War Crimes ….. the historical perspective …. one to listen to

At a time when war crimes, and the calls for the prosecution of “war criminals” fills the news it is fitting to go back and review those  trials that arose out of the events of the Second World War.

The Verdict, 1953

These were the Nuremburg and Tokyo Trials followed by that of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1963.

They were the subject of today’s BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week and consisted of a discussion by a group of academics, authors and journalists which explored the 

history of the trials the motives of the Victorious powers and the attempts at justification by the Nazi and Japanese accused. 

“The legal framework to prosecute war crimes and prohibit the use of ‘aggressive war’ came out of the international war crimes tribunals after WWII – in Germany and Japan. In Judgement at Tokyo the academic and writer Gary J. Bass retells the dramatic courtroom battles as Japan’s militaristic leaders were held accountable for their crimes. 

With prosecutors and judges drawn from eleven different Allied countries tensions flared, and justice in the Asia Pacific played out amidst the start of the Cold War, China's descent into civil war, and the end of the European empires.

Calling out Antisemitism, 2024

The political philosopher Hannah Arendt witnessed the end of the trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1963, coining the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ – a term that is often mistakenly believed to mean that evil had become ordinary. 

View from above of the judges' bench at the International Military Tribunal 

In We Are Free To Change The World, the writer Lyndsey Stonebridge explores Arendt’s writings on power and terror, love and justice, and their relevance in today’s uncertain times.

As the world grows increasingly turbulent war crimes justice is needed more than ever, but it appears to be failing. Since the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands opened in 2002 it has jailed just five war criminals. 

The journalist and war reporter Chris Stephen looks back at its history and examines alternative options in The Future of War Crimes Justice.

Producer: Katy Hickman”.*

Of course, how each listener will judge the programme will in part be informed by their own perspective and political stance.  But a programme well worth the listen.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Pictures; Verdict, 1946, Low Visibility A Cartoon History, 1945-53, David Low, 1953, Calling out Antisemitism, 2024, Manchester, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 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

*War crimes Justice, Start the Week, BBC, Radio 4,https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vktw

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