Mr. Harris was part of the team, led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, that began the prosecution of war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany, shortly after the war's end. In 1945, Mr. Harris led the team's first case, that of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking leader of the Nazi Security Police to face trial.
In concentrating on the secret services, Mr. Harris interrogated Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, former commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"Mr. Hoess told me, as unemotionally as if he were talking at the breakfast table, that 2.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz," Mr. Harris said in Nuremberg in 1996, during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the trials.
Mr. Harris moved to St. Louis in 1963 as general solicitor of the former Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. He was active in local charities, endowed programs at Washington University and was active until last year in seminars at the university's law school.
"He was a world figure who has been very generous with his time," said Leila Sadat, director of the university's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. "He was a tireless advocate for bringing the rule of law to relations among countries, and of trying to prevent any repetition of the Holocaust."
Sadat said Mr. Harris received a standing ovation after speaking at the law school in April 2009. In February, he gave her taped remarks at his home for an event in Washington.
Mr. Harris' family said he had been ill from cancer for three years and suffered a debilitating fall six months ago.
In an interview in April 2008, Mr. Harris spoke of the institutional evil of the Nazi regime in Germany — and its ageless warning to all people.
"Society lays the groundwork, and we develop in that society," he said. "We become part of that society, we're captivated by it and we might do evil, too. It makes you wonder about where is the future of mankind — is evil going to triumph ultimately, or is good going to triumph?
"You have to find the good instincts that are in all of us."
Mr. Harris won a conviction of Kaltenbrunner for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including his roles in running the Gestapo, the Nazi concentration camps and the massacre of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Kaltenbrunner was executed by hanging. Mr. Harris' three-day interview of Hoess in April 1946 helped a Polish tribunal convict Hoess and order his execution. Mr. Harris said he and other lawyers and investigators gathered an abundance of evidence from German files.
"We were really surprised at the documentation we were able to come up with," he said. "I went through Gestapo offices and dug through rubbish and found documents ordering the extermination of Jews. We scurried all over Europe getting documentary evidence."
Mr. Harris was born in Seattle, the son of a car dealer, and graduated from the University of Washington. He received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a lawyer in the Navy at the rank of captain when he was selected to work with Judge Jackson.
About 200 lawyers took part in the trials. Benjamin Ferencz of New York, who joined the prosecution team in 1946, is its last surviving member.
The special international court tried 22 high-ranking Nazis, convicted 19 and sentenced 12 to death. For his work there, Mr. Harris was decorated with the Legion of Merit.
In 1948, Mr. Harris returned to the U.S. to teach law at Southern Methodist University and spent part of the next six years writing a book, "Tyranny on Trial: The Evidence at Nuremberg."
A third edition of his book, published in 1995, includes a model statute for a permanent International Criminal Court. In 1998, Mr. Harris was a delegate at a conference to create the court, which sits at The Hague in the Netherlands. He was present in 2000 when Germany's lower house voted to ratify the treaty to establish the court.
"It's amazing to me that the nation we prosecuted in 1946 has adopted the treaty, but the U.S. has not yet ratified it," Mr. Harris said in 2000. It remains unratified.
In 1954 and 1955, he was national executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago. He joined Southwestern Bell in Dallas and moved here eight years later with the company, then went into private practice here.
In 1964, Mr. Harris married Jane Freund Foster of Ladue. Over the years, the Harrises served on the local boards of the Heart Association, St. Louis Children's Hospital, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and other charities. They also worked to raise money for those causes. In 1983, they received a joint award for outstanding volunteer fundraising from the National Society of Fundraising Executives. She died in 1999.
The following year, he married Anna Galakatos of Frontenac.
In 1980, Mr. Harris donated his papers from the Nuremberg trials to Washington University's Olin Library, which keeps the papers in the Jane and Whitney Harris Reading Room. In 2001, the university's law school renamed its Institute for Global Legal Studies in Mr. Harris' honor. He helped plan the institute's seminars and was a regular speaker.
He also collected reproductions of some of the papers of Winston Churchill and donated them to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
In 2006, the University of Missouri-St. Louis renamed its tropical studies center the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, which works with the St. Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Garden. Said UMSL Chancellor Thomas F. George, "He was interested in helping future generations live better."
In 2008, Mr. Harris helped to create the World Peace Through Law Award, bestowed by the Harris institute.
