The Trial of the Nazis¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter argues that the Nuremberg trials are a hypocritical spectacle designed to deflect working-class anger away from the capitalist system and onto a handful of defeated Nazi leaders. The core narrative thrust is that the Allied prosecutors and the Nazi defendants share a joint responsibility for the horrors of fascism and the war, and that the trial is a selective, stage-managed exercise in political propaganda rather than genuine justice.
The key claim is that British imperialism carefully nurtured and supported the Nazis both before and after they came to power, yet now feigns horror at them. The text points to the refusal to allow Nazi defendants to subpoena prominent British politicians as witnesses, quoting the official justification that “great international harm might be done if Allied nationals of Cabinet rank were questioned concerning diplomatic secrets.” This is presented as direct evidence that the “diplomatic secrets” in question are “horse-deals” too foul to be made public — agreements carried out behind closed doors at the expense of neighbouring nations and the working class. The chapter asserts that only carefully selected documents are being released, while those showing the “democrats” in an unfavourable light are kept in archives or destroyed.
Historically, the chapter draws on the Bolshevik precedent of 1917, when Lenin and Trotsky published all secret treaties and documents of the capitalist classes. This is held up as the model for what a genuine socialist reckoning with war criminals would look like. The theoretical context is the Marxist understanding of the state as an instrument of class rule, with the trial serving to divert hatred for imperialist war away from the capitalist class and onto the defeated Nazis alone.
The polemic is directed squarely at the Allied powers — Britain in particular — and at the notion that the Nuremberg trials represent a clean break with fascism. The chapter argues that democrats and fascists alike belong in the dock, but before a working-class tribunal, not a gang of imperialists already preparing another world war. The real criminals, it insists, are not only the men in the dock but the capitalist system that produced them.