Nov. 20 marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg Trial, set up by the Allied powers after World War II to prosecute Nazi war criminals.
The first Nuremberg Trial, run by the Allies' International Military Tribunal, set a precedent for international prosecution of individuals for mass wartime atrocities. It also offers an important lesson that is being overlooked in today's international tribunals in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, said Duke University historian Claudia Koonz. (The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal trying Saddam Hussein is not an international court.)
"The time has come to conclude these international tribunals and turn justice over to the Serbians and Rwandans -- whether or not they accept the charge," Koonz said.
The Nuremberg Trial prosecuted some of the highest-level Nazi officials, mostly for waging war against peaceful nations, said Koonz, author of "The Nazi Conscience." But it was German national courts that over the course of four decades tried most cases involving crimes against humanity.
"The International Military Tribunal succeeded because it marked not the termination of the search for justice but its beginning," said Koonz, who teaches courses on modern genocide.
The last major trial of a Nazi official finished in 1992, when Josef Schwammberger was sentenced to life in prison by a German court on multiple counts of murder and accessory to murder.
"The Nuremberg Trials showed us there's a place for an international court in addressing mass atrocities, but also that an individual country ultimately must assume or reject responsibility for judging its past," Koonz said.
Unlike Nuremberg's International Military Tribunal, which tried 24 major war criminals in less than a year, international tribunals in The Hague (for the former Yugoslavia) and Arusha, Tanzania, (for Rwanda) have dragged on for 12 and eight years, she said.