Creating a New Enemy? The Nuremberg Trials at the Beginning of the Cold War

The proposal aims to examine the role of the media in the deconstruction of the Nazi enemy and the construction of the Soviet enemy during the Trial of Major War Criminals at the International Military Tribunal (14.11.1945-01.10.1946).

The evidence at the trial consisted of more than one hundred thousand official legal documents that were systematically seized and archived by the Allied during their advance into Germany and the early days of the occupation. The Nuremberg Trial, as newspaper headlines proclaimed at the time, provided a unique opportunity to reflect on, analyze and condemn the history of the Third Reich, even after its collapse. The public could take part in the sentencing of the Nazi political-military structure through the media (from press, photos, and film to radio transmissions), which were able to convey the complexity of the legal record beyond the courtroom and thereby engage the entire public, both German and international.

The trial can be divided into three periods, in which the newspapers, especially those present in the courtroom, helped to weaken the image of the Nazi enemy. This aim was pursued through constant news of the trial in the first (20.11.1945-04.01.1946) and third (02.09.1946-16.10.1946) periods. However, in the second period (08.01.1946-31.08.1946) the news of the Nuremberg trial was mostly discontinuous, but at the same time on the geopolitical stage, the beginning of the Cold War produced a subtle paradigm shift: from the Nazi enemies to the Soviet enemies. Even though the trial was an integral part to the process of denazification of Germany promoted by the Allies, the news around it were affected by the American propaganda on a new emerging enemy: the Soviets.