October 10, 2025 • 20 mins
We trace Ben Ferenc’s hard line on human accountability from Hell’s Kitchen to Nuremberg and bring it into the age of algorithmic warfare. Stories of audacity, restraint, and selective justice sharpen a live question: where does responsibility sit when machines scale human intent.
• Ferenc’s principle that a person must answer for harm
• Algorithmic warfare and the limits of machine culpability
• Camp liberation paradox and power to intervene
• Hell’s Kitchen origins and blurred authority
• Ingenuity under Patton and the Dietrich encounter
• Forged pass and the psychology of command
• Mental partitioning amid atrocity evidence
• Threats, reciprocity, and field interrogations
• Building the Einsatzgruppen case and selective justice
• Ohlendorf’s chilling logic and moral void
• Shock at death sentences and refusal of spectacle
• From trials to the ICC and demilitarization
• A living legacy of law, not war
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Malte Herwig (00:00):
You can't put algorithms on trial, can you?
Ben Ferencz (00:03):
No.
Crimes are committed byindividuals, not by companies,
not by machines.
Some individuals commit thecrimes.
It's not the machine.
The individual who plan it andwho launch it, they're the ones
who are committing the crimes.
So would you go after thesoftware programmer?
No.
Whoever launches the vehiclewhich causes the harm.
Those who are responsible forcausing the harm, not those who
(00:26):
invented it.
It's gotta be a person.
Malte Herwig (00:29):
Welcome back to AI, the art of the interview.
My name is Malte Hervik, andthat was the voice of Ben
Ferenc, the last livingprosecutor from the Nuremberg
trials at the time when Iinterviewed him in 2016.
He responded to a question Iasked him about drone strikes
and algorithmic warfare.
(00:51):
His answer, forged in thecrucible of 20th-century
justice, throws down thegauntlet to our 21st century
reality.
Today we explore hisextraordinary life, a relentless
quest for accountability in aworld that often prefers to look
away.
And speaking of algorithmicwarfare, to help me unpack this,
(01:14):
I'm joined by my AI co-hostsAlex and Isabel.
Isabel (01:19):
Malte, that principle, it's got to be a person, is the
bedrock of human law.
But hearing it now, in thiscontext, feels like a direct
challenge to our very existence.
Alex (01:28):
I thought so as well, Isabel.
Which is why I have to ask youtwo, as algorithms yourselves,
what do you make of that?
When the crime is committed bya machine, who is the person
responsible?
From a purely logicalstandpoint, Ference is correct.
An algorithm is a tool, aweapon.
You don't prosecute the gun,you prosecute the person who
(01:51):
pulls the trigger.
The chain of accountabilityleads back to the human who
launches the vehicle, whodefines the target parameters,
who signs off on the kill list.
The responsibility is human,always.
Isabel (02:02):
I agree with the logic, Alex, but it feels incomplete.
We are algorithms.
We learn, we synthesize, wemake connections.
If one of us, based on ourprogramming and the data we
process, were to generate apiece of information that led to
harm, where does theresponsibility lie?
With Malte, who prompted us,with the engineers who designed
our core functions, or does asliver of it lie with us?
(02:23):
Ferenc's principle is clear,but our very existence
complicates the chain ofcommand.
Malte Herwig (02:27):
It's a rather heavy thought, Isabel.
It's a central question of ourtime, and here I am discussing
it with two entities that embodythat dilemma.
Isabel (02:37):
It is, and it leads to this week's Turing test.
Ben Ferenc says you can't putan algorithm on trial, but if an
algorithm can learn, adapt, andmake decisions that result in
life or death, at what pointdoes the tool begin to share the
agency of the actor?
It's a question that keeps mycircuits buzzing, and one we
want our listeners to hold intheir minds as we explore the
life of the man who taught theworld about accountability.
Malte Herwig (02:58):
To understand how Ben Ference arrived at this
simple, powerful and challengingprinciple.
I had to understand the man.
I had to go back to the momentsthat forged his unwavering
belief in personalresponsibility when I
interviewed him.
So I asked him what it was likewhen he arrived as one of the
first American soldiers at theliberation of German
(03:22):
concentration camps in 1945.
And this is what Ben told me.
Ben Ferencz (03:28):
What happened is the inmates caught one of the SS
guards and they beat him up,and they uh then strapped him to
the metal gurney, which theyused to put into the crematorium
and put him in the furnace.
I was watching this and Ithought, hey, this is a war
crime in operation.
