The Inclusion of Finnmark’s Devastation and Forced Evacuation Charge in Hostage

Abstract

Lothar Rendulic’s acquittal by a US military tribunal in Nuremberg for the charges of devastation and forceful evacuation of Northern Norway sent shockwaves through the Norwegian public. How could Rendulic be acquitted when, 500 days earlier, the International Military Tribunal found Alfred Jodl, Rendulic’s superior, guilty of the same facts? This chapter shows that the US tribunal did not consider all available information. After the war, two parallel proceedings against Rendulic were initiated: one in Oslo and another by Telford Taylor in Nuremberg. To secure evidence on Rendulic’s activities in Finnmark, Taylor collaborated with the Norwegian government-in-exile in London through its envoy to the United Nations War Crimes Commission. This collaboration was not communicated to the public prosecutor in Oslo who later requested Rendulic’s extradition to Norway. Once misunderstandings were clarified, a Justice of the Norwegian Supreme Court sent several thousand pages of evidence to Taylor. Only a few were translated to English, however, resulting in an incomplete case for the prosecution. Crucially, Taylor’s team did not submit to the tribunal a May 1947 report in which Rendulic admitted to Norwegian interrogators that the destruction of Northern Norway did not appear necessary and could in part have been avoided.