Eighty years after Nuremberg, the question is no longer what happened, but whether we have learned anything. This was the central guiding idea of the international scientific symposium Nuremberg Trials – 80 Years Later and Nazi “Perverse Science”, which took place on 27 February 2026 at Alma Mater Europaea University in Maribor.
Nuremberg as a civilizational turning point
Rector of Alma Mater Europaea University Prof. Dr. Ludvik Toplak emphasized that the Nuremberg Trials marked a watershed in the history of law and civilization. They established the principle that crimes against humanity are punishable, that aggressive war is a crime, and that invoking superior orders does not absolve an individual of responsibility. As he said: “For the first time in history, it was stated clearly that law stands above ideology, the individual above the state, and ethics above power.”
He particularly highlighted the importance of the Doctors’ Trials, from which the Nuremberg Code emerged—the foundation of modern medical ethics, which established the principle of voluntary and informed consent and the personal responsibility of scientists. He also warned: “When science loses its ethical foundation, it becomes an instrument of destruction. When law loses its moral core, it becomes a mechanism for legitimizing crime.”
Unfinished justice
The keynote guest Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif, a world-renowned Holocaust historian, drew attention to one of the most shocking facts of postwar Europe: only about two percent of the thousands of perpetrators of the Holocaust and World War II were convicted for their crimes. “Only around two percent of the perpetrators were brought before a court,” he emphasized, adding that most died peacefully, without accountability for their actions.
He recalled that Nazi Germany was responsible for the deaths of approximately 60 million people, including six million Jews, and that the failure of prosecution is not merely a legal problem, but a moral defeat of humanity.
He summarized his message with a warning: “Whoever shows mercy to criminals is preparing the ground for the next human catastrophe.”
Law between legality and justice
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luka Martin Tomažič emphasized that Nuremberg represented a turning point: law loses legitimacy when it becomes intolerably unjust. “Today’s challenges in international law are an echo of Nuremberg. Enforcement requires a generational commitment,” he said, adding: “Morality above rules in law: justice is not blind to intolerable evil.”
From these principles, peremptory norms (ius cogens) developed, prohibiting genocide, aggression, and crimes against humanity, and they influenced the Genocide Convention, the Geneva Conventions, and the establishment of the International Criminal Court. He warned that law today faces political selectivity, so the legacy of Nuremberg requires consistent enforcement.
Perverted science and testimony
A special emphasis of the symposium was placed on the abuse of science under the Nazi regime. Dr. Alja Brglez presented the testimony of Erika Fürst, who, as a thirteen-year-old girl, underwent selection by Dr. Josef Mengele in Auschwitz.
“Overnight my mother turned gray, and overnight I grew up,” was one of the harrowing quotes that marked the discussion. The contribution showed how medicine was subordinated to racial ideology and how scientific authority became an instrument of dehumanization. This is precisely why the Nuremberg Code remains a fundamental reference point of medical ethics to this day.
Nazism in our region
The symposium also shed light on the entanglement of the Slovenian and Central European space in the Nazi infrastructure. Dr. Daniel Siter analyzed the activities of the Kulturbund as a subversive organization that, even before the war, prepared the ground for occupation and denationalization. “The Swabian-German Cultural Association was the most important political organization of the German minority in Yugoslavia (and especially Slovenia), which already in the 1930s acted as an extended arm of Nazi expansionism and prepared the ground for the occupation of Yugoslavia and crimes against the Slovenian nation”
Boris Hajdinjak spoke about Siegfried Seidl (1911–1947), Eichmann’s representative in Maribor in 1941, who organized the deportations of Slovenians and later took part in the mass deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. As he emphasized: “Who Seidl was is shown by the fact that he was one of 30 Austrians who were executed in Austria after the war for war crimes.”
Prof. Dr. Dr. Igor Grdina highlighted Michael Skubl (1877–1964), an Austrian state secretary and probably the only witness at the main Nuremberg trial who spoke Slovenian. Born in Bleiburg, he worked as a high-ranking police official in Ljubljana before World War I, and later reached the peak of his career in Austrofascist Austria. Grdina added that Skubl’s presence in Nuremberg shows how closely the trial was connected with the Central European space as well, including the Slovenian one—not only as a historical backdrop, but as part of the political and legal currents of that time.
Hungarian researchers Dr. Ferenc Miszlivetz and Dr. Mónika Mátay presented concrete data on Jewish communities in Szombathely and Kőszeg: according to the 1835 census, Jews were present in 100 of 613 settlements in Vas County, and in the 19th century they built synagogues (Szombathely 1832, 1880–81; Kőszeg 1859). They also highlighted Filip Schey, who in 1844 co-founded a savings bank in Kőszeg and financed the synagogue, school, and ritual bath. In the spring and summer of 1944, the communities were deported to Auschwitz, and centuries of development were cut short in a few months. Dr. Mátay quoted: “Look at the sky, then at the ground … On this day, half a million Hungarians were born.”
Prof. Dr. Sebastjan Kristovič rounded off an engaging discussion with Viktor Frankl’s thought on individual responsibility and the rejection of collective guilt, and emphasized his famous idea: “Man is the being who invented the gas chambers; but he is also the being who entered them upright, with a prayer on his lips.” Frankl’s thought directed the discussion toward the question of personal choice, inner freedom, and moral responsibility even in the most difficult historical circumstances.
The symposium clearly showed that Nuremberg is not merely a historical chapter, but a lasting measure of civilization. Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations. Law without ethics becomes an empty form. Science without responsibility becomes a danger.
