Krzyżowa, as the site of implementation for MICC, reflects the plans developed here by the resistance group “Kreisau Circle” for the democratic rebuilding of post-World War II Germany. The Kreisau Circle had gathered here around the owner of the Kreisau Estate, Helmuth James von Moltke, in 1942-1943.

Two aspects of their vision are relevant for MICC. First, they asked themselves how Europe could find lasting peace and how Germany, once freed of Hitler, could find a place in that peace. Their solution was a European confederation of states that would share common values and roots and cooperate on economic as well as political levels. Second, they sought a method to punish the crimes of the National Socialists.

Even then, they had in mind an international criminal court in which both the victors and the defeated could satisfy their collective responsibility for humanity and justice.

Helmuth James von Moltke, as an international law practitioner in the high command of the German military, was convinced that the existing laws of war were meant to prevent the expansion of military measures and, in so doing, to better the lot of civilians. His endeavours touched on economic law and naval military law as well as the treatment of forced labourers and Jewish war prisoners held in the east. Through his personal engagement as an international law practitioner and the founder of the Kreisau Circle, Moltke worked unceasingly for peace and the protection of human rights, a legacy that MICC hopes to share with young people today.