Mr. Harris regularly spoke in public about the Nuremberg trials and his belief that the United Nations should create a permanent international war crimes tribunal. In 2005, he spoke at a Holocaust Observance Day ceremony in Richmond Heights, where he read a poem that he wrote only a few years before on what he called "the gravest inhumanities and killings that man has ever perpetrated on man."
The poem says in part: "A thousand years have passed. What was the number killed at Auschwitz? It matters not. 'Twas but a trifle in the history of massacre of man by man."
Arrangements are pending through Bopp Chapel; a memorial service is planned for May 23 in Graham Chapel at Washington University. There will be no visitation. His remains were cremated.
In addition to his wife, among the survivors are a son, Eugene Harris of Olivette; three stepsons, Charles Foster Jr. of Denver, Greg Galakatos of Town and Country and Christopher Galakatos of Des Peres; a stepdaughter, Theresa Galakatos of Richmond Heights; four grandchildren; and nine step-grandchildren.
∼Harris, Whitney, 97, of Frontenac on Thursday April 22, 2010; Beloved husband of Anna Galakatos-Harris (nee Barwick) and the late Jane Foster-Harris (nee Freund).
Pre-deceased by his parents Lily Georgine and Olin Whitney Harris, sister Margaret Redpath, and step grandson David Foster. Loving father of Eugene (Lori) Harris and stepsons Charles (Chris) Foster, Christopher (Kim) Galakatos, Greg (JoAnn) Galakatos and stepdaughter Theresa Galakatos. Beloved grandpa of Addie, Gabrielle, Mitzi, and Eli Harris, Joey Foster, Matt, Kelly, Erin, Jenna, Kara, John, Alexandra, and Michael Galakatos and loving uncle to Ray (Judy)Redpath and Robert (Charlene) Redpath.
Whitney was a graduate of University of Washington magna cum laude and member of Phi Kappa Psi. Harris received his law degree at University of California Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Whitney Harris was the last living podium prosecutor and principle, trusted aide to U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson. Mr. Harris opened the trial prosecuting the first case against Ernst Kaltenbrunner, former Chief of Reich Main Security Office and assisted Jackson in his cross examination of Hermann Goering.
Following Nuremberg, Whitney served successively as Chief of Legal Advise for General Clay during the Berlin Blockades; as a law professor at Southern Methodist University where he authored Tyranny on Trial, a monumental account of the Nuremberg case and evidence published in 1954, 3rd edition 1999; as the Director of the Hoover Commission's Legal Services Task Force; as the first Executive Director of the American Bar Association; and as Solicitor General of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company of St. Louis.
Harris was a leader and conscience in his community as well as a generous philanthropist, served on many charitable boards, and was involved in many charitable fund raising events in St. Louis.
Whitney Harris was one of the founding members of the Center for Tropical Ecology at University of Missouri-St. Louis which now bears his name; The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center- Dr. Patrick Osborne- Director.
Also established at Washington University's School of Law is the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute- Dr. Leila Sadat- Director.
Memorial contributions can be made to Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, Washington University School of Law, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130; Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121-4400; or the charity of your choice. Memorial Service will be held on Sunday May 23rd at 12 noon in the Graham Chapel at Washington University. Arrangements by Bopp Chapel.
In concentrating on the secret services, Mr. Harris interrogated Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, former commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"Mr. Hoess told me, as unemotionally as if he were talking at the breakfast table, that 2.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz," Mr. Harris said in Nuremberg in 1996, during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the trials.
Mr. Harris moved to St. Louis in 1963 as general solicitor of the former Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. He was active in local charities, endowed programs at Washington University and was active until last year in seminars at the university's law school.
"He was a world figure who has been very generous with his time," said Leila Sadat, director of the university's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. "He was a tireless advocate for bringing the rule of law to relations among countries, and of trying to prevent any repetition of the Holocaust."
Sadat said Mr. Harris received a standing ovation after speaking at the law school in April 2009. In February, he gave her taped remarks at his home for an event in Washington.
Mr. Harris' family said he had been ill from cancer for three years and suffered a debilitating fall six months ago.
In an interview in April 2008, Mr. Harris spoke of the institutional evil of the Nazi regime in Germany — and its ageless warning to all people.
