Hitlerian Jurisprudence: American Periodical Media Responses to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, 1945-1948

Since its conclusion, jurists, legal scholars, and historians have heralded the Nuremberg Trial as a landmark in international jurisprudence. Scholars have highlighted Nuremberg’s prosecution of those responsible for the Holocaust, and applauded the trials’ conviction of war criminals. These precedents have continued to inform discussions of war crimes and international law for the last sixty years. More recently, commentators have invoked Nuremberg’s positive legacy in support of the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic and attempts to create an international criminal court.

This paper examines popular periodical responses to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial between 1945 and 1948. It describes the nature and content of those reactions, and explores their significance in relation to contemporary understandings of the proceedings. In contrast to representations of Nuremberg that arose in the 1960’s, initial responses to the trial exhibited significant and sustained criticism. Most significantly, articles challenged the legality of the proceedings, and presented arguments that undermined the legitimacy of the trial’s core project: the prevention of aggressive war. These reactions stand in opposition to contemporary representations of the trial, and point to a need to reevaluate Nuremberg’s legacy.

The research for this project included the examination of 13 periodicals between the years of 1939 and 1995 for articles relating to the Nuremberg trial. A resulting total of more than 250 pieces formed the core primary sources for this project and provided a thorough and representative account of media response. Evidence was also gathered from the writings of Robert H. Jackson, former Supreme Court Justice and lead Allied prosecutor at the trials, and numerous secondary sources.