The decree stipulated that the task of the ChGK was to "take full account of the villainous crimes of the Nazis and the damage they caused to Soviet citizens and the socialist state, to establish the identity of the German fascist criminals with the aim of bringing them to trial and severe punishment; unification and coordination of the work already carried out by the Soviet state bodies in this area."

The first 27 reports published by ChGK constituted the majority of Soviet evidentiary material in the Nuremberg process and the trials of Japanese war criminals.

[4] The facts of atrocities were to be established by acts on the basis of statements by Soviet citizens, interviews of victims, witnesses, medical examinations and inspection of the crime scene.

[5] The Russian historian Nikita Petrov pointed out that the persons interviewed by the ChGK could not give the names of specific participants in war crimes, and as a result, responsibility was automatically assigned to the leadership of the German army and military administration .

[8] Only one of these reports, USSR-54 (in German) concerning the Katyn massacre, appears in the English version of the NMT "Blue Series" collection of exhibits.