"Society lays the groundwork, and we develop in that society," he said. "We become part of that society, we're captivated by it and we might do evil, too. It makes you wonder about where is the future of mankind — is evil going to triumph ultimately, or is good going to triumph?
"You have to find the good instincts that are in all of us."
Mr. Harris won a conviction of Kaltenbrunner for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including his roles in running the Gestapo, the Nazi concentration camps and the massacre of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Kaltenbrunner was executed by hanging. Mr. Harris' three-day interview of Hoess in April 1946 helped a Polish tribunal convict Hoess and order his execution. Mr. Harris said he and other lawyers and investigators gathered an abundance of evidence from German files.
"We were really surprised at the documentation we were able to come up with," he said. "I went through Gestapo offices and dug through rubbish and found documents ordering the extermination of Jews. We scurried all over Europe getting documentary evidence."
Mr. Harris was born in Seattle, the son of a car dealer, and graduated from the University of Washington. He received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a lawyer in the Navy at the rank of captain when he was selected to work with Judge Jackson.
About 200 lawyers took part in the trials. Benjamin Ferencz of New York, who joined the prosecution team in 1946, is its last surviving member.
The special international court tried 22 high-ranking Nazis, convicted 19 and sentenced 12 to death. For his work there, Mr. Harris was decorated with the Legion of Merit.
In 1948, Mr. Harris returned to the U.S. to teach law at Southern Methodist University and spent part of the next six years writing a book, "Tyranny on Trial: The Evidence at Nuremberg."
A third edition of his book, published in 1995, includes a model statute for a permanent International Criminal Court. In 1998, Mr. Harris was a delegate at a conference to create the court, which sits at The Hague in the Netherlands. He was present in 2000 when Germany's lower house voted to ratify the treaty to establish the court.
"It's amazing to me that the nation we prosecuted in 1946 has adopted the treaty, but the U.S. has not yet ratified it," Mr. Harris said in 2000. It remains unratified.
In 1954 and 1955, he was national executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago. He joined Southwestern Bell in Dallas and moved here eight years later with the company, then went into private practice here.
In 1964, Mr. Harris married Jane Freund Foster of Ladue. Over the years, the Harrises served on the local boards of the Heart Association, St. Louis Children's Hospital, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and other charities. They also worked to raise money for those causes. In 1983, they received a joint award for outstanding volunteer fundraising from the National Society of Fundraising Executives. She died in 1999.
The following year, he married Anna Galakatos of Frontenac.
In 1980, Mr. Harris donated his papers from the Nuremberg trials to Washington University's Olin Library, which keeps the papers in the Jane and Whitney Harris Reading Room. In 2001, the university's law school renamed its Institute for Global Legal Studies in Mr. Harris' honor. He helped plan the institute's seminars and was a regular speaker.
He also collected reproductions of some of the papers of Winston Churchill and donated them to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
In 2006, the University of Missouri-St. Louis renamed its tropical studies center the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, which works with the St. Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Garden. Said UMSL Chancellor Thomas F. George, "He was interested in helping future generations live better."
In 2008, Mr. Harris helped to create the World Peace Through Law Award, bestowed by the Harris institute.
Mr. Harris regularly spoke in public about the Nuremberg trials and his belief that the United Nations should create a permanent international war crimes tribunal. In 2005, he spoke at a Holocaust Observance Day ceremony in Richmond Heights, where he read a poem that he wrote only a few years before on what he called "the gravest inhumanities and killings that man has ever perpetrated on man."
The poem says in part: "A thousand years have passed. What was the number killed at Auschwitz? It matters not. 'Twas but a trifle in the history of massacre of man by man."
Arrangements are pending through Bopp Chapel; a memorial service is planned for May 23 in Graham Chapel at Washington University. There will be no visitation. His remains were cremated.
In addition to his wife, among the survivors are a son, Eugene Harris of Olivette; three stepsons, Charles Foster Jr. of Denver, Greg Galakatos of Town and Country and Christopher Galakatos of Des Peres; a stepdaughter, Theresa Galakatos of Richmond Heights; four grandchildren; and nine step-grandchildren.
∼Harris, Whitney, 97, of Frontenac on Thursday April 22, 2010; Beloved husband of Anna Galakatos-Harris (nee Barwick) and the late Jane Foster-Harris (nee Freund).
