Benjamin B. Ferencz

Adolf Hitler did not prosecute an aggressive war by himself. He also did not do it with only the twenty-two men who were defendants at Nuremberg. So why single out this handful of Germans for punishment? In fact, many more were tried, but these twenty-two were specifically chosen because of their key roles in the war effort. As this excerpt from prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz indicates, however, punishing the individuals was not really the point of the trial. The prosecutors, including the author, were more interested in creating a record for history and for attempting to establish a legal code for international behavior that might serve as an incentive for maintaining peace in the future. Ferencz's comments are from a conference on Nuremberg held over forty years after the trial.

Iwould like to describe what Nuremberg...