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We sincerely appreciate your support now and always, finally, technical issues may arise, if they do, we will do our best to resolve them quickly, thank you for your patience and understanding. Now im pleased to introduce tonight speaker professor Francine Hirsch is out abat the university of wisconsin madison. She teaches courses on soviet and modern european history, her first book empire of nation and cryptographic knowledge on the making of the soviet union received several awards including the Herbert Baxter adams prize of the american historical association. Joshua rubenstein has been professionally involved with human rights and International Affairs for over 40 years as an activist and independently recognized scholar of literature aband politics in the former soviet union. s books include soviet events, struggle for human rights in the last days of stalin and his writings have appeared in the wall street journal, new york times, boston globe and many more, tonight they will be discussing francines book soviet judgement at nuremberg, a new history of the International Military after World War Two called the copperheads of and celebratory new history by lynn viola, author of the stalinist perpetrator on trial. Im pleased to turn things over to connect speakers francine and josh at the podium is all yours. Very nice, thank you. I want to congratulate francine on her wonderful book, and holding it up. Francine, lets begin with kind of a preface question, lets begin by reminding our listeners about when the nuremberg trials took place and what was their purpose . I wanted to also say thank you to the Harvard Bookstore and the data center and to you joshua, its a real honor to be here today. To begin, the nuremberg trials also known as the International Military tribunal or imt, just placed november 1945 october 1946 and occupied germany and coming up on the 75th anniversary. For countries United States, great britain, france and the soviet union got together to tie the former nazi leaders and organization for conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. This was of course the first of the nuremberg trials but the only for power one 12 steps to put nuremberg trials that happen later including the ab were carried out by the c alone and i want to say from the start that thats one of the reasons that Many Americans tend to associate nuremberg with the United States, there are other reasons as well we can talk about too. Went to the allies led by Franklin RooseveltWinston Churchill and joseph stalin, wonder they began to discuss whether and how to hold nazi readers responsible for their crimes . Wonder that process began . This began in the middle of the Second World War and what i want to say and whats one of the key arguments i make in the book is that nuremberg would not have happened without the soviet union because right from the start the soviets were the one who were really out in front calling for special International Tribunal, made an announcement calling for this of the darkest phase of the war in october 1942 for a number of reasons including the soviets saw this as key for reparations, the war was horrible for the soviet union and in this pronounced molotov culture the cooperation of all interest in governments in bringing aband other nazi leaders to justice. Of course there were many discussions about the war and many discussions about how to bring the nazis to justice but in terms of an International Tribunal, britain and the United States were at first reluctant about this idea and especially reluctant about the idea of having any kind of trial before the war it was over because they were very concerned about retributions. I see, your book soviet judgement at nuremberg provides a long overdue account of how soviet legal theorist contributed to the allies understanding of war crimes such as crimes against peace and the waging an aggressive war should be directed against the leadership, the nazi leadership and including their political and military leaders, how were you able to document their role in creating the Legal Framework the nuremberg trials . Do you have a favorite document or two from the archives you would like to tell us about . I love the archives and while in moscow i worked in a number of different archives in terms of the book as a whole the ministry of Foreign Affairs archive was perhaps the most fruitful to work in in terms of documenting the actual day today going nons of the trial, the Party Archives from the government archives but in terms of the legal side of things, it was wonderful to work in the archive the academy of sciences. The soviet jurists who had such an influential role was alan trying you know, abwas a journalist at the academy of Sciences Institute of law and as the war was going on in april 1942 soviet leaders turned to lawyers there and asked them to study this question of the criminal responsibility of leaders for waging war of aggression and for crimes that were carried out during war of aggression which was not a part of International Law we can talk about the details people are interested in later but working in the ministry of institute of law of archives i was able to see the early draft of his ideas that later became part of the book called the criminal responsibility of the rights, i was able to see the deliberations among the lawyers at the academy of sciences