This is driving me nuts, and I can’t for the life of me remember wtf the country was or what the trial was that set the precedent.
IIRC, the basic outline was: the Nazis had invaded and taken control of a country during WWII. They carried out brutal acts and were in violation of the laws and/or international customs of war due to their treatment of prisoners. They claimed, however, that since they didn’t have a garrison force there that they weren’t actually occupying the country. The verdict which came down, however, said that it was the capacity to affect control over an area that typified occupation, not whether or not troops were stationed there at that moment.
Yes, but whether they annexed the territory before or after WWII isn’t quite the point, since IIRC they didn’t try to annex the territory at all, pre, post or during WWII.
Never came across a mention of such an issue either. What would have been the purpose of raising that legal point anyway? Not formally occupying a territory is not a defence against the charge of having committed war crimes there.
Nazi Germany did commit war crimes on the territory of non-occupied countries (fellow members of the Tripartite pact, i.e. allied countries like Bulgaria, Romania etc.) and I have never heard that this was raised as a legal defence after the war.