The Nuremberg trials
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- November
- 15
Even at the Nuremberg war crimes trials there were lighter moments.
After Richard Sonnenfeldt was named the chief interpreter, one of his jobs was to hire others to translate.
But there was a catch: The State Department in Washington, D.C., was in charge of finding potential interpreters. And according to Sonnenfeldt, it did a bad job.
Just how bad was captured in this memo, sent from an officer in his division:
“The present procedure is for civilians to be sent to Miss Galvin (Colonel Amen’s secretary), who sends them to Lt. Col. Hinkel (Colonel Amen’s deputy), who refers them to Col. Williams (division operations officer), who refers them to Sonnenfeldt (chief interpreter), who, because of their lack of qualifications, usually declares them surplus and returns them to Miss Galvin.”
I wrote about Sonnenfeldt and his new book, “Witness to Nuremberg.” You can also hear him interviewed earlier this month on “The Leonard Lopate Show” on “WNYC.”:http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2006/11/09
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on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 5:06 pm by Noreen O'Donnell.
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