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Nuremberg Trials



 
 
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
 after its defeat in World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg
Nuremberg

Nuremberg is a city in the Germany State of Bavaria, in the Regierungsbezirk of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz River river and the Rhine?Main?Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city....
, Germany, from 1945 to 1946, at the Palace of Justice.






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The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
 after its defeat in World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg
Nuremberg

Nuremberg is a city in the Germany State of Bavaria, in the Regierungsbezirk of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz River river and the Rhine?Main?Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city....
, Germany, from 1945 to 1946, at the Palace of Justice. The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 21 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. It was held from 20 November 1945, to 1 October 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunals
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve United States military tribunals for war crimes against surviving members of the military, political, and economical leadership of Nazi Germany, held in the Palace of Justice , Nuremberg after World War II from 1946 to 1949 following the Nuremberg Trials before the International Milita...
 (NMT); among them included the Doctors' Trial
Doctors' Trial

The Doctors' Trial was the first of 12 trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg, Germany after the end of World War II....
 and the Judges' Trial
Judges' Trial

The Judges' Trial was the third of the twelve trials for war crimes the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II....
. This article primarily deals with the IMT; see the separate article on the NMT
Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve United States military tribunals for war crimes against surviving members of the military, political, and economical leadership of Nazi Germany, held in the Palace of Justice , Nuremberg after World War II from 1946 to 1949 following the Nuremberg Trials before the International Milita...
 for details on those trials.

Critics of the Nuremberg trials argued that the charges against the defendants were only defined as "crimes" after they were committed and that therefore the trial was invalid as a form of "victors' justice". As Biddiss noted "...the Nuremberg Trial continues to haunt us....It is a question also of the weaknesses and strengths of the proceedings themselves. The undoubted flaws rightly continue to trouble the thoughtful."

Origin

British War Cabinet
War Cabinet

A War Cabinet is a committee formed by a government in time of war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers. It is also quite common for a War Cabinet to have senior military officers and opposition politicians as members....
 documents, released on 2 January 2006, have shown that as early as December 1944, the Cabinet had discussed their policy for the punishment of the leading Nazis if captured. British Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the political leader of the United Kingdom and the head of government Her Majesty's Government....
 Sir Winston Churchill had then advocated a policy of summary execution
Summary execution

A summary execution is a variety of extrajudicial killing in which a person is capital punishment on the spot without trial. Summary executions are often practiced by police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency....
 in some circumstances with the use of an Act of Attainder to circumvent legal obstacles, and was only dissuaded from this by talks with U.S. leaders later in the war. In late 1943, during the Tripartite Dinner Meeting at the Tehran Conference
Tehran Conference

The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943 in Tehran, Iran....
, the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
, proposed executing 50,000–100,000 German staff officers. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , often referred to by his initials FDR, was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States....
 joked that perhaps 49,000 would do. Churchill denounced the idea of "the cold blooded execution of soldiers who fought for their country." However, he also stated that war criminals must pay for their crimes and that in accordance with the Moscow Document
Moscow Declaration

The Moscow Declaration was signed during the Moscow Conference on October 30 1943. The formal name of the declaration was "Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security"....
 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."

U.S. Treasury Secretary
United States Secretary of the Treasury

The United States Secretary of the Treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, concerned with finance and monetary matters, and, until 2003, some issues of national security and defense....
, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., suggested a plan for the total denazification
Denazification

File:Denazification-street.jpgDenazification was an Allies_of_World_War_II initiative to rid Germany and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the Nazism regime....
 of Germany; this was known as the Morgenthau Plan
Morgenthau Plan

The Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war....
. The plan advocated the forced de-industrialization of Germany, along with forced labour and other draconian measures similar to those that the Nazis themselves had planned for Eastern Europe
Generalplan Ost

Generalplan Ost was a secret Nazi Germany plan of genocide and ethnic cleansing to be realised in the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II....
. Roosevelt initially supported this plan, and managed to convince Churchill to support it in a less drastic form. Later, details were leaked to the public, generating widespread protest. Roosevelt, seeing strong public disapproval, abandoned the plan, but did not proceed to adopt support for another 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
United States Secretary of War

File:Swearing in of Secretary Dwight Davis.jpgThe Secretary of War was a member of the United States President of the United States United States Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration....
 Henry L. Simpson and the War Department
United States Department of War

The United States Department of War, sometimes also called the War Office, was the department of the United States Federal government of the United States's Federal government of the United States#Executive branch responsible for the operation and maintenance of land Military of the United States from 1789 until September 18, 1947,...
. Roosevelt died in April 1945. The new president, Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States . As the List of Vice Presidents of the United States Vice President of the United States, he succeeded Franklin D....
, gave strong approval for a judicial process.

After a series of negotiations between the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, and France, details of the trial were worked out. The trials were set to commence on 20 November 1945, in the city of Nuremberg.

Creation of the courts

On January 14, 1942, representatives from the nine occupied countries met in London to draft the Inter-Allied Resolution on German War Crimes. At the meetings in Tehran
Tehran Conference

The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943 in Tehran, Iran....
 (1943), Yalta
Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and Code name the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union?President of the United States Franklin D....
 (1945) and Potsdam
Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of William, German Crown Prince, in Potsdam, Germany, from July 16 to August 2, 1945....
 (1945), the three major wartime powers, the United States, Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 and the United Kingdom, agreed on the format of punishment for those responsible for war-crimes during World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. France was also awarded a place on the tribunal.

The legal basis for the trial was established by the London Charter
London Charter of the International Military Tribunal

The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was the decree issued on August 8, 1945, that set down the laws and procedures by which the Nuremberg trials were to be conducted....
, issued on 8 August 1945, 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
German Instrument of Surrender, 1945

The German Instrument of Surrender was the legal instrument that established the armistice ending the World War II in Europe. It was signed by representatives of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Allies of World War II and Soviet Union High Command on May 7 and May 8, 1945....
, political authority for Germany had been transferred to the Allied Control Council
Allied Control Council

The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority, known in German language as the Alliierter Kontrollrat, also referred to as the Four Powers , was a military occupation governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany after the end of World War II in Europe; the members were the United States, the United Kingdo...
, 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 3 September 1939.

