WILL the world see another Nuremberg Trial? Or is accountability only for the history books? In 1946, an International Military Tribunal representing the victorious Allied powers (the US, UK, USSR and France) passed judgement at Nuremberg on 24 Nazi acolytes of Hitler. They included Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

At the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the Big Three (Harry Truman, Clement Attlee and Joseph Stalin) were clear on why they had occupied a defeated Germany. They sought five Ds: “disarmament, demilitarisation, denazification, democratisation and decentralisation”. The tribunal members, however, differed on the trial’s aims.

The British wanted “a swift, political decision, rather than a judicial one”. Winston Churchill regarded Nazi leaders as “outlaws”, to be shot on sight. The Soviets introduced “the concept of crimes against peace”. Having suffered incalculable damage and the loss of 27 million Soviets, they demanded reparations. The US insisted on a reform of Germany’s body politic, an ‘Americanisation’ of Germany. The French broadened the concept of culpability to include not just the Nazis but all Germans.

To understand that period, one should read Lara Feigel’s The Bitter Taste of Victory:........

© Dawn