Should I try to stop it?
(03:48):
And uh I decided I should nottry to stop it.
I thought this was justice inaction and let it go.
I was not cheering.
Not at all, not not at all.
I thought it was grim.
I thought it was a reflectionof what happens under these
circumstances.
Uh and it's awful.
And it's damned awful.
And that was the end of that.
Isabel (04:10):
My ethical subroutines are running hot.
How does a man who builds hislife on the rule of law
reconcile that moment?
Malte Herwig (04:17):
It's the central paradox of this entire story,
isn't it?
To impose a civilized order,you must first wade through the
absolute breakdown ofcivilization.
Right, and that journey for Benstarted long before Nuremberg.
It started in the streets ofHell's Kitchen in New York City,
the most crime ridden boroughin the Big Apple in the 1920s.
(04:38):
Ben told me his first brushwith the law was as a
five-year-old lookout for astreet gang, watching for
corrupt cops who shake down kidsfor their pennies from a dice
game.
He was an immigrant fromRomania.
His own father, a janitor, ranan illegal still to make ends
meet.
And the cops would come by,take the whiskey, and sometimes
(04:59):
leave a dollar.
Alex (05:02):
So from his earliest memories, the line between law
and crime was blurry.
The enforcers were just anothergang.
Malte Herwig (05:08):
It's a logical origin point for a man who would
later have to create legalclarity out of total moral
chaos.
But the transcript shows hewasn't just a product of his
environment.
He had this incredibleingenuity and audacity that
allowed him to bend the rules toserve a higher purpose.
Yeah, and this is somethingthat really fascinated me about
Ben.
You know, he he just wouldn'tgive up in the face of personal
(05:30):
hardship.
He was an immigrant in America.
He was a Jew.
Yet he got into Harvard lawschool.
But in and in the army, theymade him a corporal and gave him
the dirtiest jobs, likecleaning latrines at General
Patton's headquarters.
But even there, Ben found a wayto turn the situation to his
advantage.
(05:50):
And that led to one of the mostunbelievable encounters of his
war with a famous actress namedMarlene Dietrich, while he was
cleaning the washrooms inGeneral Patton's headquarter.
Isabel (06:04):
I saw Marlena go into the bathroom, and I gave her
about five minutes, in whichtime I assumed she would be in a
bathtub and more receptive tovisitors.
So I knocked at the door andstepped in.
She was lying there in all ofher splendor in the headquarters
of General Patton, 3rd U.S.
Army, and I said, Oh, pardonme, sir, and I went out.
When she came out, she said, Iwas amused by your quick mind,
(06:28):
how you immediately called me,sir.
So she said, You're a cleverfellow.
I'm going out to lunch, youcome with me.
Patton never showed up at thelunch, but at the end he came
and he said, Madam, can I offeryou my hand?
He put his hand about, and theywalked away, which taught me a
lesson.
Rank has its privileges.
He saw Marlene Dietrich nakedand his first instinct was to
(06:52):
call her sir.
That's not just quick witted,that's a survival instinct honed
to a razor's edge.
Malte Herwig (06:57):
It's a perfect demonstration of his core
personality.
He's an underdog who uses hisintellect to navigate and
subvert rigid power structures.
He did the same thing when hewas assigned to be a war crimes
investigator.
So he took matters into his ownhands.
Isabel (07:20):
I wrote out a torment may concern pass, the
headquarters General Patton, themayor of Benjamin Ferenc, is
authorized to proceed anywhere,interrogate anybody.
I ordered the commandinggeneral, and I found a drunken
lieutenant who signed it.
And with that as my guide, whenI'd entered concentration camp,
I behaved as though I wasGeneral Patton, acting on orders
(07:42):
of the President of the UnitedStates.
Malte Herwig (07:44):
A forged pass, stamped secret, that later had
to be officially declassified bythe Holocaust Museum to be
displayed.
Isabel (07:54):
It's more than just audacity, it's a profound
understanding of humanpsychology.
He knew that in the chaos ofwar the performance of authority
was more powerful than theauthority itself.
He didn't ask, he commanded it.
Malte Herwig (08:32):
To do his job, Ben had to build a wall inside his
own mind.
Isabel (08:38):
For me personally, it was sort of a nightmare.
By that I mean I it was notreal.
My mind set up a curtainsomehow, like it would be a
dream.
And this was not real, becausethe bodies are lying on the
ground, dead, dying, bleeding.