Allied war crimes


The war crimes tribunal tried and punished personnel only from Axis countries. Accusations arose claiming victor's justice
Victor's justice

The label "victor's justice" to a situation in which they believe that a victorious nation is applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the enemy....
, since Allied war crimes could not be tried. It is, however, usual that the armed forces of a civilised country issue their forces with detailed guidance on what is and is not permitted under their military code. These are drafted to include any international treaty obligations and the customary laws of war. For example, at the trial of Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny

Otto Skorzeny was an Obersturmbannf?hrer in the Germany Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front , he commanded a rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity....
, his defence was in part based on the Field Manual published by the War Department of the United States Army, on 1 October 1940, and the American Soldiers' Handbook. If a member of the armed forces breaks their own military code then they can expect to face a court martial. When members of the Allied armed forces broke their military codes, they could be and were tried, as, for example, at the Biscari Massacre
Biscari massacre

The Biscari massacre describes two World War II incidents in which United States troops were involved in killing unarmed German and Italian prisoner of war at Biscari in 1943....
 trials.

However, General Chuck Yeager
Chuck Yeager

Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager is a former Brigadier general in the United States Air Force and noted test pilot. In 1947, he became the first pilot to travel sound barrier....
 writes in his autobiography that some air corps missions were probably war crimes, (specifically, the 'shoot anything that moves' missions in the German countryside) but he, and other pilots, went on the missions in order to avoid court martial for disobeying orders. He also said he hoped the allies won the war, otherwise they might be tried for war crimes.

The unconditional surrender
Unconditional surrender

Unconditional surrender is a surrender without conditions, except for those provided by international law. Announcing that only unconditional surrender is acceptable puts psychological pressure on a weaker adversary....
 of the Axis powers was unusual and led directly to the formation of the international tribunals. Usually, international wars end conditionally and the treatment of suspected war criminals makes up part of the peace treaty. In most cases those who are not prisoners of war are tried under their own judicial system if they are suspected of committing war crimes – as happened to some Finns at the end of the concurrent Finnish-Soviet Continuation War
Continuation War

The Continuation War }} was the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.At the time the name was used to make clear its perceived relationship to the preceding Winter War of 30 November 1939 to 13 March 1940, the first of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II....
. In restricting the international tribunal to trying suspected Axis war crimes, the Allies were acting within normal international law.

Location

The Soviet Union had wanted the trials to take place in Berlin, but Nuremberg
Nuremberg

Nuremberg is a city in the Germany State of Bavaria, in the Regierungsbezirk of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz River river and the Rhine?Main?Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city....
 was chosen as the site for the trials for specific reasons:
  • The Palace of Justice was spacious and largely undamaged (one of the few that had remained largely intact through extensive Allied bombing of Germany). A large prison was also part of the complex.
  • Nuremberg was considered the ceremonial birthplace of the Nazi Party, and hosted annual propaganda rallies. It was thus a fitting place to mark the party's symbolic demise.


It was also agreed that France would become the permanent seat of the IMT and that the first trial (several were planned) would take place in Nuremberg.

Nuremberg Judges

Participants

Each of the four countries provided one judge and an alternate, as well as the prosecutors. The judges were:
  • Major-General Iona Nikitchenko
    Iona Nikitchenko

    Major-General Iona Timofeevich Nikitchenko was a judge of the Soviet Union.Nikitchenko presided over some of the most notorious of Stalin's show trials during the Great Purges of 1936 to 1938, where he among other things sentenced Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev....
     (Soviet main)
  • Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Volchkov
    Alexander Volchkov

    Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Fedorovich Volchkov was a judge during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. He was the alternate Soviet Union judge during the proceedings....
     (Soviet alternate)
  • Rt. Hon. Col.
    Colonel

    Colonel is a military rank of a commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country in the world. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures....
     Sir
    Sir

    Sir is an honorific used as a title and in several other modern contexts.It was once used as a courtesy title among equals, but in common usage it is now usually reserved for one of superior Command hierarchy or Social status, such as an educator or commanding officer, or in age ; as a form of address from a merchant to a customer; in for...
     Geoffrey Lawrence
    Geoffrey Lawrence, 1st Baron Oaksey

    Geoffrey Lawrence, 3rd Baron Trevethin and 1st Baron Oaksey, Distinguished Service Order, Territorial Decoration, King's Counsel was the main British Judge during the Nuremberg trials after World War II, and President of the Judicial group....
     (British main and president)
  • Sir
    Sir

    Sir is an honorific used as a title and in several other modern contexts.It was once used as a courtesy title among equals, but in common usage it is now usually reserved for one of superior Command hierarchy or Social status, such as an educator or commanding officer, or in age ; as a form of address from a merchant to a customer; in for...
     Norman Birkett
    William Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett

    William Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett Queen's Counsel Privy Council of the United Kingdom was a British preacher, politician, barrister, and judge who served as the alternate British judge during the Nuremberg Trials....
     (British alternate)
  • Francis Biddle
    Francis Biddle

    Francis Beverley Biddle was an United States lawyer and judge who was United States Attorney General during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials....
     (US main)
  • John Parker (US alternate)
  • Professor
    Professor

    The meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the Academic department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual....
     Henri Donnedieu de Vabres
    Henri Donnedieu de Vabres

    Henri Donnedieu de Vabres was a French jurist who took part to during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. He was the primary France judge during the proceedings, with Robert Falco as his alternate....
     (French main)
  • Robert Falco
    Robert Falco

    Robert Falco was a France judge during the Nuremberg trials after World War II. He was one of the main authors of the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal....
     (French alternate)


The chief prosecutors were Robert H. Jackson
Robert H. Jackson

Robert Houghwout Jackson was United States Attorney General and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of the Supreme Court of the United States ....
 for the United States, Sir
Sir

Sir is an honorific used as a title and in several other modern contexts.It was once used as a courtesy title among equals, but in common usage it is now usually reserved for one of superior Command hierarchy or Social status, such as an educator or commanding officer, or in age ; as a form of address from a merchant to a customer; in for...
 Hartley Shawcross for the UK, Lieutenant-General R. A. Rudenko
Roman Rudenko

