Articles

Procedures of Imaging - The Nuremberg Trials and Milo Rau’s The Congo Tribunal (2015)

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Abstract

The Swiss theatre-maker Milo Rau celebrated his emergence on the world stage with a monumental performance: The Congo Tribunal (2015) was installed to address the impunity of multi-national corporations and their influence in violent conflicts in the Kivu region in the eastern Congo. Rau himself sets his theatre tribunal in the tradition of international legal and non-legal trials of the 20th century such as the International Military Tribunals in Nuremberg (IMT), Russell tribunals, like the one on Vietnam and Palestine, as well as to the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). With the emphasis on film as evidence in court, the Nuremberg trials were some of the first legal procedures to construct an image to the unspeakable crimes of Nazi Germany and set a precedent for subsequent trials on crimes that lie beyond the jurisdiction of a single nation state.

In this essay I examine the way in which Rau references the “procedure of imaging” (Cornelia Vismann) of Nuremberg with his documentary film The Congo Tribunal (2017). Rau and his team wanted to give a palpable image for a Western audience to act upon, while the performance itself, in organizing regional activists, showed a precedent for following transnational (theater) tribunals. I argue that Rau and his team established in this transmedia project a compelling montage of images that oscillate between real and fictional. 

Keywords: Milo Rau, Cornelia Vismann, The Congo Tribunal, Military Tribunal in Nuremberg

How to Cite:

Wendt, E. M., (2025) “Procedures of Imaging - The Nuremberg Trials and Milo Rau’s The Congo Tribunal (2015)”, Documenta 43(1): 9, 233–261. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/documenta.93844