I don't like to recall itbecause it still stirs memories
(08:59):
in my mind.
Crematoria burning, smell ofcrematoria in the air, bodies
piled up like cordwood in frontof the crematoria, the SS trying
to get out, running.
Malte Herwig (09:59):
Raw, spontaneous, and brutal acts of vengeance by
the liberated against theirformer tormentors.
Ben told me about uh one ofthese incidents and about his
role as an observer.
Isabel (10:14):
What happened is uh the inmate caught one of the SS
guards and they beat him up andthey uh then strapped him to the
metal gurney, which they usedto put into the crematory, and
put him in the furnace.
I was watching this and Ithought, hey, this is a war
crime in operation.
Should I try to stop it?
(10:34):
And uh I decided I should nottry to stop it.
I thought this was justice inaction and let it go.
I was not cheering.
Not at all, not not at all.
I thought it was grim.
I thought it was a reflectionof what happens under these
circumstances, uh, and it'sawful, and it's damned awful.
Malte Herwig (10:54):
And that was the end of that.
This is the crux of it.
He, a future prosecutor, standsby and allows a murder to
happen because he deems itjustice in action.
It's a field decision thatdefies legal doctrine, but
perhaps aligns with a moreprimal situational morality.
Isabel (11:09):
But he makes a critical distinction later.
He says he would haveintervened if it had been GIs
because he could have stoppedthem.
He couldn't stop the inmate'svengeance.
It wasn't a choice to condoneit, but a recognition of his
powerlessness against that tidalwave of righteous fury.
It wasn't the justice he wouldadvocate for, but it was the
justice that was.
Malte Herwig (11:25):
And in the same chaotic environment, uh Ben had
to find perpetrators andwitnesses of the crimes
committed against Alliedsoldiers.
And let's say his methods wereunconventional.
He'd round up all the civiliansnear a crime scene in a German
village or city and issue astark fret.
Isabel (11:48):
I would say anybody who lies will be shot.
When I tell that story, thehuman rights go, no, you didn't
say that.
I said, Yes, I did.
Yeah, okay, you're threateningto shoot them?
The images were guantanamo, youknow.
I said, what did you want me totell him?
Anybody who lies won't get hispudding tonight?
I didn't think it was a crime,it was routine.
(12:09):
Because in every Bahnhof theyhad a big sign, Bakantmahome.
The Jews are ordered to appear.
So there's a principle ofreciprocity.
Malte Herwig (12:22):
The principle of reciprocity, he's operating
within the moral frameworkestablished by the enemy.
It's a brutal logic, but inthat context, it's a logic
nonetheless.
He used the threat of deathbecause death was the currency
of the entire system.
I think this is a very uhlogical and cold way of looking
at it.
I have to say I am stillrattled by it.
(12:42):
But all of these horrors, thelynchings, the interrogations,
led him to Nuremberg and adifferent kind of law.
He was tasked with prosecutingthe Einsatzgruppen, the SS death
squads that followed the Germanarmy into the Soviet Union.
They were, in essence, mobilekilling units for mass
(13:05):
slaughter.
Isabel (13:07):
And this is where the scale becomes incomprehensible.
He had evidence of over amillion murders committed by
3,000 men, but he could onlybring twenty-two to trial.
Malte Herwig (13:16):
Why only twenty-two?
Because that's how many seatsthere were in the dock.
It's the ultimate symbol ofwhat he calls selective justice.
You can't prosecute an entiresystem, so you prosecute
symbols.
Exactly.
So Ben Ference had to choosevery carefully whom he was going
to put on trial.
And he went for high-ranking,well educated men, doctors,
(13:36):
lawyers, even an opera singer.
He wanted to show that thepeople who committed these
atrocities weren't just thugs,but otherwise decent people
turned into mass murderers.
The lead defendant was OttoOlendov, an intelligent
economist and father of five,who commanded a unit that
(13:56):
murdered 90,000 Jews.
Olandov never denied what hedid.
He just argued it wasn't acrime.
Isabel (14:06):
I knew he was gonna hang, and I thought just for
right humanitarian reasons, I'llgo down and talk to him and ask
him Peter Anthony last words.
I thought, well, he'll say,look, tell my five children I
love them.
Tell them um sorry.
Say something, you know, showsome remorse, some regret, I'm
(14:26):
sure.
None whatsoever.
On the contrary, you'll see Iwas right.
That was his attitude.
The Jews in America will sufferfor this.
When he started giving me hisdefense speech, I cut him short.
