In 1946, Nazi leaders including Marshal Göring were tried at the Nuremberg Tribunal for war crimes committed during World War II. The trial, which lasted nearly a year and involved 22 defendants, aimed to document and punish German atrocities, though its jurisdiction was limited to avoid implicating Soviet crimes.
Aleksandr Podrabinek examines how the Soviet Union deliberately mistranslated 'crimes against humanity' as 'crimes against humaneness' to undermine the concept's legal and moral authority established at Nuremberg. This linguistic manipulation allowed the USSR to reject supranational justice and international prosecution while appearing compliant with international law.