In September 2013, top of the international agenda was to stop any further deadly chemical attacks on the people of Syria. Bringing the war criminals to justice was not far behind. A UN commission probed 14 illegal chemical attacks including one that killed more than 1,400 men, women and children. Maher Assad, the brother of Syria’s President, was thought to be behind the atrocities.

Reports claimed that the ruthless Republican Guard ordered a junior captain to fire chemical shells under threat of being shot in the head. History is littered with brutal war criminals, from Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein to Serbian Slobodan Milosevic who died in his cell of a heart attack, following his arrest and the charges brought against him for war crimes. Libya suffered under Colonel Gaddafi, while Bosnia saw war crimes perpetrated by Ratko Mladic, who is currently still on trial.

Germany, however, has had to come to terms with some of the worst atrocities committed-there is now speculation that up to 30 concentration camp guards could finally face justice for the deaths of helpless men, women and children who were murdered in the gas chambers, or shot as they desperately tried to escape.

Led by German lawyers, moves are being made to see that surviving Nazis  pay for their horrific crimes before they die. Crimes of the Century – War Crimes, takes a detailed and disturbing look at some of the worst atrocities ever committed by humankind and questions whether war crimes might one day become catastrophic events that are firmly confined to the past.