Why go
Understanding the decision to hold trials changes the Palace of Justice from a courtroom into evidence of a deliberate political and legal choice. The Allies could have imposed punishment without judicial proceedings; instead, they chose a tribunal where charges and evidence would be presented publicly.
The full story
The Nuremberg trials did not arise from an automatic postwar procedure. Allied governments debated how to respond to crimes committed during the Second World War and whether leading figures should face a court. There was an earlier precedent: a small number of war-crimes cases were heard in Leipzig after the First World War. Those proceedings were limited and were widely regarded as ineffective. During the next war, governments in exile and Allied leaders pressed for a more substantial response to Nazi violence. The choice to prosecute meant identifying defendants, defining charges, assembling evidence, and creating a court able to hear them. It also meant that the outcome would be recorded through public proceedings rather than settled solely by executive punishment. This background helps explain why the Palace of Justice matters. Its rooms were the setting for a new attempt at international accountability, shaped both by the scale of Nazi crimes and by dissatisfaction with the earlier response to wartime atrocities.