Nuremberg Symposium, Images of Hate, Trials of Conscience: What Nuremburg Taught Us About Propaganda

Eighty years after the Nuremberg Trials, this program revisits a vital and timely question: Can images be criminal?

Military historian and legal scholar Dr. Mark M. Hull, Ph.D., J.D., FRHistS, FRSA (Professor, Department of Military History, US Army Command and General Staff College, retired; Advisor, Courtroom 600 Project) will explore how propaganda in Nazi Germany was not only spoken or written, but also drawn, filmed, and mass-distributed.

His highly visual presentation will examine the postwar denazification cases of:
– Veit Harlan, Nazi filmmaker
– Fritz Hippler, propaganda film chief
– Philipp Rupprecht, cartoonist whose antisemitic caricatures helped prepare the public for genocide

Unlike Julius Streicher—hanged at Nuremberg for incitement through his newspapers, speeches, and children’s books—these visual propagandists largely escaped similar accountability. Their cases reveal the profound difficulties of prosecuting persecution by image.

Drawing on newly uncovered historical evidence and connecting it to modern parallels—from Charlottesville to the spread of digital hate memes—Dr. Hull traces the enduring power of visual propaganda.

This program asks: What responsibility do artists, media figures, and creators bear when their images fuel atrocity? And what lessons must we carry forward as we commemorate the legacy of Nuremberg?

Registration coming soon.