and the role of Andre Burzynski which we will talk about later more because he ends up heading a couple of secret commissions to try to receive the soviet delegation. Those archives were important, the same in terms of tracing try edens role the role of the soviet jurists and how his ideas became fundamental for the child it was key to look not just in the moscow archives but archives in the United States as well wonderful find and working in the archive of murray binet, which is at the university of wyoming bernet is the one who typically gets credit for bringing in the idea about aggressive war and certain ideas about conspiracy but we know from his archive that he was reading try edens work as well so that was one way to trace things and also looking at the United Nations archives material, that was a commission that preceded the actual United Nations that met in london as i was talking about also the question of punishing war criminals that they were also read try edens work. It was really a lot of fun to look at this paper trail and see you try edens work go from the institute of law to the ministry of Foreign Affairs and to eventually make it to london and then the United States. One was the median london . When did they start meeting in western europe or england to discuss plans for such a trial . In terms of the early days of the United NationsWar Crimes Commission its 1942 but i would have to double check and terms of the exact details of when that is happening, the ideas were introduced, they start to get a hearing in 1943. Its actually the height of the war. This is all happening initially while the soviets over the at work ethics at the height of the war in terms of the london commission, i would have to double check that. But it was at a point they were clear who would win the war. Thats exactly right. Thats part of why, it was never clear that the nuremberg trials would happen or any trial would happen and i think whats so remarkable on the soviet side of things is that the soviets really in the darkest days of the war they are talking about a potential trial of war criminals, theyve also set up their own War Crimes Commission the Extraordinary State Commission with the explicit aim of documenting every single war crime and every atrocity committed and occupied soviet territory. And before victory victory is a dream, the soviet union has been destroyed at the very beginning of the war, the amount of devastation thats been done to industries to towns to cities, to the countryside, its astounding. Its really at that moment things are so grim that the soviets are really starting to think about this question of war crimes. And with other countries not being so interested at that point. Among the war crimes the germans are carrying outcome of the Eastern Front the soviet front where the systematic shooting jews in towns and villages and cities throughout german occupied soviet territory documenting those crimes as well. Yes they were absolutely. The Extraordinary State Commission was very carefully documenting those crimes and not just the Extraordinary State Commission, the nk bd the soviet police was gathering reports of those crimes as well. Howard jurists from such different legal traditions from america, great britain, france, soviet union, how were they able to coordinate their efforts as they plan the tribunal, collected evidence, carried out proceedings over very many months. There mustve been moments of real contention in the understanding. It was not easy, this was not easy at all. On a very basic fundamental issue in these countries have different legal traditions, ab the legal tradition of france and the soviet union were closer than the soviets had their own kind of legal tradition that involved show trials and things along those lines. The four countries have very different political systems and they also had had very different experiences of the work. Think about the soviet union, which by the end of the war has lost 27 million people, which has been absolutely devastating. You think about france which has surrendered early, lost the war early. The United States on britain has gone a beating in the United States comes out in a better position comes into the war late and nowhere near those kinds of losses so everyone is coming to the table with different ideas about justice, with different ideas about what the tribunal eventually should look like, once they agree they should happen and there is mistrust, theres in some ways i write a lot in the book about the parties and the dinners and the events that happened outside of either the courtroom or the negotiating really london like before the pretrial period, i would say those were incredibly important at helping to smooth things along, because things were so incredibly contentious. Things were contentious for so many reasons in one we think about the indictment and might seem like a boring document but its not. The indictment was a work of history that these four different powers were putting together to tell the story about the war. They all wanted to tell a different story, they want to reclaim the story of the war for themselves. They all had Different Things they wanted included or left out, the british and the french didnt want munich pact included in the story of the war to stop the soviets, they wanted the molotov track to be included but only in a certain way, no one wanted to talk about any kind of working