Attempts to revise the history of World War 2 by Western countries, primarily the United States, shows that they have forgotten the lessons of the Nuremberg trials over Nazi criminals 75 years later, historian Mikhail Myagkov, the scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society, said in an interview with Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2020) Attempts to revise the history of World War 2 by Western countries, primarily the United States, shows that they have forgotten the lessons of the Nuremberg trials over Nazi criminals 75 years later, historian Mikhail Myagkov, the scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society, said in an interview with Sputnik.
Friday marks the 75th anniversary of the launch of the international tribunal in Nuremberg for the prosecution of Nazi Germany leaders for the Holocaust and other war crimes.
"We must remember the lessons of Nuremberg instead of turning them into a farce, as the United States does today. Washington and other Western states initiated the establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague in the 2000s, but unlike the Nuremberg tribunal, which represented the stances of the entire civilized world in distinguishing the collective good from evil, the US today tries to do this on its own," Myagkov said.
The historian described it as the US' pursuit of being a "global gendarme," which he compared to the ideas preached by Adolf Hitler about the racial supremacy of Germans and the ensuing right to rule over other nations.
As a case in point, Myagkov recalled how Libya's long-time leader, Muammar Gaddafi, had been killed at Washington's order with no international consensus reached at the time of execution. He also slammed the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia over prosecuting Serbs but letting Croats and Bosnians escape justice.
The expert also recalled a resolution by the European Parliament adopted in September 2019 that attributed the responsibility for starting the Second World War equally to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
"All of this demonstrates a disregard for the principles of Nuremberg," Myagkov said, adding that the tribunal "made it perfectly clear who exactly was responsible for unleashing the Second World War."
The Nuremberg trials continued from November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946. The tribunal probed 24 members of Nazi Germany's leadership. The trials were widely publicized, with all 403 court sessions being open to the public and broadcast live on radio. Twelve of the accused were sentenced to capital punishment for crimes against humanity, while the rest were sentenced to life imprisonment or lengthy prison terms.
