Only those who believe that jesus is really their savior, i believe in him should be permitted to attend the lords supper. The others are unfit. I have never been refused the lords supper by high german pastor ever. Afraid of this moment, it committed member of his congregation was asking for the most central sacrament of the church. Yet he had just despaired and new he was not browbeaten, a believer in god but not christ. As a rationalist you wanted to go through the motions believing of the masters of the church of retaining some i