The German Question, Part Ninety-One

"A Divisive Treaty" Part Three

"War Crimes"

The Treaty of Versailles sought to address "war crimes," with one section specifically aimed at none other than former Kaiser Wilhelm II, mainly for violation of "sanctity of treaties." The treaty bluntly says it does "publicly arraign" the former Kaiser, and that a special tribunal consisting of five judges would be formed to hear the case, and the tribunal would have the power to then provide for any punishment deemed necessary. The United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan would each provide one judge. The treaty also specifically stated that the Allies would ask the Netherlands to surrender Wilhelm to them for the trial.* The treaty clearly stated that Wilhelm was guaranteed his right to defense.

Further, the treaty said that Germany would have to turn over for trial any person of the former German government or German military accused of any "violation of the laws and customs of war." If such a person were accused by only one country, that person would be tried in and by that country. If accusations came from more than one country, then the person would be tried by military tribunals of the countries involved. Again, any accused would be guaranteed the right to defense. The (then) current German government was required to provide any documents or other information about such alleged acts to the Allies.

* Wilhelm had crossed into the Netherlands and had remained there since the end of the war.

WORD HISTORY: 

Swine-This word, related to "sow" (female swine, rhymes with 'how'), traces back to the Indo European base/root "su," which meant "swine." This gave the Old Germanic offshoot "swinan/swinon," which in turn gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "swin," which a few hundred years later tacked on the ending 'e' to show that the 'i' was long. Common throughout the other Germanic languages: German has "Schwein" (like its Old English cousin, it was originally spelled "swin" in Old High German); one form in Low German is "Swien;" Dutch has "zwijn;" Frisian has "swyn;" Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic all have "svin."