The First Wave of International War Crimes Trials: Istanbul and Leipzig

Abstract

The Nuremberg tribunal following the Second World War is universally considered as the foundation stone of international law with regard to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It may come as a surprise, however, to learn that the first international attempts to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity came at the end of the First World War, with trials held at Allied prompting in Turkey and Germany.

Why have few journalists been prosecuted for incitement to war crimes?

“…The violent ethnic cleansing of the Greek minority in Smyrna and the deportation and massacre of some 1.5 million Armenians were the results. Prosecutions for war crimes following the First World War, in Constantinople/Istanbul and in Leipzig, included no journalists among the defendants, and resulted in few convictions and even fewer sentences to imprisonment or execution (Kramer, 2006: 441–455). Divisions among the victorious great powers over the post-war settlement and nationalist obstruction in Turkey permitted most of the perpetrators who had planned and executed the genocide to escape justice.…”

Defending the Nation? Maintaining Turkey's Narrative of the Armenian Genocide

“…5 In the aftermath of the WWI, the massacres of Armenians and other minorities were known and debated in Ottoman society; and the Ottoman government was pressured by Britain, other states and some internal sources to punish the organisers and perpetrators of the massacres. In response, the Ottoman government established a military tribunal in 1918 to try officials accused of involvement in the deportation and massacres of Ottoman Armenians (Bass 2000;Kramer 2006). At the same time, there were internal investigations and debates over responsibility for the events within the Ottoman government, including a commission of investigation in the parliament (Aktar 2007).…”