Pre-deceased by his parents Lily Georgine and Olin Whitney Harris, sister Margaret Redpath, and step grandson David Foster. Loving father of Eugene (Lori) Harris and stepsons Charles (Chris) Foster, Christopher (Kim) Galakatos, Greg (JoAnn) Galakatos and stepdaughter Theresa Galakatos. Beloved grandpa of Addie, Gabrielle, Mitzi, and Eli Harris, Joey Foster, Matt, Kelly, Erin, Jenna, Kara, John, Alexandra, and Michael Galakatos and loving uncle to Ray (Judy)Redpath and Robert (Charlene) Redpath.
Whitney was a graduate of University of Washington magna cum laude and member of Phi Kappa Psi. Harris received his law degree at University of California Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Whitney Harris was the last living podium prosecutor and principle, trusted aide to U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson. Mr. Harris opened the trial prosecuting the first case against Ernst Kaltenbrunner, former Chief of Reich Main Security Office and assisted Jackson in his cross examination of Hermann Goering.
Following Nuremberg, Whitney served successively as Chief of Legal Advise for General Clay during the Berlin Blockades; as a law professor at Southern Methodist University where he authored Tyranny on Trial, a monumental account of the Nuremberg case and evidence published in 1954, 3rd edition 1999; as the Director of the Hoover Commission's Legal Services Task Force; as the first Executive Director of the American Bar Association; and as Solicitor General of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company of St. Louis.
Harris was a leader and conscience in his community as well as a generous philanthropist, served on many charitable boards, and was involved in many charitable fund raising events in St. Louis.
Whitney Harris was one of the founding members of the Center for Tropical Ecology at University of Missouri-St. Louis which now bears his name; The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center- Dr. Patrick Osborne- Director.
Also established at Washington University's School of Law is the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute- Dr. Leila Sadat- Director.
Memorial contributions can be made to Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, Washington University School of Law, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130; Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121-4400; or the charity of your choice. Memorial Service will be held on Sunday May 23rd at 12 noon in the Graham Chapel at Washington University. Arrangements by Bopp Chapel.
Mr. Harris was part of the team, led by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, that began the prosecution of war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany, shortly after the war's end. In 1945, Mr. Harris led the team's first case, that of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking leader of the Nazi Security Police to face trial.
In concentrating on the secret services, Mr. Harris interrogated Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, former commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"Mr. Hoess told me, as unemotionally as if he were talking at the breakfast table, that 2.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz," Mr. Harris said in Nuremberg in 1996, during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the trials.
Mr. Harris moved to St. Louis in 1963 as general solicitor of the former Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. He was active in local charities, endowed programs at Washington University and was active until last year in seminars at the university's law school.
"He was a world figure who has been very generous with his time," said Leila Sadat, director of the university's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. "He was a tireless advocate for bringing the rule of law to relations among countries, and of trying to prevent any repetition of the Holocaust."
Sadat said Mr. Harris received a standing ovation after speaking at the law school in April 2009. In February, he gave her taped remarks at his home for an event in Washington.
Mr. Harris' family said he had been ill from cancer for three years and suffered a debilitating fall six months ago.
In an interview in April 2008, Mr. Harris spoke of the institutional evil of the Nazi regime in Germany — and its ageless warning to all people.
"Society lays the groundwork, and we develop in that society," he said. "We become part of that society, we're captivated by it and we might do evil, too. It makes you wonder about where is the future of mankind — is evil going to triumph ultimately, or is good going to triumph?
"You have to find the good instincts that are in all of us."
Mr. Harris won a conviction of Kaltenbrunner for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including his roles in running the Gestapo, the Nazi concentration camps and the massacre of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Kaltenbrunner was executed by hanging. Mr. Harris' three-day interview of Hoess in April 1946 helped a Polish tribunal convict Hoess and order his execution. Mr. Harris said he and other lawyers and investigators gathered an abundance of evidence from German files.
"We were really surprised at the documentation we were able to come up with," he said. "I went through Gestapo offices and dug through rubbish and found documents ordering the extermination of Jews. We scurried all over Europe getting documentary evidence."
Mr. Harris was born in Seattle, the son of a car dealer, and graduated from the University of Washington. He received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a lawyer in the Navy at the rank of captain when he was selected to work with Judge Jackson.
