Victors' Justice

Nothing is to be gained after a war by the punishment of the vanquished by the victors, even if the vanquished have been to blame for the war itself. It now seems more probable than ever that for victors to assert after a war the `war guilt' of the vanquished serves but to disguise the real sources of international disturbance. Possibly it is because the western victors in 1919 did not recognize the moral basis of international relations that war returned to Europe and to the world in 1939. Possibly it is because the western victors again in 1945 did not recognize the moral basis of those relations that the world was treated to the spectacle of victors' justice, a.k.a. 'the Nuremberg Trial', and one more great war had ended without leading men's feet into the way of peace.