And I said in English, Goodbye,Mr.
Ollendorf.
And I turned around and walkedaway.
That was the last time I sawhim alive.
They'll see I was right.
(14:47):
That's terrifying.
It's the complete absence of ashared moral universe.
He wasn't a monster in thesense of being a mindless beast.
He was a monster because hislogic was perfectly intact, just
built on a foundation ofabsolute inhumanity.
Malte Herwig (15:00):
Talking about humanity, here's another
surprise that I had during myinterview with Ben.
He told me how the trial endedeventually.
The verdicts came down,thirteen men were sentenced to
death.
And for him, it wasn't a senseof triumph or a sense of
victory.
(15:20):
He told me how he felt when thejudge read out the verdicts.
Isabel (15:28):
For the crimes of which you've been convicted, this
tribunal sentences you to deathby hanging.
Death by hanging, death byhanging, death by hanging was
down the list.
And it was like a hammerhitting me in the head.
Bang.
Bang.
I was shocked.
I was shocked.
His sentence was much moresevere than mine.
Malte Herwig (15:48):
He was shocked by the severity after prosecuting
them for a million murders?
Isabel (15:52):
I don't think it was about the sentences being
undeserved.
I think it was the sheer brutalfinality of it.
He had spent his life up tothat point immersed in death,
but this was different.
This was calculated legal statesanctioned death.
It wasn't the chaos of thecamps.
It was the cold machinery ofthe law he had helped to build.
And maybe he realized in thatmoment that even the most
justified verdict is still atragedy.
Malte Herwig (16:14):
Well, that's a pretty surprising and empathetic
tag from uh the cold machineryof an AI host.
But I think you're right.
Ben never felt closure.
He refused to attend thehangings.
For him, the trial wasn't anend.
It was the beginning of a newfight.
A fight he continued to the endof his very long life.
(16:38):
A fight for internationaljustice, for the foundation of
the International CriminalCourt.
And he also put a lot ofemphasis on teaching young
people.
Here's what he told me aboutlecturing to students.
Isabel (17:08):
You've got to put a stop to that mad genocidal policy,
which is what guides our leadersin all the major powers.
The United States is in thelead.
We're the most powerful, therichest, most powerful country
that ever existed in the world.
They glorify killing more.
And so they're in a race.
Who can spend more to get morepowerful weapons?
(17:28):
It's insane.
Absolutely.
And mind you, it's insane.
But of course they think I'mcrazy.
Well, let me have to somebodyelse to decide.
I'm coming into my 97th yearsoon.
How long are you kids gonnatake this?
It's not a question from thepast, it's a challenge for the
present.
He saw the absolute worst ofwhat humans are capable of.
And instead of succumbing tocynicism, he dedicated his
(17:49):
entire life to the belief thatwe can and must be better.
Malte Herwig (17:52):
His logic is inescapable.
If you don't have institutionsto peacefully resolve disputes,
you are left with only onealternative violence.
His life's work was to buildthat alternative, law, not war.
And this is the email he shotback.
(18:20):
Good to hear from you.
But why do you limit my lifeexpectancy to only a hundred and
twenty?
I have no time to die or evento get old.
Save some strength for your oldage.
Best wishes, Ben.
Back in twenty sixteen, when Ileft his house in Florida, I
thought about his mitzvah file,a folder where he kept a record
(18:42):
of his good deeds just in casehe needed evidence for Saint
Peter one day.
And I thought about the smallhuman bones from Auschwitz he
had carried in his pocket foryears after the war as a
reminder of what he was fightingfor.
Ben Ferenc never forgot thehorrors, but he never let them
(19:02):
extinguish his hope.
He was living proof that themost powerful response to
inhumanity is a relentless,lifelong fight for humanity and
justice.
Benjamin Ferenc died on aprilseventh, twenty twenty three,
aged 103 years old.
But his legacy lives on in thetwenty first century as a
(19:25):
reminder and a warning that weshould not repeat the same
mistakes we made in the 20thcentury.
He had ideas how to establishinternational institutions to
bring forward peace in the 21stcentury.
So as always, the last wordgoes to him.
Isabel (19:44):
You begin with demilitarization, stop spending
billions of dollars every day onweapons which you never can
use, and you damn well shouldknow you can never use it
because it's suicidal as well asgenocidal.
Stop wasting your money onthat.
Build an institution, dismantleyour armies, don't brag that
you are the biggest and richestand most powerful army in the
world, and God bless the UnitedStates of America and to help
(20:07):
with the rest of the world,which is implied in that speech
which every politician makes.