General Roman Andreyevich Rudenko was a Soviet lawyer. He was the prosecutor of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1944-1953 and Chief prosecutor of the entire Soviet Union from 1953....
 for the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
, and François de Menthon and Auguste Champetier de Ribes for France. Assisting Jackson was the lawyer Telford Taylor
Telford Taylor

Telford Taylor was an United States lawyer best known for his role in the Counsel for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, his opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, and his outspoken criticism of U.S....
 and a young US Army translator named Richard Sonnenfeldt
Richard Sonnenfeldt

Richard Sonnenfeldt is a Jewish-American engineer and corporate executive most notable as one of the primary translators for the Nuremberg Trials after World War II....
. Assisting Shawcross were Major
Major

In many European languages, the term Major refers to a military rank, denoting seniority at one of usually various levels of rank, for example: "Sergeant-Major" denoting the most senior ranking sergeant of a large military unit; "Captain-Major", denoting a mid-level command status Officer ...
 Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe
David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir

David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir Royal Victorian Order, Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Queen's Counsel, was a British people Conservative Party politician, lawyer and judge who combined an industrious and precocious legal career with political ambitions that took him to the offices of Solicitor General for Eng...
 and Sir John Wheeler-Bennett
John Wheeler-Bennett

Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett, Royal Victoria Order, Order of St Michael and St George, Order of the British Empire, British Academy, Royal Society of Literature was a Conservatism England historian of Germany and diplomatic history, and the official biographer of King George VI....
. Mervyn Griffith-Jones
Mervyn Griffith-Jones

John Mervyn Guthrie Griffith-Jones, CBE Military Cross Queen's Counsel was a United Kingdom Judge and former barrister.He is most famous for leading the prosecution of Penguin Books in the obscenity trial in 1960, following the publication of D....
, later to become famous as the chief prosecutor in the Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover is a novel by D. H. Lawrence written in 1928.Printed privately in Florence, Italy, in 1928, it was not printed in the United Kingdom until 1960 ....
 obscenity trial, was also on Shawcross's team. Shawcross also recruited a young barrister, Anthony Marreco
Anthony Marreco

Anthony Freire Marreco was a United Kingdom barrister. He was Junior Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials, and later a founding director of Amnesty International....
, who was the son of a friend of his, to help the British team with the heavy workload. Robert Falco was an experienced judge who had tried many in court in France.

Democrat James B. Donovan
James B. Donovan

James Britt Donovan was an American lawyer and Commander in the USNR. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he helped draft the legislation setting up the Central Intelligence Agency....
 was assistant trial counsel.

The main trial


The International Military Tribunal was opened on 18 October 1945, in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko. The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six criminal organizations - the leadership of the Nazi
Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism , refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers? Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945....
 party, the Schutzstaffel
Schutzstaffel

The , abbreviated SS- or - was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the F?hrer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men, managed to exert as much political influence as th...
 (SS) and Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst

The Sicherheitsdienst was primarily the intelligence service of the Schutzstaffel and the NSDAP. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the Gestapo, which the SS had infiltrated heavily after 1934....
 (SD), the Gestapo
Gestapo

The was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel , it was administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and was considered a dual organization of the Sicherheitsdienst and also a suboffice of the Sicherheitspolizei ....
, the Sturmabteilung
Sturmabteilung

The , abbreviated SA, , functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party the Germany Nazism. They played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s....
 (SA) and the High Command of the German armed forces (OKW).

The indictments were for:

  1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy
    Conspiracy (crime)

    In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between natural persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement....
     for the accomplishment of crime against peace
    Crime against peace

    A crime against peace, in international law, refers to "planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of War of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing" ....
  2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression
    War of aggression

    A war of aggression is a military conflict waged absent the justification of self-defense. Waging such a war of aggression is a crime under the customary international law....
     and other crimes against peace
  3. War crime
    War crime

    War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including but not limited to "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoner of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devast...
    s
  4. Crimes against humanity


The 24 accused were:

"I" indicted
Indictment

In the common law legal system, an indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a criminal offense. In those jurisdictions which retain the concept of a felony, the serious criminal offense would be a felony; those jurisdictions which have abolished the concept of a felony often substitute the concept of an indictable offenc...
      "G" indicted and found guilty      "O" Charged

Name  CountPenalty    Notes
 1    2    3    4      

IOGGDeathSuccessor to Hess as Nazi Party Secretary. Sentenced to death in absentia. Remains found in 1972 and dated to 1945.

IGGO10 yearsLeader of the Kriegsmarine from 1943, succeeded Raeder. Initiator of the U-boat
U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized#Loanwords version of the German language word , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II....
 campaign. Became President of Germany
President of Germany

The President of Germany is Germany's head of state.After the abdication of Wilhelm II, German Emperor in 1918 and the promulgation of the Weimar Constitution, the President of Germany was Head of State in Germany....
 following Hitler's
Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born Germany politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party....
 death. In evidence presented at the trial of Karl Dönitz
Karl Dönitz

Karl D?nitz was a Germany naval Commander who served in the Kaiserliche Marine during World War I and commanded the German Navy during the second half of World War II....
 on his orders to the U-boat
U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized#Loanwords version of the German language word , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II....
 fleet to breach the London Rules
London Naval Treaty

The London Naval Treaty was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the Empire of Japan, France, Italy and the United States, signed on April 22, 1930, which regulated submarine warfare and limited naval shipbuilding....
, Admiral Chester Nimitz
Chester Nimitz

Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz, United States Navy, Order of the Bath was an admiral in the United States Navy. He held the dual command of Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet , for U.S....
 stated that unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchant ships without warning, as opposed to attacks per Prize regulations....
 was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war. Dönitz was found guilty of breaching the 1936 Second London Naval Treaty
Second London Naval Treaty

The Second London Naval Disarmament Conference opened in London, the United Kingdom, on December 9, 1935. It resulted in the Second London Naval Treaty which was signed on March 25, 1936....
, but his sentence was not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare.
Ac

IOGGDeathReich Law Leader 1933-1945 and Governor-General of the General Government
General Government

The General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II by Nazi Germany and was an autonomous part of "Greater Germany"....
 in occupied Poland 1939-1945. Expressed repentance.

