Six million accusers........ the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

The German city of Nuremberg will mean different things to people.  

Maxbrücke in Nürnberg bei Nacht, 2012

For those born in the last decades of the 20th century it will be a pleasant German city, a place worth visiting for its university, castle, its cultural and culinary attractions and a heap of Renaissance art.

For my grandmother, who was born in Cologne in 1897, the city was that place where the Nazis held their rallies.  

She once told me she listened occasionally to the broadcasts of those rallies on her wireless in the back room of her home in Derby, with a mix of mounting anxiety and revulsion. 

And for me, born just four years after the end of the last world war it is forever linked to the the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, which sat from November 1945 till October 1946, and oversaw the prosecution of leading members of the Nazi State, who planned or participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes.  

Verdict, David Low, 1945

The trials were conducted under international law and the laws of war and involved judges from the four main allied powers.

Now, I am not usually a fan of historical drama, but I will make an exception for Nuremburg which goes out today on the wireless at 2.15. 

In all there are eight episodes which explore various aspects of the events of the trials.  

The first, Welcome to the Ashcan, by Jonathan Myerson, sets the scene,  in the aftermath of the war’s end with Germany “in chaos – five million former soldiers, foreign nationals and those liberated from the concentration camps, all trying to get home. 

View from above of the judges' bench at the International Tribune, 1945

And hiding somewhere are the top Nazis.

Seen through the eyes of a US Army Sergeant at the stripped-out hotel in Luxembourg where the prisoners are taken, they track down and arrest Kaltenbrunner (Himmler’s Deputy), Frank (Governor of Occupied Poland) and others.

A Promenade production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds"

Location; Nuremburg, 1945-46

Picture; Maxbrücke in Nürnberg bei Nacht, Andreas Flohr, 2012, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license, Verdict, 1946, Low Visibility A Cartoon History, 1945-53, David Low, 1953, View from above of the judges' bench at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.  Photograph | Photograph Number: 61332, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, 1945 October 18 - 1946 October 01

* Nuremberg, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000z1k2