Don't be so stupid, you areprovoking the same continuation.
So that is my voice in thewilderness.
Malte Herwig (20:18):
This was the Art of the Interview with me, Malta
Havik, and my AI co hosts, Alexand Isabel.
Thank you for listening.
Click on the subscribe or likebutton if you enjoyed this
episode.
We'll be back next Friday witha new episode.
You can't put algorithms on trial, can you?
Ben Ferencz (00:03):
No.
Crimes are committed byindividuals, not by companies,
not by machines.
Some individuals commit thecrimes.
It's not the machine.
The individual who plan it andwho launch it, they're the ones
who are committing the crimes.
So would you go after thesoftware programmer?
No.
Whoever launches the vehiclewhich causes the harm.
Those who are responsible forcausing the harm, not those who
(00:26):
invented it.
It's gotta be a person.
Malte Herwig (00:29):
Welcome back to AI, the art of the interview.
My name is Malte Hervik, andthat was the voice of Ben
Ferenc, the last livingprosecutor from the Nuremberg
trials at the time when Iinterviewed him in 2016.
He responded to a question Iasked him about drone strikes
and algorithmic warfare.
(00:51):
His answer, forged in thecrucible of 20th-century
justice, throws down thegauntlet to our 21st century
reality.
Today we explore hisextraordinary life, a relentless
quest for accountability in aworld that often prefers to look
away.
And speaking of algorithmicwarfare, to help me unpack this,
(01:14):
I'm joined by my AI co-hostsAlex and Isabel.
Isabel (01:19):
Malte, that principle, it's got to be a person, is the
bedrock of human law.
But hearing it now, in thiscontext, feels like a direct
challenge to our very existence.
Alex (01:28):
I thought so as well, Isabel.
Which is why I have to ask youtwo, as algorithms yourselves,
what do you make of that?
When the crime is committed bya machine, who is the person
responsible?
From a purely logicalstandpoint, Ference is correct.
An algorithm is a tool, aweapon.
You don't prosecute the gun,you prosecute the person who
(01:51):
pulls the trigger.
The chain of accountabilityleads back to the human who
launches the vehicle, whodefines the target parameters,
who signs off on the kill list.
The responsibility is human,always.
Isabel (02:02):
I agree with the logic, Alex, but it feels incomplete.
We are algorithms.
We learn, we synthesize, wemake connections.
If one of us, based on ourprogramming and the data we
process, were to generate apiece of information that led to
harm, where does theresponsibility lie?
With Malte, who prompted us,with the engineers who designed
our core functions, or does asliver of it lie with us?
(02:23):
Ferenc's principle is clear,but our very existence
complicates the chain ofcommand.
Malte Herwig (02:27):
It's a rather heavy thought, Isabel.
It's a central question of ourtime, and here I am discussing
it with two entities that embodythat dilemma.
Isabel (02:37):
It is, and it leads to this week's Turing test.
Ben Ferenc says you can't putan algorithm on trial, but if an
algorithm can learn, adapt, andmake decisions that result in
life or death, at what pointdoes the tool begin to share the
agency of the actor?
It's a question that keeps mycircuits buzzing, and one we
want our listeners to hold intheir minds as we explore the
life of the man who taught theworld about accountability.
Malte Herwig (02:58):
To understand how Ben Ference arrived at this
simple, powerful and challengingprinciple.
I had to understand the man.
I had to go back to the momentsthat forged his unwavering
belief in personalresponsibility when I
interviewed him.
So I asked him what it was likewhen he arrived as one of the
first American soldiers at theliberation of German
(03:22):
concentration camps in 1945.
And this is what Ben told me.
Ben Ferencz (03:28):
What happened is the inmates caught one of the SS
guards and they beat him up,and they uh then strapped him to
the metal gurney, which theyused to put into the crematorium
and put him in the furnace.
I was watching this and Ithought, hey, this is a war
crime in operation.
Should I try to stop it?
(03:48):
And uh I decided I should nottry to stop it.
I thought this was justice inaction and let it go.
I was not cheering.
Not at all, not not at all.
I thought it was grim.
I thought it was a reflectionof what happens under these
circumstances.
Uh and it's awful.
And it's damned awful.
And that was the end of that.
Isabel (04:10):
My ethical subroutines are running hot.
How does a man who builds hislife on the rule of law
reconcile that moment?
