Nuremberg trials - Wikipedia

On November 20, 1945, 24 high ranking Nazi leaders were put on trial at Nuremberg, Germany. From the article:

"The Nuremberg trials (German: Die Nürnberger Prozesse) were a series of military tribunals held by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war after World War II. The trials were most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany, who planned, carried out, or otherwise participated in the Holocaust and other war crimes. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, and their decisions marked a turning point between classical and contemporary international law.

The first and best known of these trials was that of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT). It was described as "the greatest trial in history" by Norman Birkett, one of the British judges who presided over them.[1] Held between 20 November 1945 and 1 October 1946,[2] the Tribunal was given the task of trying 24 of the most important political and military leaders of the Third Reich – though the proceeding against Martin Bormann was tried in absentia, while another defendant, Robert Ley, committed suicide within a week of the trial's commencement.

Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Hans Krebs and Joseph Goebbels had all committed suicide in the spring of 1945 to avoid capture, though Himmler was captured before his suicide. Krebs and Burgdorf committed suicide two days after Hitler in the same place.[3] Reinhard Heydrich had been assassinated by Czech partisans in 1942. Josef Terboven killed himself with dynamite in Norway in 1945. Adolf Eichmann fled to Argentina to avoid Allied capture, but was apprehended by Israel's intelligence service (Mossad) and hanged in 1962. Hermann Göring was sentenced to death, but committed suicide by consuming cyanide the night before his execution in defiance of his captors. Miklós Horthy appeared as a witness at the Ministries trial held in Nuremberg in 1948.

This article primarily deals with the first trial, which was conducted by the IMT. Further trials of lesser war criminals were conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT), which included the Doctors' trial and the Judges' Trial.

The categorization of the crimes and the constitution of the court represented a juridical advance that would be used afterwards by the United Nations for the development of a specific international jurisprudence in matters of war crime, crimes against humanity, war of aggression, as well as for the creation of the International Criminal Court. The Nuremberg indictment also mentions genocide for the first time in international law (Count three, war crimes : "the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies and others.")

precedent for trying those accused of war crimes had been set at the end of World War I in the Leipzig War Crimes Trials held in May to July 1921 before the Reichsgericht (German Supreme Court) in Leipzig, although these had been on a very limited scale and largely regarded as ineffectual. At the beginning of 1940, the Polish government-in-exile asked the British and French governments to condemn the German invasion of their country. The British initially declined to do so; however, in April 1940, a joint declaration was issued by the British, French and Polish. Relatively bland because of Anglo-French reservations, it proclaimed the trio's "desire to make a formal and public protest to the conscience of the world against the action of the German government whom they must hold responsible for these crimes which cannot remain unpunished."[5]

Three-and-a-half years later, the stated intention to punish the Germans was much more trenchant. On 1 November 1943, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States published their "Declaration on German Atrocities in Occupied Europe", which gave a "full warning" that, when the Nazis were defeated, the Allies would "pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth ... in order that justice may be done. ... The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of the major war criminals whose offences have no particular geographical location and who will be punished by a joint decision of the Government of the Allies."[6] This intention by the Allies to dispense justice was reiterated at the Yalta Conference and at Potsdam in 1945.[7]

British War Cabinet documents, released on 2 January 2006, showed that as early as December 1944 the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of the leading Nazis if captured. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had then advocated a policy of summary execution in some circumstances, with the use of an Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles, being dissuaded from this only by talks with US and Soviet leaders later in the war.[8]

In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference, the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, proposed executing 50,000–100,000 German staff officers. US President Franklin D. Roosevelt joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Churchill, believing them to be serious, denounced the idea of "the cold blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their country" and that he would rather be "taken out in the courtyard and shot" himself than partake in any such action.[9] However, he also stated that war criminals must pay for their crimes and that, in accordance with the Moscow Document which he himself had written, they should be tried at the places where the crimes were committed. Churchill was vigorously opposed to executions "for political purposes."[10][11] According to the minutes of a meeting between Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, on 4 February 1945, at the Livadia Palace, President Roosevelt "said that he had been very much struck by the extent of German destruction in Crimea and therefore he was more bloodthirsty in regard to the Germans than he had been a year ago, and he hoped that Marshal Stalin would again propose a toast to the execution of 50,000 officers of the German Army."[12]

Henry Morgenthau Jr., US Secretary of the Treasury, suggested a plan for the total denazification of Germany;[13] this was known as the Morgenthau Plan. The plan advocated the forced de-industrialisation of Germany and the summary execution of so-called "arch-criminals", i.e. the major war criminals.[14] Roosevelt initially supported this plan, and managed to convince Churchill to support it in a less drastic form. Later, details were leaked generating widespread condemnation by the nation's newspapers[clarification needed]. Roosevelt, aware of strong public disapproval, abandoned the plan, but did not adopt an alternative position on the matter. The demise of the Morgenthau Plan created the need for an alternative method of dealing with the Nazi leadership. The plan for the "Trial of European War Criminals" was drafted by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and the War Department. Following Roosevelt's death in April 1945, the new president, Harry S. Truman, gave strong approval for a judicial process. After a series of negotiations between Britain, the US, Soviet Union and France, details of the trial were worked out. The trials were to commence on 20 November 1945, in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg.[citation needed]

