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History of the Research Centre

Since November 11th, 2008 when the charter took effect, the centre has been recognized as an
official interdisciplinary institution at Philipps-Universität Marburg. The International Research
and Documentation Centre for War Crimes Trials (ICWC) has existed at Philipps-Universität
Marburg since July 2003. It was previously (from 2000) located at the Max-Planck-Institute for
European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main.

The Nuremberg Trials against major war criminals who were accused of being the top brass of
the nationalist socialist regime at the International Military Tribunal (IMT), and the subsequent
so-called Nuremberg Trials at the American Military Tribunals in Nuremberg, shaped the image
of war crimes trials following World War II. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East
(IMTFE) in Japan, which was established to prosecute war crimes committed by the Japanese
military, made a substantial impression on the discourse surrounding international criminal law
in the years following WWII. The atrocities committed by both aggressors in WWII, whether it
was the persecution of the Jews by the Germans, the genocides in the East, the murder of
hostages and partisans in many of the occupied countries in Europe, or the massacre of
Japanese soldiers and marines in China, Burma, the Pacific Islands, or the Philippines, should
and must be atoned for. The statute of the IMT and the charter of the IMTFE were both
informed by a legislative basis.

Although both of the trial complexes were of key importance to the application of international
criminal law in dealing with war crimes committed in WWII, and informed the international
public perception of judicial resolution, they only represented a small number of all of the cases
world wide which prosecuted war crimes. There is very little information on many of the cases
beyond the military tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo, regardless of whether the trials
concerned German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union, members of the Japanese military,
Dutch military tribunals in Dutch East India (Indonesia today), or military courts in France.

Contemporary legal historical research on war crimes trials following WWII largely concentrates
on quantitatively few cases before both of the international military tribunals. They only give a
limited overview of the major developments in the international criminal law of the last century.
In the last twenty years, a slew of work has been produced, dealing with a single case or a
complex of cases. The comprehensive and systematic tracing of war crimes trials, their
archiving, and (legal) academic evaluation has, to a large extent, been lacking.