Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Western countries—Germany in particular—of violating the principles established by the Nuremberg Trials, which outlawed Nazi ideology. His remarks provoked indignation in Germany.
Lavrov argued that Germany behaves as though it bears no obligations and that its past carries no weight, according to a summary published by ABN24 based on reporting from News.de.
“Germany went through a process of denazification and repentance. Unfortunately, (…) we have the feeling that this repentance now means very little,” the diplomat said.
According to Aleksey Pushkov, head of the Federation Council Commission on Information Policy and Media Cooperation, the Nuremberg Trials have nearly disappeared from public discussion in Western countries. He noted that because the tribunal covered a broad spectrum of Nazi crimes, it is inconvenient to reference in the context of contemporary politics.
Pushkov argued that the reason for silencing information about the Nuremberg Trials lies in the fact that many liberal politicians in Europe are descendants of Nazis or wartime collaborators.
“One of the reasons, as it seems to me, is that many of today’s leading liberal politicians have turned out, quite remarkably, to be the children of former Nazis or those who cooperated with them,”
he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova previously asserted that among those with Nazi ancestors is German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. She also claimed such ancestry for former German Foreign Minister and current President of the 80th UN General Assembly Annalena Baerbock, former Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, MI6 chief Blaise Metreveli, and former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Zakharova has referred to Freeland as the granddaughter of a “Hitler collaborator.”
Putin Accuses the West of Ignoring Nuremberg Tribunal Verdicts
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that several Western countries openly disregard the rulings of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
“At the root of such dangerous trends is an unwillingness to recall the direct responsibility of the predecessors of today’s Western elites for the world war they unleashed, a desire to erase the shameful pages of their history, and an intention to encourage revanchism and neo-Nazism. Historical truth is falsified and silenced for the sake of political expediency,”
he said.
On November 16, the Russian foreign minister noted that the Nuremberg Tribunal formulated principles that became the foundation of modern international law. Its most important contribution, he emphasized, was the establishment of the absence of any statute of limitations for crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. Yet these principles, Lavrov added, are increasingly being questioned in contemporary Europe.
