In April 1945, as American troops advanced deep into central Germany, units tasked with seizing captured archives discovered a large body of documents that had been evacuated from Berlin. These materials belonged to a special service under the High Command of the Wehrmacht, which, during the war, collected evidence of violations of the laws of war by all parties – primarily those allegedly committed against German military personnel and civilians.
The archive was discovered by the Allies and subsequently transported to the United States as captured records. Unlike many other German records, these materials were scarcely used during the Nuremberg Trials and remained in restricted-access American archives for decades. Only in the late 1960s did the process of transferring the archive to the Federal Republic of Germany begin. Today, approximately 226 volumes are preserved in Freiburg – the portion that physically survived the war.
Thus, a little-known yet fundamentally important historical fact emerges: alongside waging an aggressive war, Nazi Germany created its own system for documenting war crimes, in which military structures collected information on alleged violations. This system bore all the formal characteristics of serious legal work. It served both propagandistic purposes – shaping a narrative favorable to Germany and accusing its opponents of violations of international law – and defensive ones. This challenges the common assumption that only victims of aggression document war crimes.
Why is this worth recalling? Because this experience demonstrates that aggressors, too, systematically collect evidence of alleged violations, often integrating such efforts with propaganda. Russia is following this exact blueprint.
In 1939, a special bureau was established under the High Command of the Wehrmacht – the Wehrmacht-Untersuchungsstelle für Verletzungen des Völkerrechts (Wehrmacht Investigation Office for Violations of International Law). Its mandate was to document alleged violations committed against German military personnel and civilians, as well as to examine accusations directed at the German army itself.
The bureau did not conduct investigative actions directly at crime scenes. Instead, it processed materials received through Wehrmacht military and administrative structures, conducting legal analysis and systematization. In other words, information was initially collected by military units and subsequently centralized, structured, and compiled into multi-volume case files.
The legal formalities was meticulously maintained: protocols, witness testimonies, reports, forensic conclusions, photographs, video materials, and operational logs. Notably, however, among all preserved volumes, only one concerns crimes committed by the German side.
Among the documented episodes were well-known events. In June–July 1941, during the retreat of Soviet forces, NKVD officers carried out mass executions of prisoners in Lviv prisons. These killings involved thousands of victims—Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, and others arrested between 1939 and 1941. The German side documented these events and used them extensively in propaganda materials.
Another example is the Katyn massacre. In the spring of 1940, the NKVD executed more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war and members of the elite. After the discovery of mass graves in 1943, German authorities organized exhumations, involved an international commission of medical experts, and conducted forensic examinations. The findings were compiled into detailed reports and became part of a large-scale information campaign.
At the same time, the USSR attempted to include Katyn in the indictment against Nazi Germany at Nuremberg, claiming that the executions had taken place in September 1941 and had been carried out by German forces. Ultimately, the tribunal did not consider this claim proven and issued no ruling on the matter.
The materials also record isolated cases of extrajudicial executions of German prisoners of war by units of the French Resistance in 1944.
According to various estimates, the bureau produced over 400 volumes of materials. To date, 226 volumes have survived – approximately half of the original archive. Some records were destroyed in fires at the end of the war, while others were lost during evacuation. This highlights an important point: even the “evidence” collected by an aggressor is often shaped by who controls the archives after the war and how post-war memory politics are constructed.
Can we state with certainty that all volumes were returned to Germany? No. This, too, invites reflection.
After the war, the world witnessed the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials. However, these proceedings took place within the framework of a post-war balance of power. Some materials collected by the German side were used by the Allies to corroborate specific episodes, yet a substantial portion of the documentation was never subjected to independent legal assessment – much like crimes committed by the Allied forces themselves.
This history has direct parallels with the present and allows us to better understand whether we have learned from past mistakes. It is evident that in war, parties compete not only for territory but also for the fate of truth and for the authority to construct the legal narrative of events.
Whereas in the past battlefield victories were closely linked to the power to define that narrative, today the situation is far more complex. The question of how this war will be understood by future generations remains open, and much depends on us.
Since 2014, Russian authorities have systematically constructed their own bodies of materials alleging crimes by the Ukrainian side. By contrast, Ukraine began this systematic work five years later, in 2019, with the establishment of the Department for Oversight of Criminal Proceedings Related to Crimes Committed in the Context of Armed Conflict within the Office of the Prosecutor General.
Within the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, this area is handled by a specialized unit for investigating so-called “international crimes against civilians,” as well as, since 2022, by the Main Military Investigative Directorate. Criminal cases are opened, “testimonies” are published, reports are prepared, and media narratives – such as the infamous stories about “crucified boys” – are produced. Previously, similar materials were also systematically submitted to the European Court of Human Rights.
While much of this may appear absurd, the legal framing of some of these materials creates an impression of evidentiary credibility.
In most cases, such materials likely serve primarily propagandistic purposes: to construct an alternative version of events, justify the aggression, and blur the line between perpetrator and victim. This effort is actively pursued, including in countries of the Global South. I can attest to this, having worked with such materials even before the full-scale invasion. At that time, Russian authorities published “volumes” of alleged evidence, which were distributed primarily abroad. On one occasion, a colleague brought one such volume from the Czech Republic. Without hesitation, I incorporated it into the materials of a criminal case. My colleagues were surprise – but in my view, the most effective way to counter disinformation is through genuine, independent investigation.
This work should not be underestimated, particularly in the context of hybrid threats and information warfare.
As we can see, this is not new in history. Aggressors across different eras often have more in common with each other than with those they accuse. The Russian authorities cite “denazification” as one of the justifications for aggression. Yet the instrumentalization of law in information warfare, selective documentation, and centralized construction of a desired narrative are practices well known to history.
At the same time, it is important to recognize that international humanitarian law functions effectively primarily where all parties at least attempt to comply with it. When one party systematically disregards these norms and the other operates under conditions of asymmetry, the space for law narrows significantly.
Of course, today’s situation differs substantially from that of the 1940s. Evidence of violations no longer exists solely in closed archives or state investigative files. It is generated and circulates across multiple environments: open sources, reports of international organizations, journalistic and human rights investigations, and vast volumes of digital data.
Modern technologies significantly undermine the state’s monopoly over the interpretation of events and allow facts to be documented almost in real time. The battlefield itself has, in many ways, become transparent.
At the same time, this openness creates new challenges: the volume of information increases, but so do the risks of manipulation, disinformation, and erroneous conclusions. Therefore, standards of verification, preservation, and legal assessment of evidence become critically important. Equally important is the principle of universality – the application of the same criteria to all parties to a conflict.
For Ukraine, it is therefore essential not only to expose manipulation but also to strictly adhere to international humanitarian law and to work systematically with evidence. Ultimately, this includes establishing within the structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine a fully developed capability for the collection and preservation of battlefield evidence.
This involves consistent documentation of facts within military areas of responsibility (where law enforcement bodies may not have access), safeguarding evidentiary materials, cooperating with international justice mechanisms, and ensuring the transparency of investigations.
In modern warfare, evidence is not merely a legal tool. It shapes trust in the state, influences international support, and becomes the foundation for future accountability.
In the long term, it is precisely the quality of collected and verified evidence that will determine whether justice is restored, and whether international law retains its force in the face of aggression.