Abstract

This chapter explores the contribution of Eastern European socialist states to the formation of the international protection of culture in the context of armed conflicts after the Second World War. Drawing on archival materials from international institutions and national governments, the chapter scrutinizes three acts of international lawmaking: the Nuremberg Trials, the 1948 Genocide Convention, and the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The chapter argues that the experience of Nazi occupation was deployed by various Eastern Europe states to reinforce the ideological battle against racism and Western colonialism, while countries from the same region, formerly aligned with the Axis, used socialist ideas to reinvent their international status. The development of a new regime of protection of culture reiterated major strains of conflicting interests in a Cold War order, but it also facilitated common initiatives between the East, the West, and the Third World.