WAR CRIMES: Notes from N

As the French grimly finished their case, and the Russians grimly took over, more reminders of the evil past; entered Nürnberg's black record:

¶ Two German artillery batteries had deliberately shattered Louvain University's Library in 1940, the second time in two wars. Just before the shelling, a German officer gave a German reason for it: "These Belgian swine have an insulting inscription about us on their library." The officer was wrong. Cardinal Mercier's proposed inscription—Furore Teutonico Diruta, Dono Americano Restituta (Destroyed by German Fury, Restored by American Gift)—was never used because Herbert Hoover, Nicholas Murray Butler and U.S. pacifists denounced...