Rethinking Nuremberg for the 21st Century

"Vanderbilt'svision of the trial for 22 of the surviving Nazi leaders-21 were in fact in the dock-by the United Sates, the USSR, Britain, and France telegraphs its anxieties across the 80 years from the trial's opening to today. At Nuremberg's first public session, on November 20, 1945, journalists heralded the opening of "the trial of the century." Nuremberg's message to the law and politics of the previous century was the way claiming to be "just following orders" shouldn't cancel individual responsibility for widespread atrocities."

""I was just following orders" became a meme before there were memes. It featured as a recognizable tagline for Nuremberg's legacy in a variety of cultural, legal, and even scientific contexts of the twentieth century-from Stanley Milgram's electric shock experiments to comic books -and an was an especially poignant headline for activists protesting the conduct of America's war in Vietnam."

The Allied International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg prosecuted top Nazi leaders and established that "just following orders" does not absolve individual responsibility for atrocities. The trial involved defendants from the United States, the USSR, Britain, and France and opened publicly on November 20, 1945 as a landmark legal moment. The phrase "just following orders" entered wider culture, influencing experiments, comics, and antiwar activism. The contemporary film version updates the message to stress that the dark side of humanity exists in all people and that accountability must apply universally, including to those who wield great power.

Read at The Nation