On 20 April 1942, representatives from the nine countries occupied by Germany met in London to draft the "Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes". At the meetings in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945), the three major wartime powers, the United Kingdom, United States, and the Soviet Union, agreed on the format of punishment for those responsible for war crimes during World War II. France was also awarded a place on the tribunal. The legal basis for the trial was established by the London Charter, which was agreed upon by the four so-called Great Powers on 8 August 1945, [15] and which restricted the trial to "punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries"

Some 200 German war crimes defendants were tried at Nuremberg, and 1,600 others were tried under the traditional channels of military justice. The legal basis for the jurisdiction of the court was that defined by the Instrument of Surrender of Germany. Political authority for Germany had been transferred to the Allied Control Council which, having sovereign power over Germany, could choose to punish violations of international law and the laws of war. Because the court was limited to violations of the laws of war, it did not have jurisdiction over crimes that took place before the outbreak of war on 1 September 1939.

Leipzig and Luxembourg were briefly considered as the location for the trial.[16] The Soviet Union had wanted the trials to take place in Berlin, as the capital city of the 'fascist conspirators',[16] but Nuremberg was chosen as the site for two reasons, with the first one having been the decisive factor:[17]

The Palace of Justice was spacious and largely undamaged (one of the few buildings that had remained largely intact through extensive Allied bombing of Germany), and a large prison was also part of the complex.
Nuremberg was considered the ceremonial birthplace of the Nazi Party. It had hosted the Party's annual propaganda rallies[16] and the Reichstag session that passed the Nuremberg Laws.[17] Thus it was considered a fitting place to mark the Party's symbolic demise.
As a compromise with the Soviets, it was agreed that while the location of the trial would be Nuremberg, Berlin would be the official home of the Tribunal authorities.[18][19][20] It was also agreed that France would become the permanent seat of the IMT[21] and that the first trial (several were planned) would take place in Nuremberg.[18][20]

Most of the accused had previously been detained at Camp Ashcan, a processing station and interrogation center in Luxembourg, and were moved to Nuremberg for the trial.

Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternative, as well as a prosecutor.

Judges Edit
Major General Iona Nikitchenko (Soviet main)
Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Volchkov (Soviet alternative)
Lord Justice Colonel Sir Geoffrey Lawrence (British main), President of the Tribunal
Sir Norman Birkett (British alternative)
Francis Biddle (American main)
John J. Parker (American alternative)
Professor Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French main)
Robert Falco (French alternative)
Chief prosecutors Edit
Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross (United Kingdom)
Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson (United States)
Lieutenant-General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko (Soviet Union)
François de Menthon, later replaced by Auguste Champetier de Ribes (France)
Assisting Jackson were the lawyers Telford Taylor,[22] William S. Kaplan[23] and Thomas J. Dodd, and Richard Sonnenfeldt, a US Army interpreter. Assisting Shawcross were Major Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. Mervyn Griffith-Jones, who was later to become famous as the chief prosecutor in the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial, was also on Shawcross's team. Shawcross also recruited a young barrister, Anthony Marreco, who was the son of a friend of his, to help the British team with the heavy workload.

The vast majority of the defense attorneys were German lawyers.[24] These included Georg Fröschmann, Heinz Fritz (Hans Fritzsche), Otto Kranzbühler (Karl Dönitz), Otto Pannenbecker (Wilhelm Frick), Alfred Thoma (Alfred Rosenberg), Kurt Kauffmann (Ernst Kaltenbrunner), Hans Laternser (general staff and high command), Franz Exner (Alfred Jodl), Alfred Seidl (Hans Frank), Otto Stahmer (Hermann Göring), Walter Ballas (Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach), Hans Flächsner (Albert Speer), Günther von Rohrscheidt (Rudolf Hess), Egon Kubuschok (Franz von Papen), Robert Servatius (Fritz Sauckel), Fritz Sauter (Joachim von Ribbentrop), Walther Funk (Baldur von Schirach), Hanns Marx (Julius Streicher), Otto Nelte (Wilhelm Keitel), and Herbert Kraus/Rudolph Dix (both working for Hjalmar Schacht). The main counsels were supported by a total of 70 assistants, clerks and lawyers.[25] The defense counsel witnesses included several men who took part in the war crimes during World War II, such as Rudolf Höss. The men testifying for the defense hoped to receive more lenient sentences.[clarification needed] All of the men testifying on behalf of the defense were found guilty on several counts.[26]

The International Military Tribunal was opened on 19 November 1945 in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.[27][28] The first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko. The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and seven organizations – the leadership of the Nazi party, the Reich Cabinet, the Schutzstaffel (SS), Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the "General Staff and High Command", comprising several categories of senior military officers.[avalon 1] These organizations were to be declared "criminal" if found guilty.