IGGGDeathHitler's Minister of the Interior 1933-1943 and Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia 1943-1945. Authored the Nuremberg Race Laws.

IIIO Acquitted Popular radio commentator, and head of the news division of the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. Tried in place of Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German people politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers....
.

IGGGLife ImprisonmentHitler's Minister of Economics. Succeeded Schacht as head of the Reichsbank
Reichsbank

The Reichsbank was the central bank of Germany from 1876 until 1945. It was founded on 1 January 1876 . The Reichsbank was a privately owned central bank of Prussia, under close control by the Reich government....
. Released due to ill health on 16 May 1957.

GGGGDeathReichsmarschall
Reichsmarschall

Reichsmarschall was the highest rank in the armed forces of Nazi Germany during World War II after the position of Supreme Commander held by Adolf Hitler....
, Commander of the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe

is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1933 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
 1935-1945, Chief of the 4-Year Plan 1936-1945, and several departments of the SS. Second only to Hitler in the Nazi hierarchy during the last years of the war. Committed suicide the night before his execution.
Rudolf Hess Portrait
GGIILife ImprisonmentHitler's deputy, flew to Scotland in 1941 in attempt to broker peace with Great Britain. After trial, committed to Spandau Prison; died in 1987.
Alfred Jodl Usa E Ardennes 2

GGGGDeathWehrmacht
Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
 Generaloberst, Keitel's subordinate and Chief of the O.K.W.'s Operations Division 1938-1945. Subsequently exonerated by German court in 1953, though the exoneration was later overturned, largely as a result of pressure by American officials.

IOGGDeathHighest surviving SS-leader. Chief of RSHA
RSHA

The RSHA, or Reichssicherheitshauptamt , was a subordinate organization of the Schutzstaffel. The RSHA was created by Heinrich Himmler on September 22 1939 through the merger of the Sicherheitsdienst , the Gestapo , and the Kriminalpolizei ....
 1943-45, the central Nazi intelligence organ. Also commanded many of the Einsatzgruppen
Einsatzgruppen

Einsatzgruppen were paramilitary groups formed by Heinrich Himmler and operated by the Schutzstaffel before and during World War II. Their principal task, per SS General Erich von dem Bach, at the Nuremberg Trials: "was the annihilation of the Jews, Roma people, and Soviet Union political commissars"....
 and several concentration camps.

GGGGDeathHead of Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) 1938-1945.
 III 
Major Nazi industrialist. C.E.O of Krupp A.G 1912-45. Medically unfit for trial . The prosecutors attempted to substitute his son Alfried
Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach

Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach , often referred to as Alfried Krupp, was a member of the 400-year Krupp dynasty of industrialists in Germany, and head of the Krupp company, which is now part of ThyssenKrupp, during World War II....
 (who ran Krupp for his father during most of the war) in the indictment, but the judges rejected this as being too close to trial. Alfried was tried in a separate Nuremberg trial for his use of slave labor, thus escaping the worst notoriety and possibly death.


GGGG15 yearsMinister of Foreign Affairs 1932-1938, succeeded by Ribbentrop. Later, Protector of Bohemia
Bohemia

History...
 and Moravia
Moravia

Moravia is a Historical regions of Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, one of the former Czech lands. It takes its name from the Morava River, Central Europe which rises in the northwest of the region....
 1939-43. Resigned in 1943 due to dispute with Hitler. Released (ill health) 6 November 1954.
Vonpapen1

IIOOAcquitted Chancellor of Germany
Chancellor

Chancellor or chancellour is an official title used in countries whose civilization has arisen directly or indirectly out of the Roman Empire....
 in 1932 and Vice-Chancellor under Hitler in 1933-1934. Ambassador to Austria 1934-38 and ambassador to Turkey
Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
 1939-1944. Although acquitted at Nuremberg, von Papen was reclassified as a war criminal in 1947 by a German de-Nazification court, and sentenced to eight years' hard labour. He was acquitted following appeal after serving two years.
Erich Raeder

GGGOLife ImprisonmentCommander In Chief of the Kriegsmarine from 1928 until his retirement in 1943, succeeded by Dönitz. Released (ill health) 26 September 1955.

GGGGDeathAmbassador-Plenipotentiary 1935-1936. Ambassador to the United Kingdom 1936-1938. Nazi Minister of Foreign Affairs 1938-1945,

[Image:Fritz Sauckel.jpg|left|100px]]
IIGGDeathGauleiter of Thuringia 1927-1945. Plenipotentiary of the Nazi slave labor program 1942-1945.
Hjalmar Schacht

IIOO Acquitted Prominent banker and economist. Pre-war president of the Reichsbank 1923-1930 & 1933-1938 and Economics Minister 1934-1937. Admitted to violating the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaty at the end of World War I. It ended the declaration of war between German Empire and Allies of World War I....
.
Baldur Von Schirach Beim Diner

IOOG20 yearsHead of the Hitlerjugend
Hitler Youth

The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung ....
 from 1933 to 1940, Gauleiter of Vienna
Vienna

Vienna is the Capital of Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million...
 1940-1943. Expressed repentance.

IGGGDeathInstrumental in the Anschluss
Anschluss

The ' , also known as the ', was the 1938 unification of Austria into Gro?deutschland by Nazi Germany.Austria was merged into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938....
 and briefly Austrian Chancellor 1938. Deputy to Frank in Poland 1939-1940. Later, Reich Commissioner of the occupied Netherlands 1940-1945. Expressed repentance.
Albert Speer 72 929

IIGG20 YearsHitler's favorite architect and close friend, and Minister of Armaments from 1942. In this capacity, he was ultimately responsible for the use of slave labourers from the occupied territories in armaments production. Expressed repentance.

IOOGDeathGauleiter of Franconia 1922-1940. Publisher of the weekly newspaper, Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer

Der St?rmer was a weekly Nazism newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 to the end of World War II in 1945, with brief suspensions in circulation due to legal difficulties....
.