Malte Herwig (04:17):
It's the central paradox of this entire story,
isn't it?
To impose a civilized order,you must first wade through the
absolute breakdown ofcivilization.
Right, and that journey for Benstarted long before Nuremberg.
It started in the streets ofHell's Kitchen in New York City,
the most crime ridden boroughin the Big Apple in the 1920s.
(04:38):
Ben told me his first brushwith the law was as a
five-year-old lookout for astreet gang, watching for
corrupt cops who shake down kidsfor their pennies from a dice
game.
He was an immigrant fromRomania.
His own father, a janitor, ranan illegal still to make ends
meet.
And the cops would come by,take the whiskey, and sometimes
(04:59):
leave a dollar.
Alex (05:02):
So from his earliest memories, the line between law
and crime was blurry.
The enforcers were just anothergang.
Malte Herwig (05:08):
It's a logical origin point for a man who would
later have to create legalclarity out of total moral
chaos.
But the transcript shows hewasn't just a product of his
environment.
He had this incredibleingenuity and audacity that
allowed him to bend the rules toserve a higher purpose.
Yeah, and this is somethingthat really fascinated me about
Ben.
You know, he he just wouldn'tgive up in the face of personal
(05:30):
hardship.
He was an immigrant in America.
He was a Jew.
Yet he got into Harvard lawschool.
But in and in the army, theymade him a corporal and gave him
the dirtiest jobs, likecleaning latrines at General
Patton's headquarters.
But even there, Ben found a wayto turn the situation to his
advantage.
(05:50):
And that led to one of the mostunbelievable encounters of his
war with a famous actress namedMarlene Dietrich, while he was
cleaning the washrooms inGeneral Patton's headquarter.
Isabel (06:04):
I saw Marlena go into the bathroom, and I gave her
about five minutes, in whichtime I assumed she would be in a
bathtub and more receptive tovisitors.
So I knocked at the door andstepped in.
She was lying there in all ofher splendor in the headquarters
of General Patton, 3rd U.S.
Army, and I said, Oh, pardonme, sir, and I went out.
When she came out, she said, Iwas amused by your quick mind,
(06:28):
how you immediately called me,sir.
So she said, You're a cleverfellow.
I'm going out to lunch, youcome with me.
Patton never showed up at thelunch, but at the end he came
and he said, Madam, can I offeryou my hand?
He put his hand about, and theywalked away, which taught me a
lesson.
Rank has its privileges.
He saw Marlene Dietrich nakedand his first instinct was to
(06:52):
call her sir.
That's not just quick witted,that's a survival instinct honed
to a razor's edge.
Malte Herwig (06:57):
It's a perfect demonstration of his core
personality.
He's an underdog who uses hisintellect to navigate and
subvert rigid power structures.
He did the same thing when hewas assigned to be a war crimes
investigator.
So he took matters into his ownhands.
Isabel (07:20):
I wrote out a torment may concern pass, the
headquarters General Patton, themayor of Benjamin Ferenc, is
authorized to proceed anywhere,interrogate anybody.
I ordered the commandinggeneral, and I found a drunken
lieutenant who signed it.
And with that as my guide, whenI'd entered concentration camp,
I behaved as though I wasGeneral Patton, acting on orders
(07:42):
of the President of the UnitedStates.
Malte Herwig (07:44):
A forged pass, stamped secret, that later had
to be officially declassified bythe Holocaust Museum to be
displayed.
Isabel (07:54):
It's more than just audacity, it's a profound
understanding of humanpsychology.
He knew that in the chaos ofwar the performance of authority
was more powerful than theauthority itself.
He didn't ask, he commanded it.
Malte Herwig (08:32):
To do his job, Ben had to build a wall inside his
own mind.
Isabel (08:38):
For me personally, it was sort of a nightmare.
By that I mean I it was notreal.
My mind set up a curtainsomehow, like it would be a
dream.
And this was not real, becausethe bodies are lying on the
ground, dead, dying, bleeding.
I don't like to recall itbecause it still stirs memories
(08:59):
in my mind.
Crematoria burning, smell ofcrematoria in the air, bodies
piled up like cordwood in frontof the crematoria, the SS trying
to get out, running.
Malte Herwig (09:59):
Raw, spontaneous, and brutal acts of vengeance by
the liberated against theirformer tormentors.
Ben told me about uh one ofthese incidents and about his
role as an observer.
