310 / 536
296
PETR VÁLEK
CYIL 7 ȍ2016Ȏ
and additional administrative expenses. These costs were covered by the financial
contributions of the member States. From the current perspective, the Commission
was a “low-cost organization”, since the annual expenditures in the two final years,
i.e., at the peak of its activities, were approximately GBP 15,000.
35
According to the History of the Commission, this organization went through four
different phases of its existence. The first one, from October 1943 to January 1945,
was a preparatory phase, during which “important questions of principle and
procedure” were debated and the machinery of retribution was being prepared.
One of these issues was whether the competence of the Commission covered the
investigations of crimes committed by the Nazis against Jews and stateless persons in
Germany, i.e., of the crimes against humanity (see bellow). Another arose regarding
the crime of aggression, when Committee III in a preliminary report maintained that
the waging of aggressive war could not be regarded as a war crime. Czechoslovakia,
however, presented a report in the opposite sense and won this argument.
36
During the second phase, from February 1945 to June 1946, the retribution was
begun, tribunals were constituted by the Allied Powers and the war crimes trials were
opened. Within this period, the Chairman of the Commission visited,
inter alia
,
the newly-liberated concentration camp of Buchenwald on 26 April 1945 and other
Commissioners attended the trial of K. H. Frank in Prague
37
at the end of March 1946
and the trials in Dachau and Mauthausen in November 1945 and April 1946.
Furthermore, cooperation with the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security
Suspects (CROWCASS) and Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
(SHAEF) was established. The first problems with extradition from the occupation
zones arose.
38
In the third phase, from July 1946 to July 1947, the listing of accused persons
by the Commission and the trials of war criminals attained an increased tempo. At
the same time, following the critical voices in the British press and Parliament on the
war crimes trials, the United Kingdom representative suggested on 24 April 1947 to
terminate the work of Committee I by the end of May 1947 and of the Commission
by the end of that year. This proposal was opposed by Belgium, so this question was
deferred to October 1947. At that point, the Chairman suggested to end the work
on 31 March 1948, which was approved.
Therefore, the fourth phase, from July 1947 to March 1948, was the concluding
one, when the Commission was occupied in winding up its activities or transferring
them to other bodies and with the writing of its own history. During the four and
35
Ibid.
, p. 132-134.
36
Ibid.
, p. 138-140.
37
This trial is brilliantly described in: DRÁPAL, J.
Poslušen zákonů své země a svého stavu, Kamill Resler
– Obhájce K. H. Franka
[
Obedient of the Laws of One’s Own Country and Profession
, Kamill Resler –
Attorney of K. H. Frank
], Prague 2014.
38
See supra note 4, p. 141-143.