Language:
English
Year of publication:
1998
Titel der Quelle:
Yad Vashem Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
26 (1998) 1-41
Keywords:
War crime trials
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946
Abstract:
The Nuremberg Trials presented the first definition and documentation on the Holocaust to a non-Jewish audience; they included the genocide of the Jews in the understanding of Nazism and of World War II. However, the prosecutors and the judges made mistakes both in details and in the wider conception - e.g. failing to recognize a Nazi plan or conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, and focusing on crimes committed in the occupied areas, they downplayed the persecution of Jews in Germany in 1933-39 and included the genocide of Jews with other crimes against humanity or war crimes. They regarded the Nazi anti-Jewish policy only as instrumental in the Nazis' drive to power and in the consolidation of their rule in Europe and failed to set the Nazis' assault on Jewry within the framework of a well-articulated antisemitic ideology. The prosecutors did not pursue the issue of the influence of the Nazis' antisemitic ideology on the perpetration of the mass murder of the Jews. Nonetheless, Nuremberg helped to achieve recognition of the Holocaust as an event of worldwide significance, and thus served the world well.
Note:
See also in Hebrew.
,
Appeared also in "Holocaust; Critical Concepts in Historical Studies" VI (2004).
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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