Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, died yesterday at the age of 103. He is also described here as one of the founders of the International Criminal Court and the recipient of its first award.
Ferencz said in one of his interviews about the purpose of the Nuremberg trials, in the rendering given here:
“The purpose of the Nuremberg trials, above all, was to seat in the place of accountability those powerful people who had sat in the place of gods and signed the death warrants of thousands, so that those who followed them blindly into the depths of the hell of cruelty and mercilessness could see that behind the confident and charismatic appearance of these political leaders there was nothing superhuman or godlike—only the tragic cruelty of a dark and confused mind.”