announcer: 70 years ago on international war crimes trials november 20, 1945, began in nurnberg, germanyxt on american history tv, historian mark hull gives a history of a case. in an eight-month preceding, nazis were put on trial for murdering more than one million jews and tens of thousands of others including partisan writers, disabled persons, and roma. >> we mark the 70 anniversary of the nuremberg trials -- we present our program in partnership with the chairman presidential library, the german center of kansas city, the holocaust education, and the u.s. army general command and staff college. tonight's program speaker, dr. mark hull, teaches the war crimes law in american history. he earned his undergraduate degree from citadel.

little or no controversy about the reasonableness of the nÜrnberg trials now.but back then, there was still some. rationalee, he gave a for that. fact, was present at the creation, so to speak, during world war ii. developed a rationale for war crimes trials that went to roosevelt and was instrumental because roosevelt then went to the allies and made those -- mark: jim's back story is definitely worth taking a minute with. both the central characters here have epic stories. jim's career with the oss in the legalii was as right hand man to william donovan, the head of the oss. no relation. about five years out of law school. >> 1940 was is your graduation. he went -- his ear of graduation. mark: fiercely intelligent. and phil biggers biology, -- biography, negotiator, which are think is still in print, he talks about his early years in the advanced technology division . working on the contracts that obtained the technologies that made up the manhattan project. so he had a lot of responsibility early in his career. in the preparation for the nuremberg trials. wa