(Post)War Trials of Nazi Perpetrators and Their Auxiliaries in the Soviet Union: History and Ongoing Debates

Abstract The article briefly outlines the current state of scholarly literature devoted to ongoing debates on the history and role of war- and postwar open and closed trials of Nazi perpetrators and their auxiliaries in the Soviet Union. Having become partly available for historians more than two decades ago, these trials proceedings constitute a unique source for analyzing various aspects of the Second World War on the Eastern front, including the Holocaust. This article describes the legal basis for prosecuting Nazi criminals (in the 1940s) and Soviet collaborators (mainly from the 1940s until the 1970s) and summarizes ongoing debates concerning the nature and peculiarities of both closed and open Soviet war crimes trials with an outline of the main topics for further research.