About 200 lawyers took part in the trials. Benjamin Ferencz of New York, who joined the prosecution team in 1946, is its last surviving member.
The special international court tried 22 high-ranking Nazis, convicted 19 and sentenced 12 to death. For his work there, Mr. Harris was decorated with the Legion of Merit.
In 1948, Mr. Harris returned to the U.S. to teach law at Southern Methodist University and spent part of the next six years writing a book, "Tyranny on Trial: The Evidence at Nuremberg."
A third edition of his book, published in 1995, includes a model statute for a permanent International Criminal Court. In 1998, Mr. Harris was a delegate at a conference to create the court, which sits at The Hague in the Netherlands. He was present in 2000 when Germany's lower house voted to ratify the treaty to establish the court.
"It's amazing to me that the nation we prosecuted in 1946 has adopted the treaty, but the U.S. has not yet ratified it," Mr. Harris said in 2000. It remains unratified.
In 1954 and 1955, he was national executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago. He joined Southwestern Bell in Dallas and moved here eight years later with the company, then went into private practice here.
In 1964, Mr. Harris married Jane Freund Foster of Ladue. Over the years, the Harrises served on the local boards of the Heart Association, St. Louis Children's Hospital, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and other charities. They also worked to raise money for those causes. In 1983, they received a joint award for outstanding volunteer fundraising from the National Society of Fundraising Executives. She died in 1999.
The following year, he married Anna Galakatos of Frontenac.
In 1980, Mr. Harris donated his papers from the Nuremberg trials to Washington University's Olin Library, which keeps the papers in the Jane and Whitney Harris Reading Room. In 2001, the university's law school renamed its Institute for Global Legal Studies in Mr. Harris' honor. He helped plan the institute's seminars and was a regular speaker.
He also collected reproductions of some of the papers of Winston Churchill and donated them to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
In 2006, the University of Missouri-St. Louis renamed its tropical studies center the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, which works with the St. Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Garden. Said UMSL Chancellor Thomas F. George, "He was interested in helping future generations live better."
In 2008, Mr. Harris helped to create the World Peace Through Law Award, bestowed by the Harris institute.
Mr. Harris regularly spoke in public about the Nuremberg trials and his belief that the United Nations should create a permanent international war crimes tribunal. In 2005, he spoke at a Holocaust Observance Day ceremony in Richmond Heights, where he read a poem that he wrote only a few years before on what he called "the gravest inhumanities and killings that man has ever perpetrated on man."
The poem says in part: "A thousand years have passed. What was the number killed at Auschwitz? It matters not. 'Twas but a trifle in the history of massacre of man by man."
Arrangements are pending through Bopp Chapel; a memorial service is planned for May 23 in Graham Chapel at Washington University. There will be no visitation. His remains were cremated.
In addition to his wife, among the survivors are a son, Eugene Harris of Olivette; three stepsons, Charles Foster Jr. of Denver, Greg Galakatos of Town and Country and Christopher Galakatos of Des Peres; a stepdaughter, Theresa Galakatos of Richmond Heights; four grandchildren; and nine step-grandchildren.
∼Harris, Whitney, 97, of Frontenac on Thursday April 22, 2010; Beloved husband of Anna Galakatos-Harris (nee Barwick) and the late Jane Foster-Harris (nee Freund).
Pre-deceased by his parents Lily Georgine and Olin Whitney Harris, sister Margaret Redpath, and step grandson David Foster. Loving father of Eugene (Lori) Harris and stepsons Charles (Chris) Foster, Christopher (Kim) Galakatos, Greg (JoAnn) Galakatos and stepdaughter Theresa Galakatos. Beloved grandpa of Addie, Gabrielle, Mitzi, and Eli Harris, Joey Foster, Matt, Kelly, Erin, Jenna, Kara, John, Alexandra, and Michael Galakatos and loving uncle to Ray (Judy)Redpath and Robert (Charlene) Redpath.
Whitney was a graduate of University of Washington magna cum laude and member of Phi Kappa Psi. Harris received his law degree at University of California Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Whitney Harris was the last living podium prosecutor and principle, trusted aide to U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson. Mr. Harris opened the trial prosecuting the first case against Ernst Kaltenbrunner, former Chief of Reich Main Security Office and assisted Jackson in his cross examination of Hermann Goering.