The indictments were for:

Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace
Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
War crimes
Crimes against humanity

The Rorschach test was administered to the defendants, along with the Thematic Apperception Test and a German adaptation of the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Test.[38] All were above average intelligence, several considerably so.[39]


Defendants listening to translated evidence through headphones
Name I.Q.[40][41]
Dönitz, Karl 138
Frank, Hans 130
Frick, Wilhelm 124
Fritzsche, Hans 130
Funk, Walther 124
Göring, Hermann 138
Hess, Rudolf 120
Jodl, Alfred 127
Kaltenbrunner, Ernst 113
Keitel, Wilhelm 129
Neurath, Konstantin von 125
Papen, Franz von 134
Raeder, Erich 134
Ribbentrop, Joachim von 129
Rosenberg, Alfred 127
Sauckel, Fritz 118
Schacht, Hjalmar 143
Schirach, Baldur von 130
Seyss-Inquart, Arthur 141
Speer, Albert 128
Streicher, Julius 106
Throughout the trials, specifically between January and July 1946, the defendants and a number of witnesses were interviewed by American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn. His notes detailing the demeanor and comments of the defendants survive; they were edited into book form and published in 2004.[42] Jean Delay was the psychiatric expert for the French delegation in the trial of Rudolf Heß.[43]

Overview of the trial

20 November 1945: Start of the trials.
21 November 1945: Judge Robert H. Jackson opens for the prosecution with a speech lasting several hours, leaving an impression on both the court and the public.
26 November 1945: The Hossbach Memorandum (of a conference in which Hitler explained his war plans) is presented.
29 November 1945: The film "Nazi concentration camps" is screened.
30 November 1945: Witness Erwin von Lahousen testifies that Keitel and von Ribbentrop gave orders for the murder of Poles, Jews, and Russian prisoners of war.
11 December 1945: The film The Nazi Plan is screened, showing long-term planning and preparations for war by the Nazis.
3 January 1946: Witness Otto Ohlendorf, former head of Einsatzgruppe D, admits to the murder of around 90,000 Jews.
3 January 1946: Witness Dieter Wisliceny describes the organisation of RSHA Department IV-B-4, in charge of the Final Solution.
7 January 1946: Witness and former SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski admits to the organized mass murder of Jews and other groups in the Soviet Union.
28 January 1946: Witness Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, member of the French Resistance and concentration camp survivor, testifies on the Holocaust, becoming the first Holocaust survivor to do so.
11–12 February 1946: Witness and former Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, who had been secretly brought to Nuremberg, testifies on the question of waging a war of aggression.
14 February 1946: The Soviet prosecutors try to blame the Katyn massacre on the Germans.
19 February 1946: The film Cruelties of the German-Fascist Intruders, detailing the atrocities which took place in the extermination camps, is screened.
27 February 1946: Witness Abraham Sutzkever testifies on the murder of almost 80,000 Jews in Vilnius by the Germans occupying the city.
8 March 1946: The first witness for the defense testifies – former General Karl Bodenschatz.
13–22 March 1946: Hermann Göring takes the stand.
15 April 1946: Witness Rudolf Höss, former commandant of Auschwitz, confirms that Kaltenbrunner had never been there, but admits to having carried out mass murder.
21 May 1946: Witness Ernst von Weizsäcker explains the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939, including its secret protocol detailing the division of Eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union.
20 June 1946: Albert Speer takes the stand. He is the only defendant to take personal responsibility for his actions.
29 June 1946: The defense for Martin Bormann testifies.
1–2 July 1946: The court hears six witnesses testifying on the Katyn massacre; the Soviets fail to pin the blame for the event on Germany.
2 July 1946: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz provides written testimony regarding attacks on merchant vessels without warning, admitting that Germany was not alone in these attacks, as the US did the same.
4 July 1946: Final statements for the defense.
26 July 1946: Final statements for the prosecution.
30 July 1946: Start of the trial of the "criminal organizations".
31 August 1946: Last statements by the defendants.
1 September 1946: The court adjourns.
30 September–1 October 1946: The sentencing occurs, taking two days, with the individual sentences read out on the afternoon of 1 October.[44]
The accusers were successful in unveiling the background of developments leading to the outbreak of World War II, which cost at least 40 million lives in Europe alone,[45] as well as the extent of the atrocities committed in the name of the Hitler regime. Twelve of the accused were sentenced to death, seven received prison sentences (ranging from 10 years to life in prison), three were acquitted, and two were not charged.[46]