Le Moment Nuremberg: Le procès international, les lawyers et la question raciale, by Guillaume Mouralis

Abstract

Turning-point or dead end? Success or failure? Interest in the International Military Tribunal (IMT) which tried twenty-two leading Nazis at Nuremberg from October 1945 to October 1946 shows no sign of abating. This is because the IMT’s significance can be read in different contexts—the end of the Second World War, the de-Nazification of Germany, the development of international law, the history of penal proceedings and the stigmatisation of the violence of modern war. That some of these contexts remain live further affects views on this, one of history’s most innovative trials. Innovation is the key. Whatever it did or did not achieve, Nuremberg (along with the parallel Tokyo Tribunal) was unique. It was the product of ‘total victory’ by Allies who would soon confront each other in the Cold War. But rather than use summary judgments followed by execution, the Allies sought to reaffirm the values that their erstwhile enemy...