Abstract
The trials of the Axis “war criminals” held by the Allies came to be justi- fied by its twofold aim: on the one hand, to punish the war of aggression, the infraction of the rules of war, and the violation of the principles of human civilization; on the other hand, the democratic re-education of the vanquished. The trials were a combination of jurisprudence and politics and, inasmuch as they were decisive aspects of the Allied occupation policy in the territories of the Axis regimes, also ways of presenting the victors’ moral virtue, as well as the condemnation without appeal of the defeated. They contributed to building between 1945 and 1948 the “orthodox” historical-political conception of Europe’s recent past.
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Notes
Michael R. Marrus, “The Holocaust at Nuremberg,” Yad Vashem Studies, no. 26 (1998): 5–41;
J. Wilke et al., Holocaust NS-Prozesse ( Cologne: Bölhau, 1995 ).
See also A. Rücken, NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht: Versuch einer Vergangenheitsbewältigung ( Heilelberg: C. E Müller, 1982 ), 111–12;
Dirk De Mildt, In the Name of the People: Perpetrators of Genocide in the Reflection of their Post-War Prosecution in West Germany (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1996);
finally, see Mark Osiel, Mass Atrocity, Collective Memory and the Law ( New Brunswick: Transaction, 1997 ).
See Donald Bloxham, Genocide on Trial ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 ), 2.
See Bradley Smith, The Road to Nuremberg ( London: Andre Deutsch, 1982 );
Anna Tusa, John Tusa, The Nuremberg Trial ( London: Atheneum, 1983 );
Arieh J. Kochavi, Prelude to Nuremberg ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998 );
G. Ginsburg and V. N. Kudriatsev, eds., The Nuremberg Trial and International Law ( Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1990 );
J. Heydesker and J. Leeb, Der Nürnberger Prozess: Bilanz der Tausend Jahre ( Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1959 );
Peter Calvocoressi, Nuremberg: The Facts, the Law and the Consequences ( London: Chatto and Windus, 1948 ).
There is still an echo of such an attitude toward the Marshal in British historiography: Kenneth Macksey, editor of the third edition (1988) in English the first was in 1953) of Kesselring’s Memoirs, and Shelford Bildwell, in 1989, have continued to foster the image of the first-class strategist and the soldier detached from the regime, conservative but liberally inclined. Kenneth Macksey, Kesselring: German Master Strategist of the Second War (London: Greuill Books, 2000), 203, originally published, Kesselring. The Maker of the Luftwaffe, 1978.
See also S. Bildwell, “Kesselring. Field-Marshal Albert Kesselring,” in Hitler’s Generals, ed. Correlli Barnett (New York: Grove and Weidenfeld, 1989 ).
Michel Foucault, Dits et écrits 1954–1988, vol. 4 ( Paris: Gallimard, 1994 ), 306.
B. Pisik, “World Tribunal vs. Sovereignty,” The Washington Times, October 26, 1998. The International Criminal Court was finally set up in July 2002. On the International Tribunal and Japanese war crimes, cf. Sabino Cassese, I diritti umani nel mondo contemporaneo (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1988 ), 69ff.; and John Rawls, Hiroshima, non dovevamo ( Milan: Reset, 1995 ).
Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam. An American Tragedy (New York: Bantam Books, 2001) 130ff.
Frank Buscher, The U.S. War Crimes Trial Program in Germany, 1946–1955 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1989), 284ff.
See also Peter Maguire, Law and War: An American Story (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 130ff.
See G. E. Gründler and A. von Manikoawsky, Nuremberg ou la justice des vainqueurs ( Paris: Laffont, 1969 ), 38–52.
Peter Novick, The Resistance versus Vichy. The Purge of Collaborators in Liberated France ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1968 ), 269.
Peter Romijn, Snel, streng en rechtrvaardig. Politiek beleid inzake de bestraffing en reclassering van ‘foute’ Nederlanders 1944–1955 ( Houten: De Haan, 1989 ).
Herbert Lottmann, The People’s Anger: Justice and Revenge in Post-Liberation France ( London: Hutchinson, 1986 ).
See, Roy Palmer Domenico, Italian Fascists on Trial: 1943–1948 ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991 ).
Rosario Romeo, Italia mille anni. DaIl’età feudale all’Italia moderna ed europea (Florence: Le Monnier, 1981), 220–69; with regard to which, the following is useful: Gennaro Sasso, “Rosario Romeo e l’idea di nazione. Appunti e consid-erazionis” in II rinnovamento della storiografia politica. Studi in memoria di Rosario Romeo, ed. Guido Pescosolido, 113–43 ( Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 1995 ).
Claudio Pavone, Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza ( Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 1993 ), 560.
See Giorgio Pullini, II romanzo Italiano del dopoguerra 1940–1960 ( Milan: Schwarz, 1965 ), 151–81;
Raffaele Liucci, La tentazione della casa in collina. Il disimpegno degli intellettuali nella guerra civile italiana 1943–1945 (Milan: Unicopli, 2002), 153ff.;
which leads back, above all, to the work by Giuseppe Berto, Il cielo è rosso ( Milan: Longanesi, 1947 ).
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Battini, M. (2007). A Brutal Peace and the Nuremberg Consensus. In: Pugliese, S.G. (eds) The Missing Italian Nuremberg. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230607453_7
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