Nuremberg trials
Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded many countries across Europe, inflicting 27 million deaths in the Soviet Union alone. Proposals for how to punish the defeated Nazi leaders ranged from a show trial by the Soviet Union to summary executions by the United Kingdom. In mid-1945, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to convene a joint tribunal in Nuremberg, occupied Germany, with the Nuremberg Charter as its legal instrument. The Soviet Union lobbied most intensely for trying the defeated German leaders for aggression in addition to war crimes. They wanted to hold a trial with a predetermined outcome similar to the 1930s Moscow trials. This approach aimed to demonstrate the Nazi leaders' guilt and build a case for war reparations to rebuild the Soviet economy. The United States insisted on a trial that would be seen as legitimate as a means of reforming Germany. American negotiator Robert H. Jackson threatened withdrawal if aggression was not prosecuted because it had been the rationale for American entry into World War II. The British government still preferred the summary execution of Nazi leaders, citing the failure of trials following World War I. The form that retribution would take was left unresolved at the Yalta Conference in February 1945.
At the London Conference, held from the 26th of June to the 2nd of August 1945, representatives of four nations negotiated the form that the trial would take. Until the end of the negotiations, it was not clear that any trial would be held at all. The offences that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Legal experts sought a way to try crimes against German citizens, such as the German Jews. A Soviet proposal for a charge of crimes against civilians was renamed crimes against humanity at Jackson's suggestion. The final wording defined these acts as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population. The charter upended the traditional view of international law by holding individuals, rather than states, responsible for breaches. Article 7 prevented the defendants from claiming sovereign immunity, and Article 8 meant that the plea of acting under superior orders was not a valid defence. The trial was held under modified common law. On the 8th of August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. The Palace of Justice was relatively intact but needed to be renovated for the trial due to bomb damage.
Over the summer, all of the national delegations struggled to gather evidence for the upcoming trial. The American and British prosecutors focused on documentary evidence and affidavits rather than testimony from survivors. This strategy increased the credibility of their case, since survivor testimony was considered less reliable and more vulnerable to accusations of bias. The prosecution examined 110,000 captured German documents and entered 4,600 into evidence. The American prosecution drew on reports of the Office of Strategic Services, an American intelligence agency. The French prosecution presented many documents that it had obtained from the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation. The prosecution called 37 witnesses compared to the defense's 83. Because of the loose evidentiary rules, photographs, charts, maps, and films played an important role in making incredible crimes believable. After the American prosecution submitted many documents at the beginning of the trial, the judges insisted that all of the evidence be read into the record. This slowed the trial significantly. The structure of the charges also caused delays as the same evidence ended up being read out multiple times when it was relevant to both conspiracy and other charges.
Some of the most prominent Nazis, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels, had died by suicide and therefore could not be tried. The defendants, who were largely unrepentant, included former cabinet ministers Franz von Papen and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Also prosecuted were leaders of the German economy, such as Gustav Krupp of the Krupp AG conglomerate. Military leaders like Hermann Göring, the most infamous surviving Nazi and the main target of the trial, stood alongside Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl. Of the 24 men indicted, Martin Bormann was tried in absentia. Krupp was too ill to stand trial, and Robert Ley had died by suicide before the start of the trial. Former Nazis were allowed to serve as counsel and by mid-November all defendants had lawyers. The defendants' lawyers jointly appealed to the court, claiming it did not have jurisdiction against the accused, but this motion was rejected. Defense lawyers saw themselves as acting on behalf of their clients and the German nation. Most defendants argued their own insignificance within the Nazi system, though Göring took the opposite approach. They blamed their crimes on Hitler, who was mentioned 12,000 times during the trial.