"I" indicted
Indictment

In the common law legal system, an indictment is a formal accusation that a person has committed a criminal offense. In those jurisdictions which retain the concept of a felony, the serious criminal offense would be a felony; those jurisdictions which have abolished the concept of a felony often substitute the concept of an indictable offenc...
      "G" indicted and found guilty      "O" Charged

Throughout the trials, specifically between January and July 1946, the defendants and a number of witnesses were interviewed by American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn
Leon Goldensohn

Leon N. Goldensohn , was an American psychiatrist charged with caring for the mental health of the twenty-one Third Reich defendants awaiting Nuremberg Trials in 1946....
. His notes detailing the demeanour and personality of the defendants survive.

The death sentences were carried out 16 October 1946 by hanging
Hanging

Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", although it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging"....
 using the standard drop method instead of long drop. The executioner was John C. Woods
John C. Woods

John Chris Woods was an American Master Sergeant and the hangman for the Third United States Army at the Nuremberg Trials.Together with Joseph Malta, on October 16, 1946, Woods carried out the executions of the ten convicted German Main War Criminals....
. The bodies were brought to Dachau and burned (the final use of the crematories there) with the ashes then scattered into a river. The French judges suggested the use of a firing squad for the military condemned, as is standard for military courts-martial, but this was opposed by Biddle and the Soviet judges. These argued that the military officers had violated their military ethos and were not worthy of the firing squad, which was considered to be more dignified. The prisoners sentenced to incarceration were transferred to Spandau Prison
Spandau Prison

Spandau Prison was a prison situated in the Boroughs of Berlin of Spandau in western Berlin, constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine....
 in 1947.

Of the twelve defendants sentenced to death by hanging, two were not hanged: Hermann Göring committed suicide the night before the execution and Martin Bormann was not present when convicted. The remaining ten defendants sentenced to death were hanged.

The definition of what constitutes a war crime is described by the Nuremberg Principles
Nuremberg Principles

The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by necessity during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazism party members following World War II....
, a document which was created as a result of the trial. The medical experiments conducted by German doctors and prosecuted in the so-called Doctors' Trial
Doctors' Trial

The Doctors' Trial was the first of 12 trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg, Germany after the end of World War II....
 led to the creation of the Nuremberg Code
Nuremberg Code

The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation set as a result of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War....
 to control future trials involving human subjects.

Of the organizations the following were found not to be criminal:
  • Reichsregierung
  • Oberkommando
  • Generalstab der Wehrmacht
  • Sturmabteilung
    Sturmabteilung

    The , abbreviated SA, , functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party the Germany Nazism. They played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s....


Subsidiary and related trials

  • Eichmann Trial
  • Anton Dostler
    Anton Dostler

    Anton Dostler was a General of the Infantry in the regular German army during World War II. In the first allied war trial after the war, Dostler was tried and found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death by firing squad....
  • Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
    Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

    The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve United States military tribunals for war crimes against surviving members of the military, political, and economical leadership of Nazi Germany, held in the Palace of Justice , Nuremberg after World War II from 1946 to 1949 following the Nuremberg Trials before the International Milita...
     for the trials conducted by the NMT.
  • Dachau Trials
  • Romanian People's Tribunals
    Romanian People's Tribunals

    The Romanian People's Tribunals , the Bucharest People's Tribunal and the Northern Transylvania People's Tribunal were two tribunals set up by the post-World War II government of Romania, overseen by the Allied Commission#Rumania to try suspected war criminals, in line with Article 14 of the Armistice Agreement with Romania....
  • Soviet Military Tribunal
  • War-responsibility trials in Finland
    War-responsibility trials in Finland

    The war-responsibility trials in Finland was a trial of the Finland wartime leaders held responsible for "definitely influencing Finland in getting into a war with the Soviet Union and United Kingdom in 1941 or preventing peace" during the Continuation War, 1941-1944....
  • Frankfurt Auschwitz trials
    Frankfurt Auschwitz trials

    The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials, known in German language as der Auschwitz-Prozess or der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess, was a series of trials running from December 20, 1963 to August 10, 1965, charging twenty-two defendants under German penal law for their roles in the Holocaust as mid- to lower-level officials in the Auschwitz-Birkenau...

Influence on the development of international criminal law

The Nuremberg trials had a great influence on the development of international criminal law
International criminal law

International criminal law is an autonomous branch of law which deals with international crimes and the courts and tribunals set up to adjudicate cases in which persons have incurred international criminal responsibility....
. The International Law Commission
International Law Commission

The International Law Commission was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 for the "promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification."...
, acting on the request of the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly

The United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal United Nations System and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation....
, produced in 1950 the report Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgement of the Tribunal (Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1950, vol. II). See Nuremberg Principles
Nuremberg Principles

The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by necessity during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazism party members following World War II....
. The influence of the tribunal can also be seen in the proposals for a permanent international criminal court, and the drafting of international criminal codes, later prepared by the International Law Commission.

Part of the defence was that some treaties were not binding on the Axis powers because they were not signatories. This was addressed in the judgment relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity contains an expansion of customary law "the Convention Hague 1907
Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)

The Hague Conventions were international treaty negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague, Netherlands in 1899 and 1907, respectively, and were, along with the Geneva Conventions, among the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the nascent body of secular international law....
 expressly stated that it was an attempt 'to revise the general laws and customs of war,' which it thus recognised to be then existing, but by 1939 these rules laid down in the Convention were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war which are referred to in Article 6 (b) of the [London] Charter.
" The implication under international law is that if enough countries have signed up to a treaty, and that treaty has been in effect for a reasonable period of time, then it can be interpreted as binding on all nations not just those who signed the original treaty. This is a highly controversial aspect of international law, one that is still actively debated in international legal journals.

