Stalin’s Creation & Jackson’s Contribution

Abstract

Interest in the Nuremberg trials is booming once again. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg—by Francine Hirsch, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—is about the Soviet role in the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg. The book has acquired new relevance since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in violation of international law. Strikingly, not only have the Ukrainian government, and some Western politicians and scholars of international law floated the idea of a new Nuremberg Tribunal, Russian Duma members have as well. Writing recently in Time magazine, Hirsch argued that indicting Vladimir Putin and leading Russian politicians for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression would require the creation of an ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal or Special Tribunal. Such an indictment, however, should not have a political character, Hirsch points out, but such a trial would offer the possibility of creating a “complete historical record.” A “Nuremberg 2.0” organized by the Russian government would be a “dark alternative” in Hirsch’s eyes. She writes in Time magazine: “This would inevitably be a Soviet-style show trial—a kangaroo court that would degrade international law and could taint the meaning of Nuremberg forever.”1 This viewpoint—that the Soviet Union was fixed on political show trials much as the Putin government may be today—is reflected in Hirsch’s book. However, Hirsch also suggests that international criminal trials always have a political character or partisan interest that must be considered ambivalently: in a positive light, because there is a didactic goal in coming to terms with the past through criminal proceedings; and in a negative light, because impartiality is questionable if the crimes of only one warring party are tried.