O. John Rogge | |
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Assistant Attorney General of the United States | |
In office 1939 – 1940 | |
Preceded by | Brien McMahon |
Succeeded by | Wendell Berge |
Personal details | |
Born | Oetje John Rogge[1] October 12, 1903 Cass County, Illinois, U.S. |
Died | March 22, 1981 New York City, U.S. | (aged 77)
Spouses | Nellie Alma Luther (m. 1926)Wanda Lucille Johnston
(m. 1939) |
Children | Genevieve Oetjeanne Meyer and Hermann Rogge |
Education | University of Illinois (BA) Harvard University (LLB) |
Alma mater | University of Illinois Harvard Law School |
Occupation | Attorney |
Known for | Civil liberties activism |
Signature | |
Oetje John Rogge (German pronunciation: [ˈiːtʃi dʒɔn ˈɹɔɡə]) (October 12, 1903 – March 22, 1981) was an American attorney who prosecuted cases for the United States government, investigated Nazi activities in the United States, and in private practice was associated with civil rights and liberal political causes. He was the prosecutor in the Great Sedition Trial, in which the U.S. government, under the initiative of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, tried dozens of isolationists and Nazi sympathizers for sedition. Although the trial was called off after the judge died midway through the trial, with it being abandoned entirely after the end of the war in Europe, Rogge was successful in discrediting U.S. politicians who were linked with Nazi propagandist agent George Sylvester Viereck. Many of these politicians would lose their reelection campaigns.[2]
On October 14, 1946, in a New York City speech, he said: "The removal of Hitler and Mussolini and a few of their collaborators does not mean that fascism is dead. Now the fascists can take a more subtle disguise, they can come forward and simply say 'I am anti-Communist.'"