29 Spring 2026 Albert Speer, the most educated and intelligent of the revolting group sitting on the defendants’ bench, was deeply impressed by the opening speech and took comfort in the fact that it was directed at the defendants rather than at the German people as a whole — but he was mistaken. Jackson meticulously enumerated all the “organizations and groups” that had operated within the Nazi state — the SA, the SS, the SD, the Gestapo, the party leadership, and others — and defined them as criminal organizations, which together encompassed much of the German population. Moreover, the prosecution sought to put the government and the army on trial as well. The tribunal opposed this, but they were tried in separate proceedings that followed the main trial. Jackson began preparing his speech in May 1945, when he was appointed by President Harry Truman, and the preparations lasted until November. The speech was written with the assistance of Jewish scholars, who for the first time defined the unprecedented crimes committed by the Nazis. Their contribution was decisive: Professor Hersch Lauterpacht, whom Jackson consulted at his home in Cambridge, coined the term “crimes against humanity”; Professor Aron Naumovich Trainin coined the term “crime against peace”; and Dr. Jacob Robinson, appointed as Jackson’s advisor on Jewish affairs, coined the term “overall conspiracy.” Dr. Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” — the murder of a people — and was assisted by Dr. Robert Kempner, although after lengthy discussions, this term was not included in the central documents of the trial nor in the final verdict, as will be explained below. Dozens of other Jewish scholars assisted, and the historical committee of the Munich Displaced Persons Center sent extensive, documented material on war criminals. Jewish interpreters fluent in German and other languages, psychologists assigned to the defendants, clerks, journalists, photographers, and others also played key roles, reporting on the trial to the world in general and to the Jewish world in particular. The linguistic proficiency common among Jews helped resolve communication problems in this Tower of Babel that was Nuremberg, where most representatives of the Allied powers did not know one another’s languages.4 The Avengers unit stationed in Nuremberg was fully informed of all details about the conduct of the trial. Its members read the local and Jewish press, which reported extensively on the trial, and befriended several Jewish American soldiers, especially those born in their hometowns. They knew that in his opening speech Jackson devoted considerable space to crimes against Jews,5 but they were unaware of the enormous contribution of the Jewish scholars. Had they known, they would have rebelled even more strongly against the structure of the trial, which failed to grant the Holocaust a distinct and central place, and against the decision not to summon witnesses who could provide a vivid picture beyond dry documentation. They certainly could not have imagined that after the leadership trial, twelve additional trials would be conducted in Nuremberg until April 1949, involving government ministers, Wehrmacht commanders, leaders of medical and industrial institutions, the Einsatzgruppen, and others; or that dozens more trials would follow throughout occupied Germany and Europe, including the Soviet Union, yet none of them would deal with the Holocaust as such. The annihilation of the Jews was never defined as a separate criminal offense, neither at Nuremberg nor in the subsequent trials. The material presented by the prosecution shows that the scope of the Holocaust was known to the tribunal, given the involvement of many Jewish researchers. The justification offered for not addressing the Holocaust explicitly was that the tribunal did not adjudicate crimes against specific groups, but against all humanity; that testimony was presented on behalf of states harmed by Germany, and Jews had no state, no separate army, and therefore could not be counted among the victors. Indeed, more than one and a half million Jews fought in Allied armies, underground movements and partisan units, but not as a distinct national force. Another argument was that other groups would demand separate trials and witnesses, and that Jewish witnesses, if permitted to testify, would be overly emotional and vengeful and would do more harm than good.6 4. The introduction to Marion Mushkat, THE NUREMBERG TRIAL, THE JUDGEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL (Yad Vashem 1961), lists dozens of Jews who helped the Case. See also Philippe Sands, EAST WEST STREET: ON THE ORIGINS OF GENOCIDE AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2017), especially on the role of Lauterpacht and Lemkin. 5. Supra note 3, at 33-47. 6. Laura Jokusch, “Justice at Nuremberg? Jewish Responses to Nazi War-crime Trials in the Allied Occupied Germany,” 19 JEWISH SOCIAL STUDIES 109-147 (Fall 2012).
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