http://dx.doi.org/10.17104/1611-8944-2016-4-500 Generiert durch Universität Bielefeld, am 14.11.2016, 12:01:09. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig. JMEH 14 / 2016 / 4 500 1 H. L. Stimson, «The Nuremberg Trial. Landmark in Law», in: G. Mettraux (ed.), Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial, Oxford 2008 (1947), 617–625, here 620. Everything seemed so simple in the beginning: «[After 1931] the ruling groups of three great nations, in wanton denial of every principle of peace and civilization, launched a conspiracy against the rest of the world», wrote Henry L. Stimson in early 1947 in an ardent defense of international criminal tribunals and justice. 1 Stimson, who was one of the most inluential American politicians during the irst half of the twentieth century and had served many years both as Secretary of State and as Secretary of War, was not merely an enthusiastic supporter of the trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo, he was, as a trained lawyer, one of their architects. His statement is striking in two respects: irst, he used the term «conspiracy» and second, he considered this con- spiracy to be a global one. Shortly after the end of the war, Stimson was far from being the only one holding this opinion. In those days, the idea of a worldwide conspiracy between Germany, Japan and Italy was rather common sense and dominated the pro- ceedings in Nuremberg and Tokyo. Seen in this light, it is hardly an exaggeration to maintain that the ghost that haunted the two main tribunals after the Second World War was the ghost of the Axis. Not long after the tribunals ended and judgments were rendered, however, the idea of the Axis as a powerful, global alliance disappeared. It was as if the beginning of the Cold War broke the Axis war alliance for a second time. But as the idea of its unity faded away, so too did the awareness of its globality. Not one monograph exists to date that examines the alliance from the perspective of all three powers involved. Furthermore, the bilateral studies that have looked at the Axis – usually at German- Japanese but also German-Italian relations – have denied the existence of a powerful and worldwide alliance of «three great nations», as Stimson had proclaimed shortly after the war. For example, Theo Sommer characterised it as an «alliance without backbone». He reduced the key treaties – the Anti-Comintern Pacts of 1936 and 1937 Daniel Hedinger A Global Conspiracy? The Berlin – Tokyo – Rome Axis on Trial and its Impact on the Historiography of the Second World War