Following Nuremberg, Whitney served successively as Chief of Legal Advise for General Clay during the Berlin Blockades; as a law professor at Southern Methodist University where he authored Tyranny on Trial, a monumental account of the Nuremberg case and evidence published in 1954, 3rd edition 1999; as the Director of the Hoover Commission's Legal Services Task Force; as the first Executive Director of the American Bar Association; and as Solicitor General of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company of St. Louis.
Harris was a leader and conscience in his community as well as a generous philanthropist, served on many charitable boards, and was involved in many charitable fund raising events in St. Louis.
Whitney Harris was one of the founding members of the Center for Tropical Ecology at University of Missouri-St. Louis which now bears his name; The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center- Dr. Patrick Osborne- Director.
Also established at Washington University's School of Law is the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute- Dr. Leila Sadat- Director.
Memorial contributions can be made to Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, Washington University School of Law, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130; Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121-4400; or the charity of your choice. Memorial Service will be held on Sunday May 23rd at 12 noon in the Graham Chapel at Washington University. Arrangements by Bopp Chapel.
In concentrating on the secret services, Mr. Harris interrogated Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, former commander of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"Mr. Hoess told me, as unemotionally as if he were talking at the breakfast table, that 2.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz," Mr. Harris said in Nuremberg in 1996, during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the trials.
Mr. Harris moved to St. Louis in 1963 as general solicitor of the former Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. He was active in local charities, endowed programs at Washington University and was active until last year in seminars at the university's law school.
"He was a world figure who has been very generous with his time," said Leila Sadat, director of the university's Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute. "He was a tireless advocate for bringing the rule of law to relations among countries, and of trying to prevent any repetition of the Holocaust."
Sadat said Mr. Harris received a standing ovation after speaking at the law school in April 2009. In February, he gave her taped remarks at his home for an event in Washington.
Mr. Harris' family said he had been ill from cancer for three years and suffered a debilitating fall six months ago.
In an interview in April 2008, Mr. Harris spoke of the institutional evil of the Nazi regime in Germany — and its ageless warning to all people.
"Society lays the groundwork, and we develop in that society," he said. "We become part of that society, we're captivated by it and we might do evil, too. It makes you wonder about where is the future of mankind — is evil going to triumph ultimately, or is good going to triumph?
"You have to find the good instincts that are in all of us."
Mr. Harris won a conviction of Kaltenbrunner for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including his roles in running the Gestapo, the Nazi concentration camps and the massacre of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Kaltenbrunner was executed by hanging. Mr. Harris' three-day interview of Hoess in April 1946 helped a Polish tribunal convict Hoess and order his execution. Mr. Harris said he and other lawyers and investigators gathered an abundance of evidence from German files.
"We were really surprised at the documentation we were able to come up with," he said. "I went through Gestapo offices and dug through rubbish and found documents ordering the extermination of Jews. We scurried all over Europe getting documentary evidence."
Mr. Harris was born in Seattle, the son of a car dealer, and graduated from the University of Washington. He received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a lawyer in the Navy at the rank of captain when he was selected to work with Judge Jackson.
About 200 lawyers took part in the trials. Benjamin Ferencz of New York, who joined the prosecution team in 1946, is its last surviving member.
The special international court tried 22 high-ranking Nazis, convicted 19 and sentenced 12 to death. For his work there, Mr. Harris was decorated with the Legion of Merit.
In 1948, Mr. Harris returned to the U.S. to teach law at Southern Methodist University and spent part of the next six years writing a book, "Tyranny on Trial: The Evidence at Nuremberg."
A third edition of his book, published in 1995, includes a model statute for a permanent International Criminal Court. In 1998, Mr. Harris was a delegate at a conference to create the court, which sits at The Hague in the Netherlands. He was present in 2000 when Germany's lower house voted to ratify the treaty to establish the court.
"It's amazing to me that the nation we prosecuted in 1946 has adopted the treaty, but the U.S. has not yet ratified it," Mr. Harris said in 2000. It remains unratified.
In 1954 and 1955, he was national executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago. He joined Southwestern Bell in Dallas and moved here eight years later with the company, then went into private practice here.
