Our latest “Document of the Week” was chosen by our Senior Curator, Dr Charlie Hall. It is the formal declaration made by members of the Allies in the Second World War, committing them to the prosecution of war crimes committed by Axis forces during the conflict. It was signed by representatives of nine Allied nations in London in January 1942, before being published for a wide audience.
All the countries attached to the document—Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia—had experienced some degree of Nazi invasion and occupation. In many cases, the signatories were part of governments-in-exile which had fled to London during the war.
The introduction to the declaration made it clear that Nazi Germany intended to “establish a totalitarian order in Europe” and, in service of that goal, had “set aside the restraining influence of the laws of war”. It also made clear that the declaration had the support of Britain and the United States and went on to quote Winston Churchill: “Retribution for these crimes must henceforward take its place among the major purposes of the war.”
The declaration itself was fairly short, amounting to only four succinct resolutions. These included the affirmation that attacks on civilians could not be legitimate acts of war and a commitment to international co-operation in locating, detaining, and punishing perpetrators. Despite its brevity, this document bound the Allies to a process of post-war justice and thus laid the framework for the spate of war crimes trials which took place in the months and years after the Third Reich was finally defeated.
Where to find this document
This item comes from our primary source collection, The Laws of War: Justice, Rights, and Ethics in Military Contexts.
Comprising over 100,000 images drawn from files at The National Archives (UK), this collection explores the efforts taken to regulate the conduct of warfare over the past 300 years.
As conflicts grew in scale and impact, as mass citizen armies took to the field, and as questions of human rights gained traction, the need for robust laws of war became ever clearer.
Visit the collection page to learn more.