Interpretation at the Nuremberg Trial

It is often argued that the first War Crimes Trial (Nuremberg Trial) could not have been possible without simultaneous interpretation. This notwithstanding, Nuremberg interpreters have been consistently ignored in the historical record. This paper seeks to do justice to the language personnel of the Nuremberg Trial, by presenting the people who brought interpretation to the Trial, the court interpreters themselves, and the effect that interpretation was perceived to have on the proceedings. For this paper I draw on historical official and unofficial documents of the Nuremberg Trial deposited in major national archives, as well as on personal communication with 12 interpreters who worked at the Trial in Nuremberg between 1945 and 1946.