In 1964, Mr. Harris married Jane Freund Foster of Ladue. Over the years, the Harrises served on the local boards of the Heart Association, St. Louis Children's Hospital, the Multiple Sclerosis Society and other charities. They also worked to raise money for those causes. In 1983, they received a joint award for outstanding volunteer fundraising from the National Society of Fundraising Executives. She died in 1999.
The following year, he married Anna Galakatos of Frontenac.
In 1980, Mr. Harris donated his papers from the Nuremberg trials to Washington University's Olin Library, which keeps the papers in the Jane and Whitney Harris Reading Room. In 2001, the university's law school renamed its Institute for Global Legal Studies in Mr. Harris' honor. He helped plan the institute's seminars and was a regular speaker.
He also collected reproductions of some of the papers of Winston Churchill and donated them to Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.
In 2006, the University of Missouri-St. Louis renamed its tropical studies center the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, which works with the St. Louis Zoo and Missouri Botanical Garden. Said UMSL Chancellor Thomas F. George, "He was interested in helping future generations live better."
In 2008, Mr. Harris helped to create the World Peace Through Law Award, bestowed by the Harris institute.
Mr. Harris regularly spoke in public about the Nuremberg trials and his belief that the United Nations should create a permanent international war crimes tribunal. In 2005, he spoke at a Holocaust Observance Day ceremony in Richmond Heights, where he read a poem that he wrote only a few years before on what he called "the gravest inhumanities and killings that man has ever perpetrated on man."
The poem says in part: "A thousand years have passed. What was the number killed at Auschwitz? It matters not. 'Twas but a trifle in the history of massacre of man by man."
Arrangements are pending through Bopp Chapel; a memorial service is planned for May 23 in Graham Chapel at Washington University. There will be no visitation. His remains were cremated.
In addition to his wife, among the survivors are a son, Eugene Harris of Olivette; three stepsons, Charles Foster Jr. of Denver, Greg Galakatos of Town and Country and Christopher Galakatos of Des Peres; a stepdaughter, Theresa Galakatos of Richmond Heights; four grandchildren; and nine step-grandchildren.
∼Harris, Whitney, 97, of Frontenac on Thursday April 22, 2010; Beloved husband of Anna Galakatos-Harris (nee Barwick) and the late Jane Foster-Harris (nee Freund).
Pre-deceased by his parents Lily Georgine and Olin Whitney Harris, sister Margaret Redpath, and step grandson David Foster. Loving father of Eugene (Lori) Harris and stepsons Charles (Chris) Foster, Christopher (Kim) Galakatos, Greg (JoAnn) Galakatos and stepdaughter Theresa Galakatos. Beloved grandpa of Addie, Gabrielle, Mitzi, and Eli Harris, Joey Foster, Matt, Kelly, Erin, Jenna, Kara, John, Alexandra, and Michael Galakatos and loving uncle to Ray (Judy)Redpath and Robert (Charlene) Redpath.
Whitney was a graduate of University of Washington magna cum laude and member of Phi Kappa Psi. Harris received his law degree at University of California Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and a member of the Order of the Coif.
Whitney Harris was the last living podium prosecutor and principle, trusted aide to U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson. Mr. Harris opened the trial prosecuting the first case against Ernst Kaltenbrunner, former Chief of Reich Main Security Office and assisted Jackson in his cross examination of Hermann Goering.
Following Nuremberg, Whitney served successively as Chief of Legal Advise for General Clay during the Berlin Blockades; as a law professor at Southern Methodist University where he authored Tyranny on Trial, a monumental account of the Nuremberg case and evidence published in 1954, 3rd edition 1999; as the Director of the Hoover Commission's Legal Services Task Force; as the first Executive Director of the American Bar Association; and as Solicitor General of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company of St. Louis.
Harris was a leader and conscience in his community as well as a generous philanthropist, served on many charitable boards, and was involved in many charitable fund raising events in St. Louis.
Whitney Harris was one of the founding members of the Center for Tropical Ecology at University of Missouri-St. Louis which now bears his name; The Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center- Dr. Patrick Osborne- Director.
Also established at Washington University's School of Law is the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute- Dr. Leila Sadat- Director.
Memorial contributions can be made to Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, Washington University School of Law, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130; Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63121-4400; or the charity of your choice. Memorial Service will be held on Sunday May 23rd at 12 noon in the Graham Chapel at Washington University. Arrangements by Bopp Chapel.
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