The interpretation factor : overcoming the language barrier at the trial of the major war criminals before the international military tribunal at Nuremberg / by Graham Cox

Traditional accounts of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial concentrate on legal and political factors as the forces that shaped the structure and outcome of the trial. This thesis re-evaluates the forces that shaped the trial and demonstrates that the interpretation factor—the practical problem of fashioning and conducting a four-power four-language trial—played a significant and heretofore unexamined role in the creation and conduct of the trial. The interpretation factor determined the list of trial defendants; the evidentiary method used at the trial; and was the principal reason the Allied powers excluded the direct participation of other nations in the prosecution. History has judged the Allied effort that fashioned international legal precedent for the prosecution of war crimes as the trial's principal legacy. This thesis places the impact of the interpretation factor within historical context and argues language an essential component, a critical factor, in modern international relations.