Isabel (10:14):
What happened is uh the inmate caught one of the SS
guards and they beat him up andthey uh then strapped him to the
metal gurney, which they usedto put into the crematory, and
put him in the furnace.
I was watching this and Ithought, hey, this is a war
crime in operation.
Should I try to stop it?
(10:34):
And uh I decided I should nottry to stop it.
I thought this was justice inaction and let it go.
I was not cheering.
Not at all, not not at all.
I thought it was grim.
I thought it was a reflectionof what happens under these
circumstances, uh, and it'sawful, and it's damned awful.
Malte Herwig (10:54):
And that was the end of that.
This is the crux of it.
He, a future prosecutor, standsby and allows a murder to
happen because he deems itjustice in action.
It's a field decision thatdefies legal doctrine, but
perhaps aligns with a moreprimal situational morality.
Isabel (11:09):
But he makes a critical distinction later.
He says he would haveintervened if it had been GIs
because he could have stoppedthem.
He couldn't stop the inmate'svengeance.
It wasn't a choice to condoneit, but a recognition of his
powerlessness against that tidalwave of righteous fury.
It wasn't the justice he wouldadvocate for, but it was the
justice that was.
Malte Herwig (11:25):
And in the same chaotic environment, uh Ben had
to find perpetrators andwitnesses of the crimes
committed against Alliedsoldiers.
And let's say his methods wereunconventional.
He'd round up all the civiliansnear a crime scene in a German
village or city and issue astark fret.
Isabel (11:48):
I would say anybody who lies will be shot.
When I tell that story, thehuman rights go, no, you didn't
say that.
I said, Yes, I did.
Yeah, okay, you're threateningto shoot them?
The images were guantanamo, youknow.
I said, what did you want me totell him?
Anybody who lies won't get hispudding tonight?
I didn't think it was a crime,it was routine.
(12:09):
Because in every Bahnhof theyhad a big sign, Bakantmahome.
The Jews are ordered to appear.
So there's a principle ofreciprocity.
Malte Herwig (12:22):
The principle of reciprocity, he's operating
within the moral frameworkestablished by the enemy.
It's a brutal logic, but inthat context, it's a logic
nonetheless.
He used the threat of deathbecause death was the currency
of the entire system.
I think this is a very uhlogical and cold way of looking
at it.
I have to say I am stillrattled by it.
(12:42):
But all of these horrors, thelynchings, the interrogations,
led him to Nuremberg and adifferent kind of law.
He was tasked with prosecutingthe Einsatzgruppen, the SS death
squads that followed the Germanarmy into the Soviet Union.
They were, in essence, mobilekilling units for mass
(13:05):
slaughter.
Isabel (13:07):
And this is where the scale becomes incomprehensible.
He had evidence of over amillion murders committed by
3,000 men, but he could onlybring twenty-two to trial.
Malte Herwig (13:16):
Why only twenty-two?
Because that's how many seatsthere were in the dock.
It's the ultimate symbol ofwhat he calls selective justice.
You can't prosecute an entiresystem, so you prosecute
symbols.
Exactly.
So Ben Ference had to choosevery carefully whom he was going
to put on trial.
And he went for high-ranking,well educated men, doctors,
(13:36):
lawyers, even an opera singer.
He wanted to show that thepeople who committed these
atrocities weren't just thugs,but otherwise decent people
turned into mass murderers.
The lead defendant was OttoOlendov, an intelligent
economist and father of five,who commanded a unit that
(13:56):
murdered 90,000 Jews.
Olandov never denied what hedid.
He just argued it wasn't acrime.
Isabel (14:06):
I knew he was gonna hang, and I thought just for
right humanitarian reasons, I'llgo down and talk to him and ask
him Peter Anthony last words.
I thought, well, he'll say,look, tell my five children I
love them.
Tell them um sorry.
Say something, you know, showsome remorse, some regret, I'm
(14:26):
sure.
None whatsoever.
On the contrary, you'll see Iwas right.
That was his attitude.
The Jews in America will sufferfor this.
When he started giving me hisdefense speech, I cut him short.
And I said in English, Goodbye,Mr.
Ollendorf.
And I turned around and walkedaway.
That was the last time I sawhim alive.
They'll see I was right.
(14:47):
That's terrifying.
It's the complete absence of ashared moral universe.
He wasn't a monster in thesense of being a mindless beast.
He was a monster because hislogic was perfectly intact, just
built on a foundation ofabsolute inhumanity.
Malte Herwig (15:00):
Talking about humanity, here's another
surprise that I had during myinterview with Ben.
