When Hermann Göring and other leading Nazis entered a grand Nuremberg courtroom 80 years ago, watching eight yards away was Belfast man Seaghan Maynes.

Not yet 30, Maynes had moved from Belfast to London and joined Reuters the previous year, travelling through Europe with Gen George S Patton’s Third US Army. He witnessed the Normandy landings and, alongside Ernest Hemingway, the liberation of Paris – and the Buchenwald concentration camp.

On November 20th, 1945, though, Maynes was in courtroom 600 for what was billed as the trial of the century. An international military tribunal was, for the first time, placing individuals on trial for the most serious crimes during the second World War, in particular by the Nazi regime’s industrialised killing machine.

Seaghan Maynes. Photograph: Alamy stock photo via PA

Eight decades on, the so-called Nuremberg trials are seen as the birthplace of international criminal law where the worst type of crime possible was defined: crimes against humanity.

Sitting today in the courtroom – wood panelling and high coffered ceiling – the air is dry but cool. At the stroke of noon, it’s showtime: the high curtains close automatically and a transparent gauze screen, the entire width of the courtroom, unrolls from the ceiling before the visitor gallery.

Projectors superimpose on today’s courtroom black and white newsreel f