Nuremberg war crimes court opens as museum
Baku, November 22 (AZERTAC). The Nuremberg courtroom in which a dozen senior Nazis were sentenced to death in 1946 was opened as a museum Sunday. The sombre ceremony was attended by both Germany`s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. British, French and US officials were also present, representing the four Allied World War II powers.
The museum, called Memorium, provides information on the 11-month main trial and follow-on trials, in a 750-square-metre attic space at the courthouse.
Westerwelle praised the role of the trials as a “response to the perversion of justice in Nazi Germany”, which set a precedent for the development international law.
“It was a great historic achievement that the Allies resisted the temptation to carry out revenge,” he said of the world`s first war crime trials.
Lavrov said this was never an option, insisting, “The Nuremberg trials were not supposed to be an act of revenge by the victors over the vanquished”.
As a sign of allegiance with present-day Germany, Lavrov presented the city of Nuremberg with unreleased files about the military tribunal. He said they were copies of Russian archives, detailing preparations for the trials, which he hoped would help process the Nazi past.
The inauguration, on the 65th anniversary of the start of the Nuremberg trials, was also attended by Benjamin Ferencz, one of the surviving prosecutors from the time.
The UN`s seven "Nuremberg Principles" defined special offences that are worse than murder and massacre and are now called crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Strengthening international law is a measure of our action in the UN, also in the UN Security Council,” Westerwelle said. Germany joins the Security Council as a non-permanent member for two years from 2011.
He also appealed for more states to join the 114 who accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, six decades on from the Nuremberg trials.
The Nuremberg trials made history by exposing Nazi oppression through the day-by-day reporting in the world`s media.
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