Statement by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Collective Security Treaty Organization regarding the seventy-fifth anniversary of the judgment of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

In the year of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the judgment of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, we look back on the organization and conduct of the Nuremberg trials as a unique example of professional and effective cooperation by the international community. States with different social systems, cultures, traditions and histories came together to pass judgment and impose sentences on those who had waged the worst war in the history of humankind. 

We call upon the global community to respect and protect the principles developed by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg with the aim of preventing the outbreak of war, genocide, war crimes, torture and other crimes against humanity. We regard the judgment as the unshakable and irrevocable foundation of contemporary international law and the world order. The judgment enshrined in law the final defeat of Nazism. 

The Nazi organizations, primarily the leadership of the Nazi Party, the SD security service, the Gestapo and the SS organization, that were actively involved in events leading to the war of aggression and countless crimes against civilians were recognized as criminal by the Nuremberg trials. The trials also laid the foundation for post-war international legal instruments aimed at preventing the outbreak of war, genocide, torture and other crimes against humanity. 

In the judgment, the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg found th at Nazi war crimes had been committed on a scale unprecedented in the history of warfare, with an inconceivable level of brutality and terror. 

The killing and ill-treatment of civilians reached a peak with the citizens of the Soviet Union. On the basis of substantial evidence, the Tribunal found that such crimes not only had been committed to suppress opposition to the occupying powers, but were also part of a plan to expel and annihilate the civilian population in order to colonize the seized territory. 

In this regard, we stress that the expulsion and annihilation of the civilian population of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics by the Nazis and their collaborators, the facts of which were established in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, must be regarded as an act of genocide against the peoples of the Soviet Union. 

We remember with sorrow all those who fell victim to the heinous crimes of the Nazis on the battlefield, in bombings, under occupation and in concentration camps. 

We categorically reject and strongly condemn any attempts to falsify history and to distort and revise the outcome of the Second World War, including the facts of Nazi crimes established by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. We firmly reject any distortion of the historical truth and believe that the policy of denying such crimes, including genocide, and of endorsing or justifying the actions of criminals not only does an injustice to the victims and survivors of all the horrors, but also creates the illusion of impunity and a fertile ground for such inhumane acts to be repeated.

We call upon the international community to respect and protect the legacy of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg and to step up efforts to shar e objective information about the crimes of Nazism in order to prevent the spread of neo-Nazi ideology, movements and organizations, which could threaten the peaceful coexistence of peoples.