The Nuremberg Trials hold everlasting historical importance: they exposed heinous crimes by Nazism and militarism to the whole world and demonstrated the danger of them being revived in any form. Writes Ambassador Alexander Mantytsky
On November 20, 1945, the trials over major Nazi war criminals began in Nuremberg, which went down in history as the Verdict of Nations. Our country as the liberator of Europe from the Nazi plague was one of the originators of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
It was legally based on the Declaration of the Responsibility of the Hitlerites for the Atrocities Committed, which was approved at the Moscow Conference in 1943, and the Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis signed by the USSR, the United States, the United Kingdom and France in 1945.
It is of principal importance that the historical objective of the trial was to bring major initiators and perpetrators of Nazi atrocities to justice; the trial was in no way an act of revenge against the German people, who, to a certain extent, became hostages to Hitler’s policy.
The Nuremberg Tribunal was held to bring a harsh but fair judgment to the Nazi criminals and also to promote a comprehensive assessment of the tragic lessons of the Second World War and the causes of the misanthropic ideology of Nazism. The Tribunal made an invaluable contribution to the creation of the modern legal framework and to ensuring the inviolability of the global historical foundation of the Great Victory.
The Nuremberg Trials hold everlasting historical importance: they exposed heinous crimes by Nazism and militarism to the whole world and demonstrated the danger of them being revived in any form. Clearly, the Nuremberg Tribunal’s legacy is not limited to law, but has enormous political, moral and educational value. A strong vaccination against the revival of Nazism in all its forms and manifestations was made 75 years ago.
Regrettably, the effectiveness of the vaccine against Nazism created during the international trials has greatly decreased. Nazis and their accomplices have not only been justified but the ideology and practices of the Third Reich have been revived in several European countries, above all Ukraine and the Baltics, on a new, national-state, basis. The bloodthirsty activities of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis in Donbass and the regions controlled by the criminal Kiev regime are the grim evidence of this.
Russia will continue to vigorously and consistently oppose any attempts to falsify history, to glorify Nazi criminals and their henchmen, and to oppose the revision of the internationally recognized outcomes of World War II, including the Nuremberg rulings. The overwhelming majority of the international community members agree with us in this regard.
Russian diplomacy has always been committed to the firm moral principles and the memory of our forefathers, who fought heroically to protect peace and freedom during the Great Patriotic War. We will continue to do everything in our power to counter any forms of the glorification of Nazism, prevent a revision of the results of the Second World War, and preserve the historical memory of the heroic and tragic pages in the history of Russia and the world.
The exhibition on the Nuremberg trials and the first Russian feature film, Nuremberg, are expected to make a major contribution to combating the falsification of history and to demonstrate that crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations.
Alexander Mantytsky is the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Bangladesh.
