German Consul General of New York David Gill spoke of growing up in East Germany and the importance of the Nuremberg Trials at the Robert H. Jackson Center last night.
Gill is in Jamestown for the Center’s program “Cold War Secrets Revealed,” which takes place this morning at the Center in person and online.
Gill said he wouldn’t have become a diplomat or a lawyer if not for how growing up in Communist East Germany shaped him. He said since his father was a Protestant Minister, he wasn’t allowed to pursue higher education, “When the Wall came down, also shaped my very positive view on the rule of law, democracy, what elections.. how important elections are, how important the Parliament is, how important the division of powers is etc. because I experienced how it was the other way around.”
In speaking before a group of local lawyers and dignitaries, Gill expressed how the Nuremberg Trials were important following World War 2 as well as for the decades to come, “Nuremberg, of all places, the city where the National Socialists ostentatiously staged themselves at the Reich Party Congresses became the birthplace of a new understanding of law and justice that continued to unfold in the years that followed. Without the
Nuremberg trials, the International Criminal Court in the Hague would also not exist today.”
October 1st marked the 75th anniversary of the final judgement made in the Nuremberg Trials.
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