But the customary
Customary international law

Customary international law are those aspects of international law that derive from Custom . Coupled with Sources_of_international_law#General_principles_of_law and Treaties, custom is considered by the International Court of Justice, jurists, the United Nations, and its member states to be among the primary sources of international law....
 law of war exists, and has existed, since time immemorial
Time immemorial

Time immemorial is a phrase meaning time extending beyond the reach of memory, record, or tradition. The implication is that the subject referred to is, or can be regarded as, indefinitely ancient....
; the use of treaty to codify
Codification

In law, codification is the process of collecting and restating the law of a jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by subject, forming a legal code....
 what is allowed and what is prohibited is merely its modern expression; just as the common law
Common law

Common law refers to law and the corresponding Legal systems of the world developed through legal opinion of courts and similar tribunals , rather than through statute law or Executive ....
 in the English-speaking nations has forbidden murder
Murder

Murder as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide....
, under pain of death
Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the killing of a person by procedural law for Punishment#Retribution and Punishment#Incapacitation....
, since its inception, without a word on the statute-books proscribing murder in many of the common law countries up to the present day. The idea that there are certain expectations of those practicing the profession of arms among the civilized nations has been ingrained in many cultures--including those of Europe, East Asia (c.f. bushido
Bushido

, meaning "Way of the Warrior", is a Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honour until death....
, the warrior code of Japan), the Middle East (c.f. Saladin
Saladin

ala ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub , better known as Saladin in medieval Europe, was the Sultan of Egypt and Greater Syria. He led the Islamic opposition to the Second Crusade and Third Crusade....
, the Arabian/Islam
Islam

Islam is a Monotheism, Abrahamic religion originating with the teachings of the Prophets of Islam Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure....
ic exemplar of knightly virtue, respected and honored across the battle-lines by the Crusaders), and other civilizations. In particular, the culture of Europe gave rise to the concept of chivalry
Chivalry

Chivalry is a term relating to the medieval institution of knighthood. It is usually associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honor and courtly love....
, the code of honor regulating the conduct of knight
Knight

File:Gothic armor 2.jpgKnight is the term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. In the Commonwealth of Nations, knighthood is a non-heritable form of gentry....
s, men-at-arms
Man-at-arms

Man-at-arms was a medieval term for a soldier, almost always a professional. It was most often used to refer to men in a knight's or Lord's retinue who were well-equipped and well-trained ....
, and in later days, in more modern forms, soldier
Soldier

A soldier is a general English term that refers to a land component of national armed forces.In most societies of the world, "soldier" is also a general term for any member of the land forces including Commissioned officer and non-commissioned officers....
s. Traditionally, in Europe and elsewhere, the obligation of the warrior is to levy war upon all those who bear arms against him, his brothers-in-arms, his commander, and his nation, using whatever means at his disposal are necessary and honorable for the task, and not using those which are dishonorable or perfidious, but in so doing, to save and to defend the innocent, the weak, and the helpless; to bring succor to the wounded, comfort to the dying; to spare from the rigors of war those who do not present a threat, not bearing arms against him; to give quarter, and to treat with humanity and military dignity the enemy soldier who has yielded
Prisoner of war

A prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict....
, or is incapacitated; and, above all, to protect women and children from the sword.

The idea that a warrior owes a duty not just to his nation, or his army, but also to his common humanity is a concept as old as civilization
Civilization

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
 itself is. Over the millennia, civilization has remembered with respect those warriors who were courageous in battle and merciful to those they defeated, regardless of whose banner under which they fought, while history regards with infamy those warriors, regardless of their military success, who willingly discarded the very honor and respect that they may have earned in battle through their atrocities committed upon civilians or cruelties visited upon vanquished foes. No warrior has been regarded as a man of courage for slaughtering of the weak or innocent, for his pillages or sacks, or for brutalities and barbarities he visited upon his foes; therein lies no honor or glory, only senseless cruelty. This indicates that just as the law against murder in the common-law nations is established not by statute, but by history, custom, the human condition, and by being immanent
Immanence

Immanence, derived from the Latin in manere "to remain within", refers to philosophical and metaphysical theories of the divine as existing and acting within the mind or the world....
 in Nature
Natural law

Natural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere....
, so too is the law of war, and so too has it always been, whether its violation is explicitly prohibited by treaty or not.

The Nuremberg trials initiated a movement for the prompt establishment of a permanent international criminal court, eventually leading over fifty years later to the adoption of the Statute of the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court , Cour p?nale internationale in french language, is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crime against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression ....
.
  • The Conclusions of the Nuremberg trials served to help draft:
    • The Genocide Convention, 1948.
    • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
      Universal Declaration of Human Rights

      The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Guinness Book of Records describes the UDHR as the "Most Translated Document" in the world....
      , 1948.
    • The Nuremberg Principles
      Nuremberg Principles

      The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by necessity during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazism party members following World War II....
      , 1950.
    • The Convention on the Abolition of the Statute of Limitations on War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1968.
    • The Geneva Convention on the Laws and Customs of War, 1949; its supplementary protocols, 1977.


Validity of the court

Chief Justice of the United States Harlan Fiske Stone
Harlan Fiske Stone

Harlan Fiske Stone was an United States lawyer and judge. A native of New Hampshire he served as the dean of Columbia Law School, his alma mater in the early 20th century....
 called the Nuremberg trials a fraud. "(Chief US prosecutor) Jackson is away conducting his high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg," he wrote. "I don't mind what he does to the Nazis, but I hate to see the pretense that he is running a court and proceeding according to common law. This is a little too sanctimonious a fraud to meet my old-fashioned ideas."

Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas

William Orville Douglas was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court....
 charged that the Allies were guilty of "substituting power for principle" at Nuremberg. "I thought at the time and still think that the Nuremberg trials were unprincipled," he wrote. "Law was created ex post facto to suit the passion and clamor of the time."

