The Trial of Major War Criminals in Nuremberg

Almost exactly six months after the end of the war unleashed by the Nazi leadership and intended to facilitate a Jewish genocide, the International Military Tribunal opened in Nuremberg. It was the only military tribunal in which representatives of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and the USA participated jointly. While it did not succeed in establishing new norms of international law, the Nuremberg trail set a precedent that future atrocities by criminal rulers would not go unpunished.

This trial marked an epochal frontier. In Nuremberg, the German people were forced to confront the Nazi state’s criminal character for the first time, which influenced their picture of recent German history for decades to come.

The Nuremberg Trial of German Major War Criminals was the beginning of a critical examination of the Nazi era. Looking at the history of the Nuremberg Trial should and can make succeeding generations more prepared to confront injustice even in their own times.