For being a 25-hour-long audiobook about post-World War II, The Nuremberg Trial by Ann Tusa and John Tusa was surprisingly interesting. My favorite section of the book, about the first third, was dedicated to explaining the many complications of executing a fair trial against 22 German military and political leaders. The first decision was who would judge the Germans. The Polish were ultimately excluded, leaving the trial to be overseen by French, English, American, and Russian judges. This required enough collaboration between the four nations, Germany, and their slightly differing views of fair judgement. The Russian view was the most troubling as it came with a preconception that the purpose of the trial was to exact punishment, not determine guilt. That Germans had knowledge that they were committing crimes against humanity throughout the war also had to be established for there to be grounds to even hold a trial. A location needed to be found for the trial to take place, somewhere with prison facilities to keep the defendants secure and comfortable accommodations for lawyers, judges, attendants, and viewers of the court proceedings. Germany was the most appropriate place, but much of it was war torn and destitute. After much reasoning with the Russians, who insisted the trial take place in Berlin, Nuremberg was chosen for its historical significance and for being fairly intact. Lawyers willing to defend the defendants needed to be provided. Food for everyone needed to be provided, of which American provisions were the best. Someone needed to pay for all this. The judges even had to decide such trivialities as what to wear. Wigs and dresses? Military uniforms? Black gowns? After all the previous decisions and coordination, it’s not surprising that they settled on wearing whatever they wanted.
The most interesting complication, however, was solving the language barrier. The trial was conducted in four languages: English, Russian, French, and German. All documents associated with the trial had to be translated into all four languages, which was more difficult to accomplish for some languages than others. For live court proceedings, the trial used IBM’s universal simultaneous translation system. The first time I heard this term, I thought the narrator was going to tell me about some Star Trek-esque futuristic device. In reality, everyone in the court room was provided a set of wired headphones. The listeners could switch between four channels, each connected to the microphone of a human translator for that language. The translators were seated in isolated compartments within the courtroom where they could hear the court proceedings but minimize the noise of each other’s translations. Judges, lawyers, defendants, and other speakers in the court room also had visibility to two lights. Yellow was an indicator from the translators to slow down. Red indicated to stop speaking to allow the translators to catch up. I thought it was an impressive use of technology for the time period but also adorable for its primitiveness.
After all the introduction, preparation, resolution of conflicts, and coordination leading up to and continuing throughout the trial, it’s amazing that this trial happened, and as fairly as it was, at all.