The Simultaneous Interpretation System was implemented in a courtroom setting for the first time at the Trial. In August 1945, Colonel Leon Dostert, a foreign language expert with the U.S. Army Signal Corps contacted Charles A Horsky, Justice Jackson’s personal assistant in Washington DC. Dostert displayed the system to Horsky. Upon the further recommendation of Bill Jackson and Robert Gill, Justice Jackson directed IBM to implement the system.
Colonel Dostert became chief of the Translation Division at Nuremberg employing a score of interpreters to use the System. For more than two weeks before the Trial commenced, interpreters in the four languages rehearsed their functions in the Courthouse.
In mid- November, a full scale rehearsal in the Courtroom was held before the members of the Tribunal and the international press.
For further information, see http://www.roberthjackson.org
Note: Video was uploaded in 2009 and is part of the Robert H J Jackson collection.
I had the honor of meeting Mr. Peter Less, one of those who pioneered simultaneous interpreting at the Nuremberg Trials. His tale of that adventure were scary.