Harvard. Com events, and you can also sign up for our weekly newsletter and browse our shelves. This evenings discussion will conclude with time for questions. Go to the q a box at the bottom of the screen. Well get through as many as we can. In the chat box during this presentation, youll see a link to our online shop for Curbside Pickup or delivery. We thank you for your support during this trying time. You will also find a lunge to donate in the chat box link to donate in the chat box. Now more than ever, the future of a landmark independent bookstore, thank you for tuning in in support of our authors and the incredible staff of booksellers at Harvard Bookstore. We sincerely appreciate your support now and always. And finally, as you may have experienced these last few months, technical issues may arise. If they do, well to our best to solve them quickly and efficiently. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Now im pleased to introduce tonights speaker. Francine hirsch is professor of history at the university of wisconsinmadison where she teaches courses on soviet and modern european history. Her first book, empire of nations, receive several awards including the Herbert Baxter of american 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, suspense and politics in the former soviet union. His books include soviet dissidents and the last days of stalin, and his writings have appeared in the wall street journal, the new york times, the boston globe and many more. Tonight francines book, soviet judgment at nuremberg was called a comprehensive and revelatory new history. Im so pleased to turn things over to tonights speakers, francine and josh. The virtual podium is all yours. Thank you. How are you . Good. I want to congratulate francine on her wonderful book. Im holding it up with the cover. Francine, lets gun with kind of a begin with kind of a preface question, by reminding our listeners about when the nuremberg trials took place and what was their purpose . Sure, absolutely. I wanted to also say thank you to the Harvard Bookstore and the davis center and to you, joshua. Its a real honor to be here today. The nuremberg trials, also known as the International Military tribunal, imt, took place from november 1945october 1946, and were coming up on the 75th anniversary. Four countries, the United States, Great Britain, france and the soviet union got together to try the former nazi leaders and their organizations for conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes and crime against humanity. This was, of course; the first of the nuremberg trials, but it was the only fourpower one. The 12 subsequent nuremberg trials that happened later including the judges trial were carried out by the u. S. Alone, and i just want to say from the start thats one of the reasons that Many Americans tend to associate nuremberg with the United States. There are other reasons as well that we can talk about too. When did the allies, led by franklin roosevelt, Winston Churchill and josef stalin, when did they begin to discuss when and how to hold nazi leaders responsible for their crimes . When did that process began . Well, this process, work of course, began in the muddle of the second world war. One of the key arguments i make in the book is nuremberg would not have happened without the soviet union, because right from the start, the soviets were the ones calling for a tribunal. The foreign minister calling for an announcement made an announcement calling for this in the darkest days of the war, in 1942, for a number of reasons. The war was horrible to the soviet union. And in this pronouncement, molotov called for the cooperation of all interested governments in bringing nazi leaders to justice. Now, of course, there was many discussions about the war, 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, especially reluctant about the idea of having any kind of trials before the war was over because they were very concerned about retribution. I see. Your book, soviet judgment at nuremberg, provides a long overdue account of how soviet legal theorists contribute to to the allies understanding of war crimes such as crimes against peace in the waging of aggressive war should be directed against the leadership, the nazi leadership, including their political and military leaders. How were you able to document their role in creating the Legal Framework of the nuremberg trials . Do you have a favorite document or two youd like to tell us about . Well, i love 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 was perhaps the most fruitful to work in in terms of documenting the actual daytoday goings on of the trial. But in terms of the legal side of things, it was wonderful to work in the archive of the i academy of sciences because the soviet jurist who was, had such an influential role, was a jurist at the a academy of Sciences Institute of law. As the war was going on, actually in april 1942, soviet lawyers turned to them and asked them to study this question of the criminal responsibility of leaders for waging a war of aggression and for crimes carried out during a war of aggression which was not a part of International Law are. We can talk about the details if people are interested later. Working in the industry of im sorry, in the institute of laws and archives at the academy of sciences, i was able to see the early drafts, hissed ideas that later his ideas that later became part of a book. I was able to see the deliberations among the lawyers at the academy of sciences and the role of andre vishinksy who ends up heading