The International Military Court of Justice that convened at Nuremberg (November 1945 - October 1946) was described by one British judge as 'the greatest trial in history.' Over subsequent decades, historians have debated the form and content of the trial, its meaning and legacies. Some regard it as the cornerstone of a new era of human rights-consciousness, enshrining new norms (such as 'crimes against humanity') into international law while admitting vivid testimony and visual evidence into the court. But other critics consider the Nuremberg trial as problematic in both its precepts and procedures, such as its failure to make 'genocide' the central crime of which the indicted were accused, and the Soviets' role in the proceedings. In this seminar, we will consider the conduct and ramifications of the trial through two optics: first, the perspective of one notable contemporary observer, Rebecca West, a British reporter and novelist; and second, the lens of historiography.

Seminar questions:

• what variety of ends did the Allies hope the staging of a major trial of German war criminals would achieve?
• what, according to both historians and Rebecca West, were the key flaws with the IMT's procedure? Are critics right to condemn the IMT as a manifestation of 'victors' justice'?
• with reference to Hirsch's AHR article, how would you appraise the Soviets' contributions to Nuremberg?
• how do we explain the disjuncture between the historical momentousness of the IMT and the overwhelming boredom of the participants and observers West describes?
• what light does 'Greenhouse with Cyclamens' shed on postwar Germany, and German attitudes, more generally?

Seminar slidesLink opens in a new window.

Required Reading:

Primary source: Rebecca West, A Train of Powder (1955), 'Greenhouse with Cyclamens (1946)', Part I [read parts II & III if writing an essay on this topic] e-book

Secondary sources: Francine Hirsch, 'The Soviets at Nuremberg: International Law, Propaganda, and the Making of the Postwar Order,' American Historical Review 113 (June 2008): 701-30

Kim Christian Priemel, 'Consigning Justice to History: Transitional Trials after the Second World War', Historical Journal 56, ii (2013): 553-81

Supplementary Reading:

Gary J. Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton University Press, 2014), e-book, ch. 5, 'Nuremberg'

Gary J. Bass, Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia (Picador, 2023)

Donald Bloxham, Genocide on Trial: War Crimes Trials and the Formation of Holocaust History and Memory (OUP, 2001), e-book

Elizabeth Borgwardt, 'A New Deal for the Nuremberg Trial: The Limits of Law in Generating Human Rights Norms', Law and History Review 26, iii (Fall 2008): 679-705

Christian Delage et al (eds), Caught on Camera: Film in the Courtroom from the Nuremberg Trials to the Trials of the Khmer Rouge (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)

Tomaz Jardim, The Mauthausen Trial: American Military Justice in Germany (Harvard University Press, 2012)

Barak Kushner, Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice (Harvard University Press, 2015), e-book

Michael R. Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945-46: A Documentary History (Bedford/St Martins, 1997)

Richard H. Minear, Victors' Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes' Trial (Princeton UP, 1971)

William T. Murphy, 'Nuremberg: A Definitive Survey of the Evidentiary Films,' Film & History, 50, ii (Winter 2020): 3-19

Kim C. Priemel and Alexa Stiller (eds), Reassessing the Nuremberg Military Tribunals: Transitional Justice, Trial Narratives and Historiography (Berghahn Books, 2014)

Caroline Sharples, 'Holocaust on Trial: Mass Observation and British Media Responses to the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1945-46' in Caroline Sharples and Olaf Jensen (eds.), Britain and the Holocaust: Remembering and Representing War and Genocide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: the Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II (Harvard University Asia Center : 2008)

Ulrike Weckel,'Watching the Accused Watch the Nazi Crimes: Observers’ Reports on the Atrocity Film Screenings in the Belsen, Nuremberg and Eichmann Trials,' London Review of International Law, 6, i (March 2018)

A.T. Williams, A Passing Fury: Searching for Justice at the End of World War II (Jonathan Cape, 2016)