The International Military Tribunal agreed with the prosecution that aggression was the gravest charge. The judges ruled that there had been a premeditated conspiracy to commit crimes against peace. Fourteen defendants were sentenced to death: Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann. On the 16th of October, ten were hanged, with Göring killing himself the day before. Seven defendants were sent to Spandau Prison to serve their sentences. All three acquittals, Papen, Schacht, and Fritzsche, were based on a deadlock between the judges. These acquittals surprised observers. Nikichenko released a dissent approved by Moscow that rejected all the acquittals and called for a death sentence for Hess. Twelve defendants were convicted on the charge of conspiracy to wage aggressive war. Only eight defendants were convicted on that charge, all of whom were also found guilty of crimes against peace. The war crimes and crimes against humanity charges held up the best, with only two defendants charged on those grounds being acquitted.
Twelve military trials were convened solely by the United States in the same courtroom that had hosted the International Military Tribunal. Pursuant to Law No. 10 adopted by the Allied Control Council, United States forces arrested almost 100,000 Germans as war criminals. The Office of Chief Counsel for War Crimes identified 2,500 major war criminals, of whom 177 were tried. One set of trials focused on the actions of German professionals: the Doctors' trial focused on human experimentation and euthanasia murders. The Judges' trial examined the role of the judiciary in Nazi crimes, and the Ministries trial looked at the culpability of bureaucrats of German government ministries. Also on trial were industrialists, in the Flick trial, the IG Farben trial, and the Krupp trial, for using forced labor and looting property from Nazi victims. Members of the SS were tried in the Pohl trial, which focused on members of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. The Einsatzgruppen trial involved members of mobile killing squads who were tried for the murder of more than one million people behind the Eastern Front. Of 177 defendants, 142 were convicted and 25 sentenced to death.
In a 1946 poll, 78 percent of Germans assessed the trial as fair, but four years later that had fallen to 38 percent. As time went on, more Germans considered the trials illegitimate victor's justice and an imposition of collective guilt. They rejected this view and instead considered themselves victims of the war. The German churches, both Catholic and Protestant, were vocal proponents of amnesty. The pardon of convicted war criminals also had cross-party support in West Germany, which was established in 1949. In 1951, High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of the sentences. The last three prisoners, all convicted at the Einsatzgruppen trial, were released in 1958. The German public took the early releases as confirmation of what they saw as the illegitimacy of the trials. Speer was not successful in obtaining early release, and Hess remained in prison until his death in 1987. By the late 1950s, the West German consensus on release began to erode due to greater openness in political culture and new revelations of Nazi criminality.
The International Military Tribunal marked the true beginning of international criminal law. On the 11th of December 1946, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution affirming the principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal. In 1950, the International Law Commission drafted the Nuremberg principles to codify international criminal law. The Cold War prevented the adoption of these principles until the 1990s. A permanent International Criminal Court, proposed in 1953, was established in 2002. The trials were the first use of simultaneous interpretation, which stimulated technical advances in translation methods. The Palace of Justice houses a museum on the trial and the courtroom became a tourist attraction, drawing 13,138 visitors in 2005. The IMT is one of the most well-studied trials in history, and it has also been the subject of an abundance of books and scholarly publications. Motion pictures such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and The Memory of Justice (1976) have kept the memory alive.
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Common questions
What were the main charges prosecuted at the Nuremberg trials?
The offences that would be prosecuted were crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The final wording defined these acts as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population.
When was the Nuremberg Charter signed in London?
On the 8th of August, the Nuremberg Charter was signed in London. This document served as the legal instrument for the joint tribunal convened by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
How many defendants were sentenced to death during the International Military Tribunal proceedings?
Fourteen defendants were sentenced to death: Göring, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, and Bormann. On the 16th of October, ten were hanged, with Göring killing himself the day before.
Who were the primary nations involved in negotiating the form of the trial?
Representatives of four nations negotiated the form that the trial would take at the London Conference held from the 26th of June to the 2nd of August 1945. These nations included France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
What happened to the convicted war criminals after the trials concluded?
Seven defendants were sent to Spandau Prison to serve their sentences while High Commissioner John J. McCloy overturned most of the sentences in 1951. The last three prisoners, all convicted at the Einsatzgruppen trial, were released in 1958.