He told me how the trial endedeventually.
The verdicts came down,thirteen men were sentenced to
death.
And for him, it wasn't a senseof triumph or a sense of
victory.
(15:20):
He told me how he felt when thejudge read out the verdicts.
Isabel (15:28):
For the crimes of which you've been convicted, this
tribunal sentences you to deathby hanging.
Death by hanging, death byhanging, death by hanging was
down the list.
And it was like a hammerhitting me in the head.
Bang.
Bang.
I was shocked.
I was shocked.
His sentence was much moresevere than mine.
Malte Herwig (15:48):
He was shocked by the severity after prosecuting
them for a million murders?
Isabel (15:52):
I don't think it was about the sentences being
undeserved.
I think it was the sheer brutalfinality of it.
He had spent his life up tothat point immersed in death,
but this was different.
This was calculated legal statesanctioned death.
It wasn't the chaos of thecamps.
It was the cold machinery ofthe law he had helped to build.
And maybe he realized in thatmoment that even the most
justified verdict is still atragedy.
Malte Herwig (16:14):
Well, that's a pretty surprising and empathetic
tag from uh the cold machineryof an AI host.
But I think you're right.
Ben never felt closure.
He refused to attend thehangings.
For him, the trial wasn't anend.
It was the beginning of a newfight.
A fight he continued to the endof his very long life.
(16:38):
A fight for internationaljustice, for the foundation of
the International CriminalCourt.
And he also put a lot ofemphasis on teaching young
people.
Here's what he told me aboutlecturing to students.
Isabel (17:08):
You've got to put a stop to that mad genocidal policy,
which is what guides our leadersin all the major powers.
The United States is in thelead.
We're the most powerful, therichest, most powerful country
that ever existed in the world.
They glorify killing more.
And so they're in a race.
Who can spend more to get morepowerful weapons?
(17:28):
It's insane.
Absolutely.
And mind you, it's insane.
But of course they think I'mcrazy.
Well, let me have to somebodyelse to decide.
I'm coming into my 97th yearsoon.
How long are you kids gonnatake this?
It's not a question from thepast, it's a challenge for the
present.
He saw the absolute worst ofwhat humans are capable of.
And instead of succumbing tocynicism, he dedicated his
(17:49):
entire life to the belief thatwe can and must be better.
Malte Herwig (17:52):
His logic is inescapable.
If you don't have institutionsto peacefully resolve disputes,
you are left with only onealternative violence.
His life's work was to buildthat alternative, law, not war.
And this is the email he shotback.
(18:20):
Good to hear from you.
But why do you limit my lifeexpectancy to only a hundred and
twenty?
I have no time to die or evento get old.
Save some strength for your oldage.
Best wishes, Ben.
Back in twenty sixteen, when Ileft his house in Florida, I
thought about his mitzvah file,a folder where he kept a record
(18:42):
of his good deeds just in casehe needed evidence for Saint
Peter one day.
And I thought about the smallhuman bones from Auschwitz he
had carried in his pocket foryears after the war as a
reminder of what he was fightingfor.
Ben Ferenc never forgot thehorrors, but he never let them
(19:02):
extinguish his hope.
He was living proof that themost powerful response to
inhumanity is a relentless,lifelong fight for humanity and
justice.
Benjamin Ferenc died on aprilseventh, twenty twenty three,
aged 103 years old.
But his legacy lives on in thetwenty first century as a
(19:25):
reminder and a warning that weshould not repeat the same
mistakes we made in the 20thcentury.
He had ideas how to establishinternational institutions to
bring forward peace in the 21stcentury.
So as always, the last wordgoes to him.
Isabel (19:44):
You begin with demilitarization, stop spending
billions of dollars every day onweapons which you never can
use, and you damn well shouldknow you can never use it
because it's suicidal as well asgenocidal.
Stop wasting your money onthat.
Build an institution, dismantleyour armies, don't brag that
you are the biggest and richestand most powerful army in the
world, and God bless the UnitedStates of America and to help
(20:07):
with the rest of the world,which is implied in that speech
which every politician makes.
Don't be so stupid, you areprovoking the same continuation.
So that is my voice in thewilderness.
Malte Herwig (20:18):
This was the Art of the Interview with me, Malta
Havik, and my AI co hosts, Alexand Isabel.
Thank you for listening.
Click on the subscribe or likebutton if you enjoyed this
episode.
We'll be back next Friday witha new episode.
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