»Die Nürnberger Prozesse in polnischer und deutscher Perspektive«. Podiumsdiskussion

In the organizer's words:

Panel discussion on the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials (20.11.1945 - 14.04.1949) with: Dr. Ute Caumanns (Chair of Eastern European History, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), Dr. Dominika Uczkiewicz (Pilecki Institute Warsaw), moderated by Dr. Jürgen Kaumkötter (Director of the Centre for Persecuted Arts in Solingen).

After the end of the Second World War, the agreements reached at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences led to the establishment of an International Military Tribunal based in Nuremberg, where the first of the so-called Nuremberg Trials began in November 1945, which is regarded as a model for international criminal jurisdiction. The charges focused on four main categories: Crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity and conspiracy.

The defendants in the Nuremberg Trials represented a cross-section of the German elite responsible for the criminal policies of the Third Reich. The defendants included Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, as well as doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, members of the SS, the Gestapo and senior officers of the Wehrmacht.

The jurisdiction of Nuremberg was also supplemented by the war crimes trials before the Supreme National Court in Poland.

The Nuremberg Trials introduced concepts such as crimes against humanity or crimes against peace into international law for the first time. They pointed to the individual responsibility of the perpetrators, even if they acted in the name of the state. The findings of Nuremberg became the basis for the development of international criminal law and the establishment of the Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. They defined the standards for fair trials and public accountability for the most serious human rights violations and serve as a reference point for war crimes and genocide trials in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Nuremberg Trials prove that no totalitarian system can escape the judgment of history and that the fundamental values of law and justice are timeless. They are an important reminder and basis for the defense of human rights.

Please confirm your participation by April 23, 2026 by e-mail to:
duesseldorf@instytutpolski.pl

A joint event of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus Foundation, the Polish Institute Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and the Center for Persecuted Arts in Solingen.