Irish Examiner view: Cruel lesson we forget at our peril

Nazi German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, right, leans in front of Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, to confer with his lawyer, lower left, while Hermann Goering, centre, chief of the German Air Force and one of Hitler's clostest aides, turns to talk with Karl Doenitz, rear right, during a Nueremberg war crime trial session.

It’s more than two decades since brewers Beamish and Crawford invoked a slogan that if it was relevant then is even more relevant and reassuring today. The regional brewer promised that their stout was “consistency in a world gone mad”. That declaration spoke, at the same time, to our longing for stability and an almost genetic, rebellious disposition to cheer on an underdog. The latitude to indulge that juxtaposition is, in our all too often cold, hard world, a thing of luxury. It should not be underestimated. Such a luxury can only endure if it is built on solid, sometimes taken-for-granted, foundations.

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the opening of one of the seminal events underpinning our world. The Nuremberg trials drew a line between Europe’s darkest, modern collapse and today’s progressive, largely peaceful Europe. The location was and is symbolic. Nuremberg hosted spectacular Nazi rallies each year and the Satanic Nuremberg laws were a catalyst for the Holocaust. As these events fade from living memory they become almost ephemeral warnings, rather than a constraining presence.