Winston Churchill on what to do with captured mass murderers:
The documents also chart other Cabinet discussions from 1942-45 over how to deal with senior members of Hitler’s Nazi party if they were caught.
“Contemplate that if Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death,” Churchill said at a Cabinet meeting in December 1942, according to notes taken by Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook.
“This man is the mainspring of evil.”
In April 1945, Home Secretary Herbert Morrison said a “mock trial” for Nazi leaders would be objectionable: “Better to declare that we shall put them to death,” he said.
Churchill agreed that a trial for Hitler would be “a farce.”
Later, Churchill proposed that Britain negotiate what to do with Nazi leaders such as Gestapo head Heinrich Himmler – who had already sought secret peace talks with Britain – and then “bump him off later.”
Too bad he wasn’t in charge when they brought in Milosevic and Hussein.