This article examines the neglected war crimes trials of Holocaust perpetrators that took place at the People's Tribunal in early postwar Romania, focusing especially on the first trial (the “Macici group”). The article shows that in spite of the political interferences by the new pro-communist regime and the USSR, the Macici group trial in particular, and the first war crimes trials in general, were not Stalinist show trials or fake trials and they sentenced real war criminals and accurately captured Romania's participation in the Holocaust. Unlike the Antonescu group trial – that indicted the former pro-Nazi dictator and his closest collaborators – the first war crimes trial was not a typical political trial. In general, it respected the rule of law of the era. Resembling the cases of other trials of Nazi perpetrators and collaborators in postwar Europe, the Romanian perpetrators invoked superior orders as their main line of defense. In spite of the public perception and the communist regime's propaganda, the primary sources show that the People's Tribunal proved rather lenient and inefficient. Additionally, these trials had an important political-social role in postwar Romania and helped the communist regime discredit political adversaries, purge the judiciary, gain legitimacy, and increase its control of local society.

Returning from a four-month tour in America, the Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga (1871–1940) stopped for a few days in Switzerland, on his way home. On May 7, 1930, he gave a lecture in Bern on medieval peasants and their struggle for freedom in the 14th century. Peasants against feudal armies inspired memories from America. However, Iorga, who was at the time preoccupied with questions of world history and comparative research, did not simply associate the War of Independence with the victory of the Swiss “peasants” at Sempach against Duke Leopold III of Tyrol. He drew a parallel between the military success of the Eidgenossen of 1386 and the defeat inflicted 56 years earlier upon the king of Hungary, Charles I, by Romanian peasants. The battle, on the 600th anniversary of which Iorga delivered his lecture, was illustrated in the Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle. The Romanian historian was convinced that the illustrator had been an eyewitness or, at least, somebody informed by a participant. There is no mention of peasants in the text of the Chronicle, but on the basis of the last illuminations in the manuscript, Iorga thought he could recognize the dress of the Romanian peasants of his own time: the woolen hat (căciulă, a sort of Phrygian cap); the long, braided hair; the leather jacket doubled with wool; the leggings; and the leather sandals (opinci). The Romanians fought like peasants as well: they cut trees in the forest, which they then pushed over King Charles and his heavy cavalry. Iorga did not find this detail either in the text or in the illuminations of the Hungarian Chronicle. He got it from the Chronicle of the Prussian Land by Peter of Dusburg, although that source is not mentioned in the lecture.

Between 1817 and 1831, four German scientists – Karl von Martius, Georg Langsdorff, Ludwig Riedel, and Friedrich Sello – undertook expeditions in Brazil with the goal of collecting natural specimens, particularly focusing on Brazilian cinchona plants. Renowned for their medicinal properties, especially in the treatment of fever diseases, cinchona specimens were extensively utilized by local Brazilian communities. The widespread use of cinchona raises important questions regarding how German scientists acquired knowledge of the therapeutic properties of plants, previously unknown within German pharmacology. This paper argues that the German understanding of Brazil's cinchona trees was situated within an imperialist endeavor that not only appropriated indigenous knowledge but also involved conducting experiments on these plants and their effects on local populations. This hybridization of knowledge about cinchona was characterized by an asymmetrical dominance of German pharmacological experimentation, which sought to enhance organic life and establish utopian, “healthy” German societies, in both German territories and Brazil. Consequently, German chemical experiments with Brazilian cinchona specimens intersected with biopolitical practices, aimed at manipulating both plant and human life through therapeutic interventions.