One Trial – Four Languages
The Pioneers of Simultaneous Interpreting at Nuremberg
Who were the simultaneous interpreters at the Nuremberg Trial?
The International Military Tribunal in 1945-46 (the first of several Nuremberg Trials) was a ground-breaking event. Four nations came together to charge the leaders of the Nazi regime with crimes against humanity. That event, in itself, has filled history books. But to make these legal proceedings in four languages – English, French, German and Russian – possible, something else ground-breaking had to happen. This was the breakthrough for an embryonic technique called simultaneous interpreting. And until very recently, it had passed almost unnoticed.
So a small band of AIIC members decided to dig out the existing research and try to find out more, and that is how this slowly expanding exhibition was born…
Research from our association
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
In 2013 a small band of interpreters in the German Region of the Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence (aiic) teamed up with Memorium, the city museum in Nuremberg dedicated to the trials of Nazi war criminals, to organize a series of events.Themes included the origins and evolution of simultaneous interpreting, interpreting in crisis zones and interpreting for international criminal tribunals. The first event was devoted to the “achievements of the pioneers”, the people who tried out this unknown and demanding method of interpretation under such difficult practical and emotional conditions. Some had volunteered, others had been sent. Why had they come? Where had they learned these languages? What prepared them – if anything – for the harrowing experience? Did it change their lives?
The event was accompanied by a small exhibition. Trying to trace the destinies of those people, most of whom had been victims of the Nazi regime in one form or another, demonstrated how little is actually known about them. In fact, many of those early interpreters have still not been identified or their stories have been buried by the years. The exhibition aroused tremendous interest, and so the research continued, and our material has been expanded and updated.
WHAT DO WE KNOW?
Unfortunately not enough yet. Lawyers and historians have analysed the trials from every conceivable angle, but so far nobody has wasted much thought on the amazing feat of facilitating the proceedings in four languages. Simultaneous interpreting was still basically unknown as a technique back then, and the technical conditions were rudimentary.The first detailed study was Francesca Gaiba's 1996 thesis "The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation" (published 1998, University of Ottawa Press). In her book, she gives personal details of some of the interpreters. Over the years a few articles have been published, not least by aiic members, and occasionally memoirs appear or references crop up in other books. Information is scattered about the globe and hard to trace. We managed to contact the three surviving interpreters and the families of several more, who have provided us with valuable input.
We still have so many clues to follow up, but it all takes a lot of time and money. In 2015 we set up an association in Germany to place the project on a broader footing. We hope to dig deeper and pay our pioneers the tribute they deserve, but for that we need more financial resources and willing helpers.
NEWS
The year 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the trial at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal. We are therefore happy that AIIC colleagues around the world started several initiatives to mark this special date by showing the One Trial – Four Languages exhibition. ESPaiic is planning two shows in Madrid one in May as a kind of pilot to present the exhibition to various interested parties and then the full-fledged exhibition with five languages in November. This is the first time that the Spanish version is shown along with the four languages of the trial.
Also, this year in November the exhibition will be shown in the Auswanderermuseum in Hamburg. We are very pleased to have found such a great venue that adds yet another perspective to the exhibition theme.
The AIIC colleagues in Buenos Aires are very busy trying to make the show happen at Buenos Aires University in cooperation with leading personalities in the field of international criminal law. 2025 is not only the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trial but also the 40th anniversary of Argentina’s Trial of the Juntas. The political situation and lots of red tape make their work very difficult, the first attempt to host it at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which had invited us to do so, failed. Nevertheless, we still hope that the first exhibition in a Spanish speaking Latin American country can open in November
.Our research has been quite successful in recent years. Several volunteers and social media helped a great deal and we could connect with several descendants of ‘our’ Nuremberg interpreters. The declassification of the files of the CIA predecessor organizations active during the war also provided a lot of insight, as did declassified papers from the McCarthy era. As a result, several CVs were added and many of the existing CVs were expanded. Thus, as of 2025 a totally new version of the CV texts is shown on our panels.
Truly ‘work in progress’ and it will continue. There are several promising leads which we will pursue to expand the knowledge about our pioneers yet again.
WAYS YOU CAN HELP
History scattered the Nuremberg interpreters to the winds, so we need help in lots of places and in lots of ways:- Rummaging in archives
- Communicating with people
- Translating stories
- Exploring the equipment
- Donating money