The validity of the court has been questioned for a variety of reasons:
  • The defendants were not allowed to appeal or affect the selection of judges. A. L. Goodhart, Professor at Oxford, opposed the view that, because the judges were appointed by the victors, the Tribunal was not impartial and could not be regarded as a court in the true sense. He wrote:


"Attractive as this argument may sound in theory, it ignores the fact that it runs counter to the administration of law in every country. If it were true then no spy could be given a legal trial, because his case is always heard by judges representing the enemy country. Yet no one has ever argued that in such cases it was necessary to call on neutral judges. The prisoner has the right to demand that his judges shall be fair, but not that they shall be neutral. As Lord Writ has pointed out, the same principle is applicable to ordinary criminal law because 'a burglar cannot complain that he is being tried by a jury of honest citizens.'"
  • The main Soviet judge, Nikitchenko
    Iona Nikitchenko

    Major-General Iona Timofeevich Nikitchenko was a judge of the Soviet Union.Nikitchenko presided over some of the most notorious of Stalin's show trials during the Great Purges of 1936 to 1938, where he among other things sentenced Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev....
    , had taken part in Stalin's
    Joseph Stalin

    Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
     show trials
    Moscow Trials

    The Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge. Many of the defendants were executed....
     of 1936-1938,.
  • One of the charges, brought against Keitel, Jodl, and Ribbentrop included conspiracy to commit aggression against Poland in 1939. The Secret Protocols of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 23 August 1939, proposed the partition of Poland between the Germans and the Soviets (which was subsequently executed in September 1939); however, Soviet leaders were not tried for being part of the same conspiracy.. Instead, the Tribunal falsely proclaimed the Secret Protocols of the Non-Aggression Pact to be a forgery. Moreover, Allied Powers Britain and Soviet Union were not tried for preparing and conducting the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran
    Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran

    The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran was the invasion of Iran by United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Countenance, from August 25, 1941 to September 17, 1941....
     and the Winter War
    Winter War

    The Winter War or the Soviet-Finnish War began when the Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939, three months after the invasion of Poland by Germany that started World War II....
    , respectively.
  • In 1915, the Allied Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging, for the first time, another government (the Sublime Porte) of committing "a crime against humanity
    Crime against humanity

    Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings....
    ". However it was not until the phrase was further developed in the London Charter that it had a specific meaning. As the London Charter definition of what constituted a crime against humanity was unknown when many of the crimes were committed, it could be argued to be a retrospective law, in violation of the principles of prohibition of ex post facto law
    Ex post facto law

    An ex post facto law or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed or the legal status of facts and relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law....
    s and the general principle of penal law nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali
    Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali

    Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali is a basic Maxim in continental European legal thinking. It was written by Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach as part of the Bavarian Code in 1813....
    .
  • The court agreed to relieve the Soviet leadership from attending these trials as war criminals in order to hide their crimes against war civilians, crimes that were committed by their army that included "carving up Poland in 1939 and attacking Finland three months later." This "exclusion request" was initiated by the Russians and subsequently approved by the court's administration.
  • The trials were conducted under their own rules of evidence
    Rules of evidence

    Rules of evidence govern whether, when, how, and for what purpose proof of a legal case may be placed before a trier of fact for consideration....
    ; the indictments were created ex post facto
    Ex Post Facto

    Ex Post Facto may refer to:* Ex Post Facto , the eighth episode of Star Trek: Voyager* An ex post facto law, a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts committed prior to the enactment of the law...
     and were not based on any nation's law; the tu quoque
    Tu quoque

    Tu quoque is a Latin term used to mean a type of logical fallacy. The argument states that a certain position is false or wrong and/or should be disregarded because its proponent fails to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it....
     defense was removed; and some claim the entire spirit of the assembly was "victor's justice
    Victor's justice

    The label "victor's justice" to a situation in which they believe that a victorious nation is applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the enemy....
    ". The Charter of the International Military Tribunal permitted the use of normally inadmissible "evidence." Article 19 specified that "The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence... and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value". Article 21 of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) Charter stipulated:


"The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice
Judicial notice

Judicial notice is a rule in the law of evidence that allows a fact to be introduced into evidence if the truth of that fact is so notorious or well known that it cannot be refuted....
 thereof. It shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United [Allied] Nations, including acts and documents of the committees set up in the various allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military and other Tribunals of any of the United [Allied] Nations"
  • The chief Soviet prosecutor submitted false documentation in an attempt to indict defendants for the murder of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn forest near Smolensk. However, the other Allied prosecutors refused to support the indictment and German lawyers promised to mount an embarrassing defense. No one was charged nor found guilty at Nuremberg for the Katyn Forest massacre
    Katyn massacre

    The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre , was a mass murder of thousands of Poles military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian pow by Soviet NKVD, based on a proposal from Lavrentiy Beria to execute all members of the Polish Officer Corps dated March 5 1940....
    . In 1990, the Soviet government acknowledged that the Katyn massacre was carried out, not by the Germans, but by the Soviet secret police.


  • Freda Utley, in her 1949 book "The High Cost of Vengeance" charged the court with amongst other things double standards. She pointed to the Allied use of civilian forced labor
    Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union

    Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by the Soviet Union to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union during World War II....
    , and deliberate starvation of civilians in the occupied territories. She also noted that General Rudenko, the chief Soviet prosecutor, after the trials became commandant of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp
    Sachsenhausen concentration camp

    Sachsenhausen was a concentration camp in Germany, operating between 1936 and 1945. It was named after the Sachsenhausen quarter, part of the town of Oranienburg....
    . (After the fall of East Germany the bodies of 12,500 Soviet era victims were uncovered at the camp, mainly "children, adolescents and elderly people.")


However, as described above
Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after its defeat in World War II....
, the unconditional surrender
Unconditional surrender

Unconditional surrender is a surrender without conditions, except for those provided by international law. Announcing that only unconditional surrender is acceptable puts psychological pressure on a weaker adversary....
 of the Axis powers was unusual and led directly to the formation of the international tribunals. In most cases those who are not prisoners of war are tried under their own judicial system if they are suspected of committing war crimes; in restricting the international tribunal to trying suspected Axis war crimes, the Allies were acting within normal international law.

