Conference interpreting as a profession was born at the end of the First World War. Practised first by a small number of extraordinary consecutive interpreters, its development and spread worldwide came with the breakthrough of the technique of simultaneous interpretation at the Nuremberg Process and in the United Nations. The training of the interpreters, their working conditions, the first attempts to organize the profession are described with a number of anecdotes and historic memories by the author whose career as an interpreter started in 1948.