BBC NEWS | Europe | Hitler's henchmen in the dock

Markus Wolf, the former head of the East German foreign intelligence service, attended the Nuremberg Trials 60 years ago as a radio journalist. Now aged 82, he shared his memories of seeing some of Nazi Germany's most notorious war criminals in court - like "staff in a railway station or in a post office" - with the BBC's Berlin correspondent, Tristana Moore: The director of news was looking for someone to send to Nuremberg. I sensed that it was going to be a historic event, so I offered to go and I was sent as a special correspondent. I was in the seventh row in the Palace of Justice Nuremberg court and there before my eyes were the people who had been found responsible for terrible things. They were the greatest leaders of the Nazi regime who were still alive, as Hitler was dead, on trial for war crimes. At the time, when the war ended, most Germans believed that the Nazis would receive severe punishments. Perhaps I was naïve, but I had seen the photographs of all these Nazi leaders, in all their former pomp and glory. Then, in Nuremberg, I saw normal, simple people sitting in the dock. They seemed like staff in a railway station or in a post office. siehe auch: Germany marks Nuremberg tribunals. Germany is holding a series of events marking the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, where Nazi leaders were convicted of war crimes