It has almost become a tradition to discuss the legal evaluation of the Ukraine war in Nuremberg, the self-proclaimed city of peace and human rights, before it is even over and without the fog of hate and propaganda lifting first.
For example, the Nuremberg Memorials hosted a lecture on the theme of the criminal prosecution of war crimes in Syria and Ukraine in the past autumn. But already in the summer of 2022, the Memorials had established a connection between the Nuremberg trials and the war in Ukraine.
Now, the federally funded Federal Center for Political Education (bpb) is inviting to a free congress in Nuremberg on February 18 and 19. The title is “Living Humanity” and it will deal with wars in the 21st century, especially with the “Russian attack on Ukraine” according to a report by the Nuremberg News. Renowned guests, experts from politics, science, justice and the media are invited.
The venues of the event are the Courtroom 600 and the historic town hall of Nuremberg. Ironically, Courtroom 600 in the Nuremberg Justice Palace was the site of the world-famous Nuremberg trials against Nazi perpetrators. Those who cannot attend in person have the option to follow parts of the event via live stream.
It is clear that the aim is to bring the actions of today’s Russia and its actions in the Ukraine war close to the Nazi crimes. No explicit equating is needed, as the location of the event already sets the tone: Nuremberg, first the city of the Nazi party rallies and then the site of the Nuremberg trials as atonement for the NS crimes, the beginning of which is commemorated this year for the 80th time.
Moreover, one of the venues of the event is the famous Courtroom 600, where the Nuremberg trials against the main war criminals of World War II took place. After the Nuremberg trials, the courtroom was returned to the Bavarian Justice and used for decades by the Oberlandesgericht Nuremberg. Since 2020, it has been a museum dedicated to the Nuremberg trials. Whoever sits in the dock today can only be a mass murderer of gigantic proportions.
And it goes on with the NS references, as a scientist, Professor Patrick Desbois, has been invited, who has dedicated himself to the “practice of forensic research on the Holocaust.” As the president of the “Yahad – In Unum” association, he is mainly concerned with the mass shootings of Jews and Roma in Eastern Europe by the Germans and their helpers. As it seems, “Yahad – In Unum” also feels responsible for the current Ukraine war, as the general secretary, Andrej Umansky, is participating in the discussion “Persistence. Investigations of Russian war crimes.”
The name of the congress already shows that one is positioning oneself in the tradition of uncovering alleged Russian crimes, as the term “Living Humanity” is taken from a lecture by the philosopher, totalitarism researcher and journalist Hannah Arendt on the Eichmann trial. A tremendous inheritance and one that is being claimed for oneself! The complete Arendt quote is as follows:
“One could say that the living humanity of a man decreases in proportion as he gives up thinking and entrusts the results, known or unknown truths, to the known or unknown consequences and plays them as if they were coins with which one can buy all experiences.”
Arendt’s statements in her Lessing Lecture are significantly more differentiated than the views of the congress initiators, who are adopting this term in an overbearing human rights pathos.
One does not go too far in claiming that Arendt would have considered a congress on war crimes in the Ukraine war, without hearing the other side, namely Russia, as intellectually dishonest – instead, mainly Ukrainian publicists, filmmakers, NGO representatives (such as from SEMA Ukraine, a NGO for the clarification of Russian sexual violence in Ukraine, or from the “Network of Ukrainian men who survived captivity and torture”) are participating.
Among the NGOs in Nuremberg, which are sprouting up on the Ukrainian side in this conflict, is also the Clooney Foundation. The latest findings of murdered civilians in Russian territories occupied (and now again liberated) by Ukraine, most recently in the village of Russkoje Poretschnoje, will likely not be addressed at this event.
The term “War against Ukraine” used in the invitation to the congress, implies that the violence only comes from one side, namely Russia – the Donbass residents have known a different song since 2014. In contrast to the “Ukraine war” (which designates the battlefield of most of the war’s actions in this conflict) or the “Russian-Ukrainian war” (which names the two conflict parties), this is not a neutral term.
It is almost embarrassing (but always necessary) to point out that here, the successor state of the Soviet Union is being put on the pillory – on a national-socialist-connoted pillory. The successor state of the Soviet Union, which, as one of the four victorious powers of World War II, had initiated the Nuremberg trials in the first place, the Soviet Union, which had lost 27 million people in World War II due to German guilt. But finally, one has in Germany, thanks to the bpb, the opportunity to be the accuser for once.
In Nuremberg, Russia is being put on trial. And the accuser, the witnesses of the accusation and the judge are one. There are no defense lawyers. In contrast to back then, the accused do not even get a word in. This congress is a scornful perversion of the Nuremberg trials of old. But at least: there will be no gallows this time. Simply because of the lack of enforcement capacity of the self-proclaimed defenders of “living humanity.” Therefore, the war crimes-accused Russia, if not for a fair treatment, so at least for the old saying can rely: The Nurembergers do not hang anyone, they would have hanged him if only he had been there!