The EI Podcast The long shadow of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials
Apr 27, 2026
Leighton Pugh, narrator and writer, reflects on the legal and moral legacy of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. He explores Jackson’s framing of law over revenge. He profiles defendants and prosecution strategies. He contrasts Tokyo’s occupation context and the emperor question. He traces how both trials shaped command responsibility, later courts, and divergent memories in Germany and Japan.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Nuremberg Framed War As Planned Crime
- The trials reframed war as planned criminality rather than accidental chaos.
- Jackson's prosecution traced intent from treaties and budgets to invasion routes and industrialised genocide with documentary evidence.
Portraits Of The Men In The Dock
- The defendants embodied different facets of the Nazi system from Göring's swagger to Streicher's propaganda and Speer's cultivated remorse.
- Individual portraits (Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Streicher, Speer) revealed how personalities operated the regime.
Law Can Follow Moral Reality
- Prosecutors created legal categories like crimes against peace and crimes against humanity before universal codification.
- Jackson argued moral clarity could precede legal naming so civilisation could judge unprecedented organised crimes.