de Rosenbergs, Een zaak van leven of dood

Samenvatting

On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing Prison New York, on the charge of espionage and passing on atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In the decades after the executions, many people, including scholars, were still trying to prove the Rosenbergs’ innocence. Over the years, however, new evidence rose to the surface. This led to the consensus that the Rosenbergs were probably guilty in some way, yet the sentence of capital punishment was deemed too harsh for the crimes committed. In this article, I will be addressing several factors that had a big impact on the case. These include (anti)communism and the Cold War, some important (though not always reliable) pieces of evidence and the behavior of the Rosenbergs themselves, as well as their attorney Emanuel Bloch. In the conclusion, I hope to answer the question which factor was most important in determining the fate of the Rosenbergs.