up a couple of commissionings. Those archives were important. The thing is in terms of tracing the role of the soviet jurist and how his ideas became fundamental to the trial, it was key to work not just in the moscow archives, but in archives in the United States as well. So a wonderful find in working in the archive at the university of wyoming, the one who typically gets credit for bringing in certain ideas about aggressive war and certain ideas about conspiracy, we know from his archives that he was reading the work as well. So that was one way to trace things. And also looking at the United NationsWar Crimes Commissions material, and that was the commission that preseeded the actual united preceded the actual United Nations that meant in london and that was talking about this question of punishing war criminals. So it was really a lot of fun to look at this paper trail and to see the work go from, you know, the institute of law to ministry of Foreign Affairs and eventually to make it to london and then to the United States. When was the media in 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 19 i believe thats in 1942, but id have to double check in terms of the exact details of when thats happening. His ideas are introduced, they start to get a hearing in 1943. So its actually at the height of the war. This is all happening initially well, the soviets are really at work at this at the height of the war. In terms of the london commission, yeah, id have to, id have to double check sure. [laughter] its in there. By the way, its at a point when they werent clear who would win the war. Well, thats exactly right. And thats part of why when it was never clear that the nuremberg trials would happen or that any trial like that would happen. And i think whats so remarkable on the soviet side of things is that the soviets, again, really in the darkest days of the war they are talking about a potential trial of war criminals, they are, they have also set up their own War Crimes Commission, the Extraordinary State Commission with the explicit aim of documenting every single war crime and every single atrocity committed in occupied soviet territory. And before the war is victorys a dream. The soviet unions been destroyed at the very beginning of the war. The amount of devastation thats been done to i industries, to towns, to cities, to the countryside, its astounding, right . And its really at that moment when things are so grim that the soviets are really starting to think about this question of war crimes. And, again, with other countries not being so interested at that point. Among the war crimes the germans are carrying out on the eastern front, the soviet front, was a systematic shooting of jews in towns and village and cities throughout germanoccupied soviet territory. Right. 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 nkdd, the soviet secret police, was gathering reports of those crimes as well. Okay. Now, how were jurists from such great legal traditions, how were they able to coordinate their efforts as they planned the tribunal, collected evidence, summonedded witnesses over many months . There must have been moments of real contention and misunderstanding. This was not easy. This was not easy at all. First of all, on a very basic, fundamental issue, right . These countries have different legal traditions. The legal tradition of the United States and Great Britain were closer. The legal tradition of france and the soviet union were closer, but then the soviets had their own kind of legal tradition, of course, that involved show trials, right, and things along those lines as well. Is so thats part of it. These four countries, they had very different political systems, and they also had had very different experiences of the war. We think about the soviet union which by the end of the war has lost 27 million people, right . Which has been absolutely devastated. You think about france which surrendered early, and then the United States and britain have taken a beat as well, and the United States comes out in a better position, of course, comes into the war late and with nowhere near, right, 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. Im talking now once they agreed that this should happen. And theres mistrust, theres, you know, in some ways i write a lot in the book about the parties and the dinners and the events that happened outside of, you know, the courtroom or the negotiating room in london like before the pretrial period. And i would say that those were incredibly important at helping to smooth things along because things were so incredibly contentious. And things were contentious for so many reasons. In the working out of the indictments the months before the trial, when we think about the indictment as i tell myself sworn legal 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. And they all wanted to tell different stories. They all wanted to claim the story of the war, right, for themselves. And they all had Different Things that they wanted included or left out. The british and the french didnt want the munich pact included in the story of the war. The soviets, they wanted the molotov pact to be included but only in a certain way. No one wanted to talk about any kind of working together with the nazis or ace peezments, right appeasements, right . They wanted to leave that out so it becomes very contentious even early on in terms of how the story is going to be told. Id like to ask you specifically about two things. First, how did they work out what to say about the nazisoviet pact of