Moreover, the Tribunal itself strongly disputed that the London Charter
London Charter of the International Military Tribunal

The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was the decree issued on August 8, 1945, that set down the laws and procedures by which the Nuremberg trials were to be conducted....
 was ex post facto law, pointing to existing international agreements signed by Germany that made aggressive war and certain wartime actions unlawful, such as the Kellogg-Briand Pact
Kellogg-Briand Pact

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris or Paris Peace Pact., after the city where it was signed on August 27, 1928, was an international treaty "providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy." It failed in its purpose but was significant for later developments in international law....
, the Covenant of the League of Nations
Covenant of the League of Nations

The Covenant of the League of Nations is the charter of the League of Nations....
, and the Hague Conventions
Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)

The Hague Conventions were international treaty negotiated at the First and Second Peace Conferences at The Hague, Netherlands in 1899 and 1907, respectively, and were, along with the Geneva Conventions, among the first formal statements of the laws of war and war crimes in the nascent body of secular international law....
.

Additionally, many commentators felt the Nuremberg Trials represented a step forward in extending fairness to the vanquished by requiring that actual criminal misdeeds be proved before punishment could ensue; including some of the defendants and their legal team:

Perhaps the most telling responses to the critics of Jackson and Nuremberg were those of the defendants at trial. Hans Frank, the defendant who had served as the Nazi Governor General of occupied Poland, stated, “I regard this trial as a God-willed court to examine and put an end to the terrible era of suffering under Adolf Hitler.” With the same theme, but a different emphasis, defendant Albert Speer, Hitler’s war production minister, said, “This trial is necessary. There is a shared responsibility for such horrible crimes even in an authoritarian state.” Dr. Theodore Klefish, a member of the German defense team, wrote: "It is obvious that the trial and judgment of such proceedings require of the tribunal the utmost impartiality, loyalty and sense of justice. The Nuremberg tribunal has met all these requirements with consideration and dignity. Nobody dares to doubt that it was guided by the search for truth and justice from the first to the last day of this tremendous trial."


Neo-Conservative republican Senator Robert Taft
Robert Taft

Robert Alphonso Taft , of the Taft family of Cincinnati, was a Republican Party United States Senate and a prominent American conservatism spokesman....
 claimed the Nuremberg trials were "victors Justice";likewise Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an United States politician who served as a Republican Party United States Senate from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957....
 also spoke out against the war crimes Trials of Waffen-SS defendants.

Further reading


See also

  • Command responsibility
    Command responsibility

    Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
  • Doctors' Trial
    Doctors' Trial

    The Doctors' Trial was the first of 12 trials for war crimes that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Nuremberg, Germany after the end of World War II....
  • Eichmann in Jerusalem
    Eichmann in Jerusalem

    Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963....
  • Einsatzgruppen Trial
    Einsatzgruppen Trial

    The Einsatzgruppen Trial was the ninth of the twelve trials for war crimes the United States authorities held in their occupation zone in Germany in Nuremberg after the end of World War II....
  • Judgment at Nuremberg
    Judgment at Nuremberg

    Judgment at Nuremberg is a fictionalized film account of the post-World War II Nuremberg Trials, written by Abby Mann and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Werner Klemperer, and William Shatner....
     (1961 film)
  • International Military Tribunal for the Far East
    International Military Tribunal for the Far East

    The International Military Tribunal for the Far East , also known as the Tokyo Trial, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal or simply as the Tribunal, was convened to criminal procedure the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of crimes: "Class A" , "Class B" , and "Class C" , committed during World War II....
  • Nazi eugenics
    Nazi eugenics

    Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's Nazism and race social policies that placed the improvement of the Race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" , including but not limited to the Crime, Degeneration, Gleichschaltung, feeble-minded, History of homosexual people in...
  • Nuremberg Code
    Nuremberg Code

    The Nuremberg Code is a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation set as a result of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War....
     (a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation)
  • Nazi war criminals
  • Nuremberg Defense
    Nuremberg Defense

    The Nuremberg Defense is a legal defense that essentially states that the defendant was "only following orders" and is therefore not responsible for his crimes....
  • Nuremberg Diary
    Nuremberg Diary

    Nuremberg Diary is Gustave Gilbert's account of and interviews he conducted during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazism Leaders, including Hermann G?ring, involved in World War II and the Holocaust....
    , an account of observations and discussions with the defendants by an American psychologist
  • Nuremberg Principles
    Nuremberg Principles

    The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by necessity during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazism party members following World War II....
     (a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime)
  • Subsequent Nuremberg Trials
    Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

    The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of twelve United States military tribunals for war crimes against surviving members of the military, political, and economical leadership of Nazi Germany, held in the Palace of Justice , Nuremberg after World War II from 1946 to 1949 following the Nuremberg Trials before the International Milita...
  • Tanya Savicheva
    Tanya Savicheva

    Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva , commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva was a Russian child diary who survived the Siege of Leningrad during World War II....
  • War crime
    War crime

    War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war"; including but not limited to "murder, the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied territory to slave labor camps", "the murder or ill-treatment of prisoner of war", the killing of hostages, "the wanton destruction of cities, towns and villages, and any devast...
     and List of war crimes
    List of war crimes

    This article lists and summarizes war crimes committed since the Hague Conventions %281899 and 1907%29#Hague Convention of 1907. In addition, those incidents which have been judged in a court of justice to be crime against peace that have been committed since these crimes were first defined are also included....
  • Pre-Nuremberg history of "I was just following orders"
    Superior Orders

    Superior Orders is, in essence, the plea that a soldier not be held guilty for crimes committed during the course of war due to the orders of a superior officer.....


External links

  • Original reports and pictures from The Times
  • Owned and run by the An independent international organisation dedicated to eliminating genocide
  • -The Age newspaper
    The Age

    The Age is a broadsheet daily newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. The Age was founded by three Melbourne businessmen, the brothers John Cooke and Henry Cooke who had arrived from New Zealand in the 1840s, and Walter Powell....
  • Cornell Law Library
  • Harvard Law School Library
  • (Nuremberg trials)
  • (PBS)
  • , Chapter 6 from , by Freda Utley
    Freda Utley

    Winifred Utley, commonly known as Freda Utley, was an England scholar, political activist and bestseller author. After visiting the Soviet Union in 1927 as a trade union activist, she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1928....
    , Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, (1948). Made available by "The Freda Utley Foundation"
  • , JURIST
    Jurist

    A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth of Nations countries it has only historical and specialist usage....
  • (RealAudio)
  • (Windows Media and Real Audio) Warning: graphic descriptions of atrocities