together with the nazis are appeasements, they wanted to leave that out. It becomes very contentious, even early on in terms of how the story is going to be told. I like to ask you specifically about two things, how do they work out what to say about the nazi soviet pact of august 1939, which led directly to the german invasion of poland and the start of world war ii in europe, germans invaded from the west and two or three weeks later the soviet union made it from the east. House that handled lust about a very delicate set of negotiations, secondly, we know now that under stalins orders thousands were murdered and the string of 1940 two soviet territory. After the soviet invasion of poland, the germans found those graves and they felt the soviet union and rightfully had carried out and they were in the soviet union liberated the territory they said look what we found. These are for the soviets things that they are worried about the most. When i say the soviets, these are the things that stalin is worried about the mouse, the things that molotov is worried about the most. When it comes to the molotov pact and when we are talking about the pact itself is a nonaggression pact but then there are these secret protocols that lay out the division of europe in case of war. I think one of the most interesting things, one of the most interesting documents that i found was a report from london from the soviet diplomat named giovanna who writes back that during these negotiations with become apparent that rebecca had not been told about the secret protocols. Whose identical cannot. The soviet chief prosecutor. The soviet chief prosecutor, they sent the soviet chief prosecutor first in london to work on the indictment, then eventually they tell him, im trying to get to nuremberg, he knows them we dont know exactly what he knows but he knows not. In london is flying blind. This is a big problem. One thing i want to make clear in terms of both of these, the molotov ribbentrop pact and secret protocols and athe soviets are not expecting a trial the way that we think about a trial. The soviet experience is more with the show trial in the sense of theres a trial with the script thats known from the start. They were very surprised to learn that the defense would be able to serve as witnesses on their own behalf, that they would be able to call witnesses, they thought that evidence that they introduced would stand because of article 21 in the chart that said evidence produced by any War Crimes Commission would accepted but they thought that this meant that the defense could contest it. So for conti and working the indictment they soviets, this is coming from moscow, this is coming from stalin, its coming from Andre Burzynski, having the secret commission, its coming from the soviet secret police, they make a decision to include canteen, massacre that the soviets had committed, they decide to included in the indictment as a german war crime. They had talked moscow before this about holding a show trial but then someone got the bright idea, lets go with it at nuremberg. It goes into the indictment and in the deliberations about the indictments among all four countries of the prosecution this is an issue. The americans have a pretty clear idea maybe not certain but probably likely at least plausible the soviets are the ones who committed the massacre and understand that in including this in the indictment as the nazi crime this is can threaten the credibility of the tribunal. So u. S. Chief prosecutor robert h jackson, maine u. S. Prosecutor and David Maxwell speight, who is the british deputy chief prosecutor but ends up playing the role of prosecutor comedy try to convince road echo to not include this at all and redone cosenzas hands are tied everyone understands his hands are tied like is under orders to have included, not only does it get included, the initial number soviets had put in was 900 something and then the last minute they changed it, i remember 10,000 or 11,000, jackson has this moment of, if the trials are going to go on, do we accept it . Theres moments of compromise that everyone is making ed road echo says ab bennett becomes a whole big thing in the tribunal when the nazis abwhen the German Defense basically asked to bring defense witnesses and contest the soviet charges and the western judges overruled the soviet judge to allow that to happen. That is a critical moment in the trial and something that plays out over the course of the trial and everyone really is concerned about and as the trial is Going Forward jackson is getting more and more evidence suggesting the soviets are guilty from the crime. How is it finally decided . When the nazi leaders were convicted, was the crime that coteen held against them or dropped . It was dropped. Theres not a lot of the documents about this i try to look for something that explains why its not included in the judgment but its not in the judgment. One of the most important soviet personalities you mentioned, andre abehind the soviet effort in nuremberg, remind us who he was and how he was involved with the International Military tribunal. I have a little bit, i have a couple of very short readings im going to do today and one of them is indeed about him, i will tell you a little bit about him when i set this up and i will be reading a little bit from chapter 5 of the book. I want to make clear that in nuremberg we have a coming together of four countr