Rosenberg Trial Quotes

There had to be some meaning to it. Judgment, punishment, test, trial, strengthening—something that made sense out of it. Some scheme into which what was happening could all be fit—Rita, Urs, Tadeusz, Stefan, Erich, Freddy . . . A story from which she might at least learn something about herself and her life. At the end of it, when the war was over, if she survived, there would be a plot with a natural beginning, a long, painful, tension-filled middle, villains and heroes, and a satisfying end, or at least one that brought the story to a close—her survival. When it was all over, the story would stitch together everything that had happened—her perpetual discomfort and danger—even if it didn’t make sense of the horrors visited on the millions somehow suffering through the demented melodrama that would end with her survival. Yes, there would be a story at the end, if she did survive—a plot with dangers and escapes, in which her actions and everyone else’s would make sense. But

in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trials in 1946. After the executions of Nazi celebrities on 16 October, fourteen bodies, including those of Goering (who had ‘cheated’ by managing suicide), Ribbentrop, Keitel, Rosenberg, Frank, Streicher, Jodl and Seyss-Inquart, were delivered to a Munich crematorium. That same evening a container holding the amassed ashes was driven through the rain into the Bavarian countryside. After an hour’s drive the vehicle stopped and the ashes were poured into a muddy ditch.4 Five or six years before, these men could dominate and intimidate. That night a drizzle washed them away.

In 1951, 20-year-old [Jim]Jones [of Jonestown massacre fame] began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis. He became flustered with harassment during the McCarthy Hearings, particularly regarding an event that he attended with his mother focusing on Paul Robeson, after which she was harassed by the FBI in front of her co-workers for attending. He also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Jones said he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.

Greenglass was arrested in June 1950, six months after Fuchs, and received a thirty-year sentence. His case might only have been a footnote had it not blown the lid off the far greater treachery of the Rosenbergs and triggered the events that would lead to the most infamous espionage trial of the century. The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953.

Risk and its always present partner, anxiety, are constant companions for lawyers during any trial