august 1939 which led directly to the germanization of poland and the start of world war ii in europe . The germans invaded from the west, and two, three weeks later the soviet Union Invaded poland from the east. How was that handled . It must have been a very delicate set of negotiations. And secondly, we know now that under stalins orders thousands of polish officers were murdered in the spring of 1940 in soviet territory of after the soviet invasion of poland. The entire mans found those graves germans found those graves and made it sound, rightfully, that the soviets had carried out. Uhhuh. And when the soviet union liberated that for story, look a what we found, the german massacre of polish soldiers. How was that handled . Those are great questions. These are things for the soviets when theyre worried about the most. And when i say soviets, the things that stalin and molotov are worried about the most. When it comes to molotov pact and were talking about, again, the pact itself is a nonaggression pact if, but then there are these secret protocols that lay out the division of europe in case of war. And i think one of the most interesting things, one of the most interesting documents that i found, actually, was a report from london from a soviet diplomat named ivanov who writes that during these negotiations its become apparent to him that redenko had not been told about who was he . The soviet chief prosecutor. So redenko, they send the soviet chief prosecutor first to london to work on the indictment, and eventually they tell him. By the time he gets to nuremberg, he knows. We dont know exactly what he knows, but he knows enough. But in london hes flying blind, and this is a big problem. So one thing i wanted to make clear in terms of both of these things, the soviets are not expecting a trial the way that we think about a trial. The soviets experience is more with a show trial in the sense of a trial where the script is known from the start. They were very surprised to learn that the defense would be able to serve as witnesses on their own behalf and that theyd be able to call witnesses. They thought that evidence that they introduced would stand. Because of article 21 in the charter which said that evidence produced by new War Crimes Commission would, was accepted, but they thought that this meant that the defense could contest it. So what ill start with now, in the working out of the indictments the soviets again, this is coming from moscow, this is coming from stalin, its coming from the head of the secret commission, its coming from the soviet secret police they make a decision to include katine, a massacre that the soviets had committed. They decide to include it in the indictment as a german war crime. There had been talk in moscow before this about holding a show trial around that. But someone gets the idea that, no, lets just go with it at nuremberg. So it goes into the indictments. And in the deliberations about the indictments again, among all four countries of the prosecution, this is an issue because the americans have a pretty clear idea that its, you know, maybe not certain, but probably likely, at least plausible that the soviets are the ones who committed the massacre, and they understand that in including this in the indictment now as a nazi crime, this can threaten the credibility of the tribunal. So the u. S. Prosecutor robert s. Jackson, the main were u. S. Prosecutor and sir maxwell [inaudible] they try to convince him not to include this at all. And redeneko says his hands are tied, that hes under ordereds to have it included. The initial number the soviets had put in was 900 and something, and then at the last minute, i dont remember if it was 10,000 or 11,000, right . Again, jackson has this moment of, well, like if the trials are going to go on, do we accept this . Theres moments of compromise, right anything that everyone is making. And redenko says if it does not include katine in the indictment, i have to go back to moscow and talk to stalin, and thats going to take a few weekses. So at that point they just want things to move on, and they let it in, and then it becomes a whole big thing in the tribunal when the nazis when the German Defense, basically, they ask to bring defense witnesses and to contest the soviet charges, and the western judges overrule the soviet judge to allow that to happen. So that is a critical moment in the trial, and its something that plays out over the course of the trial and that everyone really is concerned about. As the trials going forward, jackson is actually getting more and more evidence suggesting that the soviets are guilty of a crime. And how is it finally decided . When the nazi leaders were convicted, was the crime of katine held against them or dropped . Its dropped, keithly. And theyre not allowed in the documents about this. I tried to look for something that explains why its not included in the judgment, but its not in the judgment. All right. Yeah. One of the most important soviet personalities youve mentioned, Andre Vishinsky, remind us who he was and how he was involved with the International Military tribunal. Sure, id love to. And i have a little bit that i have a couple of very short readings that im going to do today, and one of them is, indeed, about hum. So ill tell you a little bit about him as i set this up, and then ill be reading a little bit from chapter five of the book. Great. Yeah. So i want to make clear that in nuremberg we have a coming together of people in four countries, as weve already talked about, with very different justice syst