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Scope of the collections

The brief overview of the central sources on the global prosecution of war crimes is constantly evolving, with new documents added almost weekly. Please refer to the respective update for the most current information. The version you are currently reading reflects the status as of April 2021.

The collection of materials at the International Centre for War Crimes Trials is unique. The documents can be accessed in our user room, where both microfilm readers and computer terminals are available. Overall, the ICWC holds approximately 17 TB of data on the relevant subject areas.

For a large number of historical sources, it is absolutely essential that they be reviewed and preserved in the near future, as their condition is in some cases very poor. Due to the low quality of the paper and other factors, it is now time to make them permanently accessible. Our staff are currently working closely with the following archives and documentation centers:

  • Archive of the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation, Celle
  • Archive of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva
  • Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Paris-Courneuve)
  • Archiv Nationales, Paris
  • Depot Central D'Archives de la Justice Militaire Le Blanc
  • Federal Archives, Koblenz and Ludwigsburg
  • State Main Archive, Koblenz
  • State Archive, Speyer
  • Hessian Main State Archive, Wiesbaden
  • Nationaal Archif, Den Haag
  • National Archives of Australia, Canberra
  • Lower Saxony Main State Archive, Hanover
  • Lower Saxony State Archive, Oldenburg
  • Lower Saxony State Archive, Wolfenbüttel
  • Free University of Brussels
  • Belgian State Archives, Brussels
  • Boston College und Havard University, USA
  • Riksarkivet, Oslo
  • The National Archives, London, UK
  • Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam
  • Australian War Memorial, Canberra
  • Osthofen Concentration Camp Memorial
  • The National Archives of Norway, Olso (Riksarkivet)
  • The National Archives, Washington, USA
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

as well as with other archives worldwide.

Since the founding of the center, approximately 100,000 additional pages on microfilm, as well as other microforms (microfiche) in smaller quantities, have been added to the roughly 400 reels totaling around 350,000 pages from the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main. These materials cover British and U.S. war crimes trials in Europe and the Pacific region, as well as an Italian case complex.

At the Research and Documentation Center, both microforms and digital sources are archived. Since 2005, all Australian war crimes trials (296 cases) and files of both general and specific nature have been available (800 file units with over 110,000 pages). Starting in December 2004, in close cooperation with the British National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), the digitization of trials not available on film began. In the meantime, approximately 150,000 pages have been digitized. All trials in Europe (594 relevant file units for trials against Germans) as well as the majority of trials in the Far East are now available at ICWC Marburg. All U.S. military commission trials in the Asia-Pacific region (499 cases) have already been documented. In 2017, Philippine trials (163 cases) against Japanese and Korean defendants from 1947–1949 were added. Furthermore, over 50% of war crimes trials conducted in China up to 1948 (3,374 cases) have been processed. The presumably only Soviet trial in East Asia (Khabarovsk) is also available at ICWC. A five-year recording period for trials in France, including 1,811 documented individual decisions, has been completed. The same applies to French trials held in Germany and in the former colonial territory of French Indochina (present-day Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam). Some of the Luxembourg trials are already included in the ICWC holdings.

A key focus of documentation is on trials for crimes against humanity in the British and French occupation zones, which is nearing completion (approximately 1,500 trials of various instances). Documentation has also begun on war crimes trials against Germans and Austrians in Poland (Białystok, Bromberg, Bytom, Chojnice, Cieszyn, Częstochowa, Ełk, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Gliwice, Gniezno, Grudziądz, Jasło, Kalisz, Katowice, Kielce, Kraków, Legnica, Leszno, Łódź, Łomża, Lublin, Mława, Olsztyn, Ostrów Wielkopolski, Piotrków Trybunalski, Płock, Poznań, Racibórz, Rzeszów, Sosnowiec, Świdnica, Tarnów, Toruń, Warszawa, Włocławek, Wrocław, Zamość). Overviews of Dutch trials in the Netherlands (241 cases) and in the former Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia – 513 judgments) have also been processed. In a collaborative project with the Free University of Brussels, ICWC was additionally able to comprehensively compile war crimes trials from both World War I and World War II.

Preparations are underway to document trials in the former Soviet Union (Russia, the Baltic States, Georgia, and Ukraine) as well as in the former Czechoslovakia. In addition, over 1,400 German prisoners of war accused of war crimes in Yugoslavia have been identified.

Additional sources for individual countries are also available, including Bangladesh, Belgium, China (including Hong Kong), Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, the USA, and the United Nations. With this, the International Research and Documentation Centre for War Crimes Trials (ICWC) holds approximately ten million pages of historical source material. The ICWC trial database documents nearly 9,500 proceedings involving 25,000 defendants. In addition, a considerable number of digitized contemporary books and articles are available. These can be accessed on-site at the center via user terminals.

For inquiries, please contact us directly by or phone. We will be happy to arrange a personal appointment so that you can access our collections.